Antoni Koper
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Antoni Stephan Koper | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 6, 1906 Warsaw, Poland |
| Died | June 13, 1990 (aged 83) Arlington, Virginia, USA |
| Allegiance | |
| Service/ | |
| Years of service | 1939–1947 |
| Rank | Lieutenant |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards | Yad Vashem Award |
| Memorials | Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations |
| Spouse(s) | Sophie Margulies Koper |
| Relations | Peter Koper (son) |
| Other work | |
Antoni Stefan Koper (September 6, 1906 – June 13, 1990) was active in the Polish resistance movement during World War II and served as a lieutenant in the Polish Home Army. He helped rescue Jews from the Warsaw ghetto and fought in the Warsaw Uprising. After escaping from a Nazi prison camp, he first fled to London, and then emigrated to the United States. There, he worked for the Defense Language Institute, United States Information Agency, and the Voice of America. He died of cancer in 1990.
Early life and the Invasion of Poland
Antoni Koper was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1906, and attended the University of Warsaw.[1] He had chosen a career in journalism, but the September 1939 Invasion of Poland by Germany found him on the front, fighting with the Polish Army. After Germany annexed Poland weeks later, Koper returned home to occupied Warsaw. Knowing he would not be permitted employment as a journalist, Koper took a clerical job at the municipal tax bureau, whereby he gained access to Warsaw's jewish ghetto.[2]
Occupation of Warsaw
During the occupation of Warsaw, Koper and a friend spent their nights publishing underground newspapers and forging travel and identification documents on a secret printing press[1].[2] Koper would then use his official access to deliver the forged papers to people in the ghetto so they could escape to the Aryan side of the city. At the end of the summer of 1942, Koper offered to shelter his friend Sophie Fanny Margulies after her entire family had been transported to their deaths at Treblinka during the Grossaktion Warsaw. He took her to his apartment in central Warsaw, where Margulies discovered to her astonishment that Koper was also hiding Bronislawa and Henryk Finkelstein, and Dr. Maximilian Ciesieleski. They were among a number of ghetto refugees who hid in Koper's apartment for various periods of time between 1942 and 1944, including children later placed in Catholic orphanages.[2]
Koper was also part of the intelligence operation that warned the Allies about the German invasion of the Soviet Union.[1]
Facing danger, threats, and extortion, Koper persisted in his resistance and humanitarian efforts, and then, as a member of the Polish Home Army, fought the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944.[2][1] When Warsaw fell, the Germans took Koper prisoner.[1] A few months later, he escaped a Nazi prison camp and crossed the front to join the Polish Army.[2] He published newspapers and worked in counter-intelligence until the end of the war.[1]
After the war
Once hostilities ended, Koper married Sophie Margulies, who had also fought in the Warsaw Uprising as a nurse, treating Polish Home Army casualties during the battle.[3][2] They relocated to Quackrenbruck, Germany, then occupied by the First Armored Polish Division, where Koper wrote news articles for Polish Soldiers Daily. There, in 1947, they gave birth to their son, Peter.[3]
In 1952, Koper moved his family to the United States to take a position as a professor at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. In 1958, they relocated to Washington, DC, where Koper worked at the United States Information Agency (USIA) until he retired in 1979.[1] At USIA, Koper edited the Polish language magazine, America.[3] He came out of retirement briefly in 1982 to work as an editor for Voice of America.[1]
In 1989, fifty years after the Invasion of Poland, Koper and his wife returned to Poland on what he called a "sentimental journey," to see how Poland, and the people had changed, and to visit with the few survivors. He recalled the beauty of Warsaw before the invasion, and the unbelievable destruction wrought by the Germans. He told USA Today, "You can't really go home again, but for a visit you can try."[3][4]
In June, 1990, the Israeli Government awarded Koper the Yad Vashem award in recognition of his valor. A week later, on June 13, 1990, Koper died of cancer in Arlington, Virginia. He was survived by his wife and son.[1]
A month later, the Israeli diplomatic delegation to the United States honored Koper posthumously at a ceremony attended by his family in Washington, D.C. His name appears on the Walls of Honor in Yad Vashem's Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.[2]
Koper's history of the Polish underground press in Germany was published posthumously in 1993.[5]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Metropolitan Obituaries: Antoni Atefan Koper, 83, hero in Polish resistance". The Washington Times. 15 June 1990.
- ^ a b c d e f g "The Righteous Among the Nations". yadvashem.org. Yad Vashem. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
- ^ a b c d Koper, Sophie. "Oral History Interview". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
- ^ Juan J. Walte; Kevin Johnson (1 September 1989). "50 years, 50M lives ago; Poles in US recall WWII on anniversary". USA Today.
- ^ Koper, Antoni Stefan (1993). "Prasa polska w Niemczech". Historical Papers (Paris) (in Polish). 105 (481). Literary Institute (Paris): 3–37. ISSN 0044-4391.
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Category:1906 births Category:1990 deathsCategory:Polish peopleCategory:Polish journalistsCategory:Polish resistance fighters of World War IICategory:Polish emigrants to the United States