On the 17th of August 2022, the state funeral of Maria Mirecka-Loryś took place in Warsaw. She was buried in Stare Powązki with military honours.

Maria Mirecka-Loryś was born in 1916 in Ulanów. She was a patriotic activist for most of her 106 years long life. She joined the pre-war All-Polish Youth in Lviv in south-eastern Poland.

During World War II, she was involved in the activities of the national underground as part of the Rzeszów District Board of the Polish National Party and the commandant office of the National Military Women’s Organisation of the Rzeszów District. 

She worked in close collaboration with the Home Army for several years. From the spring of 1945, she was the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish National Military Union of Women. She reached the rank of captain.

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After the war, Mrs Mirecka-Loryś was persecuted by the Communist authorities. She moved to the UK and later to the US. In exile, she continued to coordinate initiatives for the Polonia, such as the National Party in exile, the authorities of the Union of Polish Women in America, and the Polish American Congress. 

In her memoirs, she gave the source of her highly respectable attitude: „I am a Pole, so I have Polish duties. I was taught this way in my family home, at school, in scouting, at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, in the All-Polish Youth before the war. Instilling this patriotic and national truth resulted in involvement in the underground life when Poland’s affairs were more important than one’s own life. We followed another form of this commitment abroad – when I was leaving my homeland, I knew that I had a duty to represent it with dignity”.

Maria Mirecka Loryś died on the 29th of May 2022 at the age of 106.

Image: British Poles

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen