Profesor Michael Szporer nie żyje

This is a very nice obituary. I knew Michael for many years. He was a kind, amiable, reliable, intelligent, and scrupulously honest person. He had long been overweight and out of shape, and he had been plagued by serious heart problems, which twice before nearly killed him. He managed to recover from those earlier near-death situations, but this time his heart finally gave out. I had countless conversations with him over the years, sometimes in English, sometimes in Polish, sometimes in both. Often I had a hard time ending the conversations (he was quite voluble and loved the give-and-take). Now I wish we could have one more conversation, one that would go on for a very long time.

For many years, perhaps decades, the best source of news about Poland for non-Polish speakers in Washington who were interested in keeping abreast of Polish events was Michael's mailing list which would regularly bring to my inbox clippings and links to articles and commentary. I am forever grateful to him. I knew him as an email presence before I had the pleasure of getting acquainted in person. We shared interests in Solidarnosz during its years of struggle and then, after the victory of 1989 in the work of building a free, democratic Poland. And we also shared a friendship with and love for Jan Karski. Michael was a man of very good nature as well as of intellectual accomplishment. He shall be sorely missed in Washington.