Jan Nowak-Jezioranski

Jan Nowak-Jeziorański was a Polish journalist, writer, politician, social worker and patriot. He served during the Second World War as one of the most notable resistance fighters of the Home Army. He is best remembered for his work as an emissary shuttling between the commanders of the Home Army and the Polish Government in Exile in London and other Allied governments which gained him the nickname "Courier from Warsaw", and for his participation in the Warsaw Uprising. After the war he worked as the head of the Polish section of Radio Free Europe, and later as a security advisor to the US presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

• There comes this moment, when I can no longer look at my country from the distance. That's why I decided to look at Poland from very close..
  • On his return to Poland after almost 50 years on exile
• It doesn't matter whether I like my Homeland or not. I can't tear it out of my soul, can I...
• What I fear the most is the triumphalism of former PZPR members
  • on the probable election of Aleksander Kwaśniewski in 1995.
• Rysio during the German occupation was risking his life constantly! He hid Jews. And not one or two, but a dozen or so! He had a tiny flat in Warsaw's borough of Żoliborz and in that tiny space he managed to organise enough space for our scouting leader Antek Rosenal and for our classmates. For me that is the true meaning of heroism.
  • On one of his colleagues.
• "He was a remarkable blend of romanticism and realism politically, of wisdom and emotion intellectually, of passion and loyalty personally.... At some moments, he even almost single-handedly determined the course of Polish history by his realistic convictions.... In 1956, his was the decisive voice from abroad, urging Poles to be cautious and thus to avoid what happened to the Hungarians when they revolted and were destroyed by the Soviets. In 1968, his was the decisive voice exposing the chauvinistic Polish communists who tried to use crudely anti-Semitic slogans in an effort to stage an internal coup in Warsaw."
  • — collaborator and friend Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, spoken at Jan Nowak's service at the Polish Embassy.