Tribute to Jerzy Iwanow - Szajnowicz
19.10.2020
“Jerzy's life is a signpost on how to serve the Fatherland,” said Ambassador Artur Lompart during the wreath laying ceremony at the Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz monument in Thessaloniki.
The ceremony commemorating the Polish-Greek hero of the resistance against Nazis, which took place on October 19, was attended by a delegation from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Athens together with the Minister of Macedonia - Thrace T. Karaoglou, representatives of the authorities of Thessaloniki and Iraklis Sport Club, as well as members of the family of Jerzy Iwanow -Szajnowicz and Polish officers serving in NATO forces in Thessaloniki.
The Polish delegation also visited the seat of the Iraklis Thessaloniki Sport Club, whose patron is Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz. The meeting was devoted to the idea of opening the Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz Museum in Thessaloniki, initiated by the authorities of the club.
Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz was a Greek-Polish athlete who fought as a saboteur in the Greek Resistance during World War II and was executed by the Germans. He was born in Warsaw on 14 December 1911, as the son of the Russian army colonel Count Vladimir Ivanov, and a Polish mother Leonarda Szajnowicz. His parents divorced soon after. His mother married a Greek, Ioannis Lambrinidis, and together they emigrated to Thessaloniki.
He became an athlete in the G.S. Iraklis Thessaloniki sport club, and a distinguished swimmer: in 1934, he became Greek champion in 100 m freestyle. After becoming a Polish citizen in 1935, he became part of AZS Warsaw's water polo team and of the Polish national water polo team, and was declared Poland's top water polo player in 1938. Iwanow also graduated from the University of Louvain in agricultural engineering, followed by post-graduate courses in Paris, before returning to Greece.
With the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Poland, he helped to organize the evacuation of Polish refugees coming to Thessaloniki, and in 1940 was enlisted into Polish intelligence. Fleeing the German invasion of Greece in April 1941, he left the country for the Middle East, to join the exiled Polish forces there. There he was chosen by the Polish and British intelligence services for an undercover mission in Greece. On 13 October 1941, the British submarine HMS Thunderbolt (N25) brought him to the coast of Attica. His subsequent activity in the Greek underground was prodigious: apart from establishing an extensive intelligence network for the Allies reporting on the military and political situation in Greece, on the Greek war industry used by the Germans, and on ship and railway schedules, he engaged in numerous sabotage missions. He was responsible for the sabotage of the German aircraft motor repair facilities in the Maltsiniotis plant, which is credited with affecting over 400 engines and causing the crash of several German aircraft due to engine malfunctions, as well as the destruction of two German U-boats.
The first time he was caught by the Gestapo, after being betrayed by one of his associates, he managed to escape after few days. The Germans then put a reward on him of 500,000 drachmas. He was finally captured after another betrayal on 8 September 1942, and sentenced by a German tribunal on 2 December to a triple death sentence. He was executed at the Kaisariani shooting range on 4 January 1943.
On March 1945, the Polish government in exile honoured Iwanow with the Virtuti Militari cross, on March 1962 he was decorated by the British government for his service with the Polish forces, and on 25 May 1976, he was awarded the highest Greek medal for gallantry, the Cross of Valour in Gold.
