Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, born Zdzisław Jezioranski on 2 October 1914 in Berlin in a Warsaw educated family. He attended first Stefan Batory and then Adam Mickiewicz secondary school in Warsaw where he passed the secondary school leaving examination. In 1932 he started studying economics at Poznan University. After getting the Master’s Degree in 1936 he started working on his PhD thesis supervised by professor Edward Taylor on the topic The Cycle of Economic Climate in Poland 1929-1936.

In 1939 he took part in the September Campaign and was captured by the German. During the transport of the prisoners of war, he escaped and through Cracow and Upper Silesia he got to Warsaw.

At the turn of the years 1939-1940 he started his underground activity. In 1940 he made his debut as a columnist publishing an article about the Constitution of 3 May, 1791 in an underground magazine “Znak”. One year later he joined the Association of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), which on 14 February 1942 by an order of the general Wladyslaw Sikorski was renamed the Home Army. He was working as a part of the action “N”. His main aim was to distribute anti-Nazi propaganda documents which were printed in German on the occupied areas and in the Reich.

He came back to Poland in July 1944 by air, starting from the British military base created in Brindisi, on the south of Italy. He landed near Tarnow, from where he left for Warsaw.

After getting to Warsaw he reported about his London trip to the general Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski. During the Warsaw Rising he cooperated with a radio station “Blyskawica” In that time he got married to Jadwiga Wolska, a friend from the underground activity called “Greta”, a liaison officer of the action “N”.

In December 1944 he got a post from the command headquarters in order to deliver it to London. His wife accompanied him in this trip. It was his last mission of Jan Nowak to the governments in exile, since then he did not come back to Poland.

In 1948 he started his work for the British Broadcasting Corporation. On the initiative of the United States of America in 1949 a new broadcasting station the Radio Free Europe was created. Jan Nowak joined the preparing works sharing his experience as a specialist in propaganda and mass media. In 1952 he moved to Munich and became a director of the Polish Broadcasting Station the Radio Free Europe. His first radio programme to the listeners in Poland took place on 3 May 1952. He left his post on 1 January 1976.

In his broadcasting station there were programmes revealing the truth about the Stalinism crimes, the hypocrisy of the censorship, the anti-Polish activity of the governments and the whole Communist system.

After getting retired Jan Nowak Jezioranski settled down in the USA, where he was involved in the life of the Polish community abroad, especially in the activity of the Polish Community American Congress. He worked as an adviser for the Eastern Europe in the State Department. He also had a role of an informal ambassador of Poland having an influence on the American policy towards Poland.

In 1989, after 45 years he came for the first time to Poland and since that time he was an informal courier between Polish and American political world, he also became one of the advocates of the Poland’s joining the NATO.

For his long standing activity for Poland Jan Nowak-Jezioranski got a lot of honourable mentions, awards and decorations. Among them there were the Order of the White Eagle awarded in 1994 by the president of the Republic of Poland and in 1996 the highest American civil award the Order of Freedom. Jan Nowak-Jezioranski is an honorary freeman of the cities: Wroclaw, Cracow, Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk and Gdynia. Since 1996 he was a member of the Council of the Ossolinski National Institute, for whom he handed over his archive so it could serve the nation and the homeland. In 2001 on his initiative the College of Easter Europe was found in Wroclaw. He died on 20 January 2005.