Obituaries Australia

Ernestyna Skurjat-Kozek, n.d.

Ernestyna Skurjat-Kozek (1944-2024), philologist, writer and Polish community leader

Ernestyna was conceived in Dukiel near Braslav, Belarus and born on August 22, 1944 in Wesel/Bislich, Germany, north of Essen, on the Rhine River. It was on a farm to which the Germans had taken Ernestyna’s parents, Nikodym and Weronika Skurjat (née Juszkiewicz), to undertake forced labor.

After the war, her parents returned to Poland, and settled in Szczecin. Ernestyna was an only child. After graduating from high school in 1963, she went on to study Polish Philology at the Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznań. She then enrolled in postgraduate African Studies at the University of Warsaw completing these studies in June 1970.

Her first job was at the weekly Transport i Drogi (1969-1971) (Weekly Publication Transport and Roads), and from 1971 to 1984 she was employed as a lecturer at the University of Warsaw. In 1979, she defended her doctoral dissertation entitled Rights and Duties of the New Nigerian Elite in the Light of English-Language Novels in the 1960’s. Her supervisor was the late Prof. Andrzej Zajączkowski. After defending her doctorate, she worked as an assistant professor.

She undertook a number of research trips to Nigeria, in 1973 and in 1976. In 1973, although she had prepared an expedition for an entire team, it was decided that only men would be allowed to take part in it.  Ernestyna managed to go to Nigeria anyway on an individual scholarship, travelling there on a cargo ship and carrying out her program independently. Whilst in Nigeria she survived a car accident but the spinal injuries she suffered left her with ailments that lasted for the rest of her life.

In the times of Solidarity in Poland, Ernestyna actively supported the anti-communist movement and made her house available to Solidarity activists such as Krzysztof Łazarski (Piotr Naimski was his superior) to print Solidarity bulletins produced by Macierewicz. Denunciated, Ernestyna returned home to find the police waiting for her.  She was taken to a nearby forest and ordered to sign a document under the force of guns. Released, she arranged to leave Poland. One of the Nigerian students helped her get a new contract in Nigeria, she moved to Nigeria, where she was a journalist at Anambra TV Channel 50, in Enugu, from 1 November 1981 to July 1984.

As Poland during most of this time was subject to martial law so she contacted Professor Zubrzycki from Australia with the intention of studying the history of the indigenous Australian people. She came to Australia in 1984 and found contracts in SBS television, which, with minor breaks, lasted until 1988. When there were no contracts, she worked as a taxi driver in Blacktown.

In 1988-1989, she got a part-time job at the Polish News Weekly, where she worked as an assistant. When SBS announced a contest for broadcasters, she applied and was awarded the position. She worked in the Polish Section of SBS Radio in Sydney from 1989 until 2006 and educated a young generation of journalists.

She treated her work as a mission for the Polish diaspora, participated actively in Polish events and reported on them on the air with incredible flair. In 1994, she was awarded the Silver Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland. She was also fascinated by science, and especially Quantum Mechanics and its reconciliation with Religion in the cosmological works of Professor Z. Jacyna-Onyszkiewicz.

In 2002, at a concert she met Andrzej Kozek, a mathematician from Macquarie University. She soon interviewed him about hypercomplex numbers, octonions, and their relationship to the Theory of Everything. The new acquaintance with Andrzej developed into a close friendship. In 2004 Andrzej's son, Krzysztof, created the Puls Polonii website and Ernestyna began to write her articles anonymously there. In 2006, a few months after marrying Andrzej, she resigned from SBS.

At the Eight Centuries of Polish Music concerts organized in Sydney Conservatorium of Music by Monika and Stan Kornel in 2004, Ernestyna found out that Kościuszko had written two polonaises and a waltz for his soldiers. She decided to use them to promote Kościuszko in Australia.  She always felt that there was a lack of knowledge amongst Australians about Tadeusz Kosciuszko. With the help of  Professor Graham Wood and  David Keetley, she organised on 17 February 2007, the first, and so far only, music festival to have taken place on the summit of Mount Kosciuszko. It was attended by the Sydney Windjammer band playing Kościuszko's music, and a Sydney Folk Dance Ensemble Lajkonik led by Ursula Lang.  The ensemble performed a suite of Polish highland dances.  There were also many Polish and Australian artists including some from the Jindabyne area. The Ambassador of the Republic of Poland Jerzy Więsław was present as well as Steve Redden, Regional Manager at the time of the Kosciuszko National Park.

