Plaque Commemorating Director of the State Maritime School Stanisław Kosko and Dr Jadwiga Titz-Kosko Unveiled in Sopot
On the anniversary of the outbreak of WWII, during which Dr Jadwiga Titz-Kosko was a soldier in the Home Army and took part in the Warsaw Rising, and on the 85th anniversary of the death of the director of the State Maritime School in Gdynia, Captain Stanisław Kosko, on board the ship ORP Gdynia bombed by the Germans, a plaque in their memory was unveiled on the building of the Rheumatology Hospital in Sopot.
Captain Stanisław Kosko was (as told by his wife) the first graduate and the last director of the Maritime School before the war. He fought in the Bolshevik war in 1920, was a scout, and graduated from the Maritime School in 1923. He was deck officer on board Dar Pomorza during it voyage around the world (for a report on which he received the Silver Laurel of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences), a master mariner, and the director of the State Maritime School in Gdynia.
His wife, a rheumatologist, brave and uncompromising, was a great social activist. During the occupation, as the director of the Infant Jesus Hospital, she ran courses for orderlies in the Home Army. During the Warsaw Rising, at the Warsaw Nursing School, she took in injured insurgents, fabricated their medical histories and took them to Polish-controlled territory. After the war, she founded a rehabilitation centre for children, the Rheumatology Hospital in Sopot, and five medical clinics. She also established a care home for senior citizens in the Witomino area of Gdynia.
These highly regarded figures have been honoured for the first time on the same commemorative plaque thanks to the Gdańsk Branch of the Institute of National Memory, and the support of the Dr Jadwiga Titz-Kosko Rheumatological Centre in Sopot.
Taking part in the unveiling ceremony were the Director of the Gdańsk Branch of the Institute of National Memory, Dr Marek Szymaniak, the Deputy Director of the Dr Jadwiga Titz-Kosko Rheumatological Centre in Sopot, Kinga Kozicka, the Head of the Sopot City Council, Aleksander Gosk, and the Mayor of Sopot Magdalena Czarzyńska-Jachim.
The plaque was blessed by the Head Priest of the Parish of Saint Andrzej Bobola, Wojciech Lange, and the Bishop of the Pomorsko-Wielkopolska diocese of the Lutheran Church in Poland, Bishop Professor Marcin Hintz.
Stanisław Kosko and Dr Jadwiga Titz-Kosko are buried at Witomino Cemetery and their grave – following efforts by Gdynia Maritime University and the decision of the President of the Institute of National Memory – has been included in the register of burial places of veterans who fought for the freedom and independence of Poland.
Małgorzata Sokołowska
