Henryk Józewski

An advocate of Polish-Ukrainian alliance and a friend of Symon Petlura, in 1920 he served as a member of the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

In 1910 he founded his own organization, Związek Młodzieży Postępowo-Niepodległościowej (Youth Association for Progress and Independence).

Around that time, Józewski also began his painting career and married a fellow POW activist named Julia.

An advocate of the Polish-Ukrainian alliance, in April 1920 Józewski became deputy minister of internal affairs in the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

During his governing period, in Wolyn Voivodeship was established the Volhynian Ukrainian Association, a member of which was Mstyslav (Skrypnyk).

In Józewski's eyes, the modernization led by the Polish state would lead to a multinational province.

Finally, in 1938, he was moved to the office of voivode of Łódź Voivodeship, which had essentially no Ukrainian population.

With the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, Józewski quickly — that October — became involved in forming a resistance movement.

He evaded the Soviet NKVD and its counterpart, the Ministry of Public Security of Poland,[citation needed] but was arrested in March 1953.

The official interrogation protocols document that the communist state security apparatus invested time and resources in the cross-questioning of Józewski.

During the Polish October thaw of 1956, Józewski's sentence was reduced to 12 years, and eventually he was released from prison due to poor health.

He was married in 1919 to Julia née Bolewska (1892–1939), artist-painter, liaison POW; the couple had no children.