Hanna Pawłowicz

Family Background

Hanna Antonina Pawłowicz was born on a very cold November 26th in 1928 in an army hospital in Warsaw, Poland. Her parents were Bohdan Pawłowicz  and Wanda Orla-Salmonowicz.  She had an older brother, Leszek Kazimierz Pawłowicz.

Childhood

From her birth to the age of 6 approximately, she lived with her family at her grandparents comfortable house on Goraszewska 8 Street in the Czerniaków housing estate in Warsaw. She also started her primary school there.

She then moved to Łódź when her father, Bohdan, was transferred as director of the radio station there. Her childhood memories of this industrial city, which was the second largest in population then, are of a terribly dirty place with open sewers. The family then moved to Toruń. The family got together every summer to spend their holidays at the family property (Willa Kazimierza Pawłowicza) in Jastrzebia Gora, Baltic Sea or in the mountains. In the fateful year of 1939, in mid-August, while they were in the mountains, they received a telephone call from the mayor of Toruń advising them to return as quickly as possible and move to their family’s house in Warsaw. 

World War II

In April 1940, together with her mother Wanda and her brother Leszek, she fled Poland and came to Brazil, where they settled.

Brazil

Curitiba

At the beginning, the family lived in Curitiba in the state of Paraná, where Hanna studied first at Colégio São José and then at Colégio Sion in Curitiba.

Rio de Janeiro

When her father arrived  from London in 1943 to join the Polish Legation in Rio de Janeiro as assistant Naval Attaché,  the whole family moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she graduated from high school (Colégio Sion in Rio) in first place in December 1948. 

US – Wellesley

In 1949, as a result of her academic excellence and interest in studying abroad and through the recommendation of Mrs Mary Wheeler, she was awarded a full scholarship to Wellesley College in the US, where she followed a liberal arts curriculum and graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Arts in 1952.

Santos

On her return, she married Edward Juźwiak in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on September 6th 1952 and in August 1953, their daughter Barbara Wanda was born. In September 1953 they moved to Santos, where Edward was offered a post in a shipping company.  In 1957, Mark  Piotr was born and  in 1961, the twins: Edward Paulo and Jorge Bohdan.

She was a grandmother of twelve children:

  • 3 boys by her daughter Barbara Wanda Juzwiak (married to Pierre René Paul Dieu):  Jean Marc Dieu, Jacques Edouard Dieu, Christophe André Dieu;
  • 3 girls by her son Mark Piotr  (married to Marianne, née Collard): Sybil Doyle [née Juzwiak], Kalina Juzwiak, Maja Juzwiak;
  • 1 girl and 2 boys from her son Jorge Bohdan (married to Cláudia, née Ridel): Teressa Ridel Juzwiak, Aleksander Ridel Juzwiak, Viktor Ridel Juzwiak;
  • 2 girls and 1 boy from her son Edward Paulo (divorced from his wife Trudy, née Batt): Stéphanie Batt Juzwiak, Darek Batt Juzwiak and Wendy Batt Juzwiak.

and, at the time of her death,  the great-grandmother of three girls:

  • Melina Azevedo Dieu (from her grandson Jacques, divorced from Vera Azevedo)
  • Leia Dieu Banuet (from her grandson  Jean Marc, married to Mercedes, née Banuet Guiot).
  • Aliyah Antonina Doyle (from her granddaughter Sybil, married to Jason Doyle)

Late Years and Death

Hanna died at the age of 89 of complications resulting from a malignant carcinoma in Santos, Brazil on February 8th 2018.  She was cremated at the Memorial Necropole in Santos. According to her and her husband’s wishes, the biogdegradable urns containing their ashes were thrown into the sea in Juquehy, on the north coast of São Paulo.

Affiliation: Roman Catholic.

Languages: She was fluent in Polish, English, Portuguese and could communicate very well in French.

Hobby: used to play (a lot of) tennis

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