JACOBSON-JEDLINA Wojciech

1885

1961

Physician, independence activist, organiser of the uprising in Gniezno and lieutenant colonel in the Polish Army. Born on14 April in Starogard to the family of a physician - Gorgoniusz, and Paulina née König. In gymnasium in Starogard, he was a member of the Tomasz Zan Society, he passed the secondary-school leaving examination in 1905. He studied medicine in Munich and Wrocław, being a member of such associations of the Polish Youth as ”Zet” and Bratnia Pomoc (Brotherly Help). In 1910 he started a private medical practice in Poznań, and in February 1912, he received the title of physician in the field of medicine and surgery. As a surgeon-gynaecologist, he worked in the hospital in Gniezno (1911-1914). In the army, he was promoted twice up to the rank of second lieutenant physician. From 1 January 1914 he was assigned to the 49th Infantry Regiment from the 4th Infantry Division, on the Western (Mons, Ypres) and Eastern Front (near Łódź, on the Bzura River and Rawka River), where he was wounded on 17 December 1914. Then he was a physician in the reserve troops? in July 1917, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In December 1918 he was sent to Gniezno to take up the position of garrison physician. In December 1918 he established contacts with the Commissariat of the Supreme People’s Council by going to Gdansk. He arrived in Gniezno on 30 December 1918, taking part in a skirmish near Zdziechowa, then forming voluntary units as the deputy commander of the city, and also supporting their activities in the Kuyavian region and on the Northern Front. He was the physician of the garrison and of the 4th Greater Poland Rifle Regiment. By a decree of the Commissariat of the Supreme People’s Council dated 9 May 1919, he was promoted to the rank of captain. He was the physician of the 7th Greater Poland Rifle Regiment, got wounded on the Lithuanian-Belarusian Front and was then sent to Poznań Central Command in the military hospital in Gniezno (21 April-5 August 1920), from there to the hospital ship on the Vistula River (16 August-17 November 1920), and then the Sanitary Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs and the District Hospital in Toruń. On 5 May 1922 he was dismissed from service and transferred to the reserves with the rank of major. Until the year 1939, he lived in Toruń, running his medical practice in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. He was the president of the Toruń branch of the Association of Greater Poland Insurgents, a member of the Union of Reserve Officers and also of the Union of Western Territories. He wrote two volumes of memoirs (Z Armią Klucka na Paryż, T. 1934? Z ludem Wielkopolski przeciw zaborcom, T. 1936) and numerous articles regarding the subject of the Greater Poland Uprising. In the 1939 September campaign, he was the physician of the National Defence battalion in the Pomerania Army and deputy commandant of Field Hospital No. 802/3, in the period between 19 September and 8 November 1939, he was in German captivity but he managed to escape. Together with his sons, he was able to get to Budapest and then to France. He was the head of the infirmary at the Coetquindan camp. In 1940 he went over to England. On 17 July 1940 he was sent to the Rothesay isolation camp on the island of Bute, where he worked as a physician. At his own request, he was placed on leave (15 January 1942-21 August 1944), then he was sent to the military hospital in Edinburgh. After the war he was employed at the Royal Navy hospital, then in state healthcare, and then he ran his own private practice. He was active in the Union of Polish Western Territories in Great Britain. He died in London on 9 October 1961 and was buried there. He received the following decorations: Order of the Virtuti Militari (5th class), Cross of Independence, Cross of Valour (twice) and the Medal for the Rescue of the Dying. He was married twice: to Lucyna Miecznikiewicz and Emilia Bojarska. He had three sons – Zbigniew (1914) and Andrzej (1919) and Wojciech Krzysztof (1929).

J. Basiński, Jacobson- Jedlina Wojciech (1885-1961), (in:) Słownik biograficzny powstańców wielkopolskich 1918-1919, ed. A. Czubiński, B. Polak, Poznań 2002, pp. 130-131.

Janusz Karwat