Poland in the UK

Among those present at the funeral of the former First Lady, who died on 21 August in London, were Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland and Government Plenipotentiary for Polonia and Poles Abroad Jan Dziedziczak and Consul General of the Republic of Poland in London Mateusz Stąsiek. During the ceremony, Minister Dziedziczak read out a letter from Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and laid a wreath on Prime Minister’s and his own behalf at the coffin of the former Polish First Lady.

The ashes of Mrs Kaczorowska will be transported to Poland and laid to rest next to President Ryszard Kaczorowski in the Pantheon of Great Poles at the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw, as was the wish of President Kaczorowski and First Lady Kaczorowska.

Karolina Kaczorowska was born on 26 September 1930 in Stanisławów as the daughter of Franciszek and Rozalia. During the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Borderlands, she was exiled to Siberia in 1940. She shared the fate of Polish "wandering children", evacuated with the Anders Army to Iran, and then staying in Uganda for several years, where she stayed until the end of the 1940s, and then left for Great Britain. After graduating from a London university, she started working as a teacher. Thanks to her involvement in scouting activities, she met Ryszard Kaczorowski, whom she married on 19 July 1952. The couple had two daughters, Jadwiga and Alicja, and five grandchildren. Karolina Kaczorowska was an active participant in the social life of Polish émigrés, a person of merit for Polish scouting in exile, involved in the charity work of the Union of Polish Women in Great Britain. On 19 July 1989, after Ryszard Kaczorowski was sworn in as President of the Republic of Poland in Exile, she became the First Lady of the Republic of Poland in Exile. In December 1990, Ryszard Kaczorowski officially handed over the presidential insignia to Lech Wałęsa. Karolina Kaczorowska accompanied her husband at that time, returning to Poland for the first time in 50 years. After the death of President Kaczorowski in the Smolensk air disaster in 2010, she continued her activities. She was a special custodian of the memory of her deceased husband. In 2012, she was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. From 2016, she represented the émigré community in the Council for Veterans and Victims of Oppression. For many years, she was a patron of undertakings commemorating the Polish military act and cultivating the independence tradition. In 2010-2021, she was the Honorary Patron of the Szlakiem March and the Cadre Company.