Peter Dembowski died peacefully at this home in Hyde Park in the afternoon on November 4. He was 97.

He was born in Warsaw, Poland on December 23, 1925. Both of his parents, Włodzimierz Dembowski and Henryka Sokolowska were raised in Russian occupied Poland. In 1912 his father, with the encouragement of his family, entered the Riflemen’s Organization (Związek Strzelecki). It was legal in Austria and illegal in Russia. In 1915 he had joined the Warsaw battalion of the Polish Military Organization headed by Josef Piłsudski. On October 2, 1915, he became a prisoner of war.

He was able to return to Poland in the summer of 1918. In October of 1918 he married Henryka Sokolowska. In August of 1920 Włodzimierz Dembowski volunteered to join the polish army. Poland had become independent on November 11, 1918, but the Bolsheviks were at the gates of Warsaw. The Bolsheviks were defeated. Peter’s father decided to stay in the army as a professional soldier. Peter and his four siblings were raised in Międzychód in northwestern Poland and in Grajevo northeastern Poland close to what was then East Prussia. At that time Międzychód had a large German speaking Lutheran minority and Grajevo a large Jewish minority. Włodzimierz Dembowski died suddenly on February 19, 1937. After his father’s sudden death 1937 Peter spent one year in the school for the blind in the village of Laski. In 1938 he enrolled in the Stefan Żeromski High School in Warsaw. He was in the countryside in Warka at the outset of World War II.

His mother Henryka was a volunteer social worker. She also joined clandestine organizations in 1916-18 and in 1939-41. She and her daughter Małgorzata, Peter’s sister, were arrested on May 15, 1941, sent to Ravensbruck and shot on September 25, 1942.

In 1940 Peter returned to Warsaw and to his old High School which had been renamed Preparatory School for Commerce Personnel. However, the German authorities were not able to ensure that their changes to the curriculum were implemented. In High School he was recruited by two older classmates(Jerzy Kłowczowski and Mieczysław Chorąży ) in the clandestine organization that came to be called the Armia Krajo or National Army.

On April 7 1944 he was among those arrested when the Security Service of the SS (Sicherheitsdienst der Waffen SS) organized a search for illegal arms. Peter had placed a few arms in the basement of the apartment building where he was residing. He was released on May 3, 1944. The Wehrmach soldier who had seen him leave the basement, said nothing. His interrogator was lazy, and Peter looked much younger than his eighteen years and had mastered the art of looking stupid.

His release allowed him to fight in the Warsaw Uprising. Peter fought in the Area V Mokotów unit. The Warsaw Uprising ended in defeat. Peter was among the insurrectionists who crawled through the sewers to give themselves up.

He was taken prisoner and sent to the prisoner of war camp Stalag XB in Sandbostel. Prisoners of War did receive food parcels but there was a severe shortage of food at the end of the War, and Peter remembered being very hungry at the time.

After the defeat of Germany, he hitchhiked to Italy to join the Second Polish Corps. He emigrated to Canada in September of 1946.

He worked on a dairy farm in Spruce Grove and as a truck driver. Afterwards, he took steps to pursue his studies encouraged by letters from his aunt Janina Landy the wife of his paternal uncle Kazimierz Dembowski. Many years later he wrote “Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto, an epitaph for the unremembered” in fulfillment of Janina’s wishes.

Between 1948 and 1952 Peter attended the University of British Columbia. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Russian. He got a scholarship from the French government. In Paris he took a course designed for future teachers of French and wrote a memoir on Old Church Slavonic borrowings in Russian. In Paris he met and married Yolande Jessop a French Canadian who was also studying in Paris. They stayed happily married until Yolande’s death in 2014. He taught French and Russian at the University of British Columbia between 1954 and 1956.

In 1956 he enrolled in the PhD program in Berkeley and obtained his PhD in 1960. For the rest of his professional life he combined teaching and preparing critical editions of old French texts. He taught at the University of Toronto between 1960 and 1966 and at the University of Chicago from 1966 to 1995 when he officially retired. At the University of Chicago, he also worked in administration. He was dean of students between 1968 and 1970 and chairman of the department of Romance Language and Literature between 1976 and 1983 and again in 1986-1987.

In addition, he and Yolande also became resident head of Hitchcock Hall between 1973 and 1979. They hosted a tuna casserole supper prepared by Mrs. Hayek every Wednesday.

He spent the last years of his life living quietly in his Hyde Park residence. Juliette Strangio his youngest granddaughter kept an eye on him.

He is survived by his children Anna Dembowski, Eve (Frank Strangio) and Paul (Azisti Yunati), by his grandchildren Sebastian Strangio, Sophie Strangio, Gabriel Strangio, Juliette Strangio, Arrie Dembowski and Alexander Dembowski and his great-grandchildren Felix and Zadie Strangio.

A funeral Mass for Peter and Yolande Dembowski will take place at Saint Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church on November 25, 2023, at 11.30 AM.