James Wlodzimierz Russocki

James Wlodzimierz Russocki was born to Count Zygmunt Russocki and Countess Irena Russocki in Warsaw in 1929.

In 1942 at the age of twelve James became a ‘runner’ in the Polish Resistance, carrying messages between the Polish Home Army cells, stealing weapons and other appointed work. In the same year he also found a starving Jewish boy who had escaped the ghetto and took him home where he and his mother concealed and cared for him.

James was arrested with his mother in on March 7th, 1943 and interred in the German concentration camp Mauthausen in Austria, receiving brutal treatment which almost cost him his life. He later escaped, making his way to Italy where he enlisted in the Polish army under British command. He emigrated to America with Irena in 1951, and in 1952, enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, where he was assigned to secret missions for intelligence agencies including the CIA. He received the Purple Heart.

After leaving the military, James became an investigator for the Internal Revenue Service, where he supervised many investigations and received numerous awards. He stayed in close contact with his beloved Aunt Helena in London, taking both his daughters to visit her. Family was everything to him, and according to his daughters, had he known of his first cousin, Elizabeth Lis, he would have done everything in his power to find her. James wrote memoirs, from which much information has been drawn. Sadly, he died in 2002, twelve years before I began to search, however the families of his mother and aunt are now in close contact.

For further information please contact jenniemilne67@gmail.com