The concert was repeated the next day at Charlotte Pass, with Mt Kosciuszko in the background.  The huge success of both concerts generated the idea of a more extensive Mound and Mount Kosciuszko Festival in April 2007 in the towns of Jindabyne and in Cooma. Ongoing successes developed into a series of nine Festivals between 2007 and 2020. In 2011, both Ernestyna and Ursula Lang were awarded the Gold Crosses of Merit of the Republic of Poland for their work to promote knowledge about Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Paul Edmund Strzelecki.

National Park and Wildlife Service (NPWS) enabled and encouraged contact with the local traditional custodians of Mount Kosciuszko. In 2017 (the 200th anniversary of Kosciuszko's death) and in 2023 (the 150th anniversary of Strzelecki's death), delegations of Monaro-Ngarigo, the traditional custodians of Mount Kosciuszko and the Jinama Yilliga choir were taken to Poland to participate in celebrations there. During these years, Ernestyna produced on YouTube a number of video clips reporting special anniversary events and organized international competitions on the subject of Kościuszko in 2017 and on Strzelecki in 2023.

In 2007 the Puls Polonii Cultural Foundation was established, renamed Kosciuszko Heritage Inc. (KHI) in 2011. Ernestyna was the president of the organization from its inception until her death. Puls Polonii, with Ernestyna as its editor-in-chief, enabled close and effective contact with the Polish diaspora and the promotion of both Ernestyna's activities and those of the KHI organization.

Ernestyna was passionately involved in research on both Paweł Edmund Strzelecki and Tadeusz Kościuszko. She published the results of all her research in Puls Polonii. Another of Ernestyna's passions became the production of films and short film clips. Her hour-long film Kosciuszko - Poland will yet dance, based on Niemcewicz's memoirs and showing the unknown history of Kościuszko after the defeat at Maciejowice, was shown in Poland by TRWAM television and in Sydney.

Ernestyna was able to inspire artists and gather helpers and enthusiasts to help achieve her goals and those of the Polish Community. There was even a bus with logo of Puls Polonii, K’OZZIE FEST 2009.  In 2019, together with her new friends from Monaro-Ngarigo, Ernestyna successfully opposed the official request of a rival Aboriginal group from Tumbarumba for the dual naming of Mount Kosciuszko. In 2019 she also went on a promotional trip to Poland with Andrzej, during which she signed a contract in Poznań for the publication of the Polish translation of Lech Paszkowski's book Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki, Reflections on His Life.  A retitled Polish edition of the book was published in 2021 by the University of Adam Mickiewicz.

2020 was the year of massive fires in Kosciuszko National Park, Ernestyna organized the Kindness Matter competition at Tumbarumba High School. Polish firefighters raised over $150,000 to help with rehabilitation works in the park after the fires. Kosciuszko Heritage Inc contributed $5,000.

Ernestyna’s work resulted in the unveiling of several Strzelecki commemorative plaques along the route of his expedition to Mount Kosciuszko. On her initiative, KHI donated an original 1845 edition of Strzelecki's book “Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemens Land” and a copy of the original Strzelecki Map of the Corryong and Snowy Mountains area, printed in 1841, to the Man From Snowy River Museum in Corryong. In November 2023, as part of the Year of Strzeleczki, she organized helicopter flights over Mount Kosciuszko.

Over twenty years, Ernestyna published more than 23,000 articles in Puls Polonii, including a huge number of her own articles. She also helped Feliks Molski to promote the humanitarian achievements of P. E. Strzelecki during the famine in Ireland. Her achievements included educating and informing the Polish diaspora about all matters relating to Mount Kosciuszko, the establishment of friendly relations with Monaro-Ngarigo, and developing connections in Poland with the Kościuszko Mound authorities, with Poznań, Głuszyna and the Kościuszko Society in Warsaw. In addition, in 2008, with Ursula Lang, she achieved important additional wording on the Statement of Significance associated with the listing of Kosciuszko National Park on the Australian National Heritage List.

Ernestyna found out that she was suffering from liver cancer in June 2023. This did not stop her from running a competition, unveiling a new plaque in Towong or running flights over Mount Kosciuszko. She fought bravely against the disease until the very end. After some time in hospital, she died in her home at Blackbutt Avenue, Pennant Hills, Sydney, on 20 October 2024.