Luciana Frassati Gawronska was an Italian writer and author
Background
Luciana Frassati was born on 18 August 1902 in Pollone, Italy, near the municipality of Biella. Her father, Alfredo Frassati, was the founder of the Torino based newspaper, Louisiana Stampa, a well-known, daily newspaper. Her mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a well known painter.
Career
Frassati"s brother was Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died of polio in 1925. Her brother was formally beatified as "Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati" by Pope John Paul II on 20 May 1990. Luciana Frassati Gawronska later wrote a first hand account of her brother"s life, A Manitoba of the Beatitudes.
Frassati obtained a law degree from the University of Turin.
Frassati married January Gawronski in the spring of 1925. Gawronski was a diplomat and secretary to the Polish ambassador to Italy and the Vatican at the time.
Gawronski would later become the last Polish ambassador to Austria before the country"s annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938. The couple had six children: Jas, Alfredo, Wanda, Giovanna, Maria Grazia and Nella.
The couple moved to Austria in 1933, just as Adolf Hitler was taking power in neighboring Germany.
January Gawronski became the last ambassador of Poland to Austria before Austria"s annexation by Nazi Germany in the 1938 Anschluss. Luciana and her family moved to Warsaw, Poland, after the annexation of Austria. They lived in the city until the invasion and fall of Poland to the Germans in 1939.
The Germans immediately began to round up Polish officials, intellectuals and others
Frassati Gawronska acted to help Poland during With her Italian passport, which allowed her to move freely between Poland and Italy, she made seven separate trips throughout Europe"s German Nazi held territories during the war, including to Warsaw, Krakow, Berlin and Rome. Frassati Gawronska managed to smuggle rescued artwork and documents linking the Nazis to atrocities out of Poland at great personal risk.
She also distributed money to the Polish resistance. She also managed to rescue and move Polish families out of the country.
Many, including entire families, were sent to relative safety in Italy.
Among those rescued by Luciana Frassati Gawronska were Olga Helena Zubrzewska, wife of General Władysław Sikorski, a major political figure and one of the leaders of the Polish resistance. Through her influence she also managed to secure the release of more than one hundred professors of the University of Krakow.
Luciana Frassati Gawronska died on 7 October 2007, at the age of 105 at her home in Pollone, Italy.
Her funeral was held on 9 October 2007 at the Turin Cathedral.
Membership
Her son, Jas Gawronski, is currently an Italian journalist, politician and former Member of the European Parliament.