Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska – Commemorative Plaque Unveiled on Nowy Świat Street
On Wednesday, 7 October 2026, a commemorative plaque dedicated to Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska (1902–2007), an Italian woman whose life was closely intertwined with Poland, was unveiled at 25 Nowy Świat Street in Warsaw. She was the daughter of Alfredo Frassati, owner and director of the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa, a senator and later Italian ambassador to Germany, and the painter Adelaide Ametis. She was also the sister of St Pier Giorgio Frassati and the wife of Polish diplomat Jan Gawroński.
The unveiling ceremony was attended by Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska’s daughters: 99-year-old Wanda Gawrońska, 95-year-old Giovanna Gawrońska-Gilardini and 93-year-old Maria Grazia Gawrońska, Princess Salviati. Also present were the Ambassador of the Italian Republic, Luca Franchetti Pardo; the Apostolic Nuncio to Poland, Archbishop Antonio Guido Filipazzi; and Dr Tomasz Makowski, Director of the National Library of Poland.
Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska was among those who rendered particularly valuable service to Poland during the Second World War. She travelled to German-occupied Poland on seven occasions, carrying information and aid and supporting the Polish underground resistance.
She played a particularly important role in efforts to secure the release of professors from the Jagiellonian University and other Kraków institutions of higher education who had been arrested by the Germans on 6 November 1939 as part of Sonderaktion Krakau. On 8 and 9 January 1940, she met personally with Benito Mussolini, informing him about the situation in occupied Poland and the fate of the imprisoned academics. During another meeting, on 24 February, she also presented him with a list of those who remained in the camp. Her efforts formed part of an international campaign that contributed to the release of more than one hundred Kraków academics from Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
The memory of Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska and the remarkable Polish-Italian history of her family is also preserved in the collections of the National Library of Poland.
In 2022, Wanda Gawrońska donated materials from her private archive to the National Library, along with the archives of two institutions she had helped establish: Centro Incontri e Studi Europei and Associazione Pier Giorgio Frassati – Amici dell’Università Cattolica di Lublino. These collections document many years of work in support of Polish culture and scholarship, assistance provided to Polish people, and extensive Polish-Italian relations.
The materials were arranged and catalogued by the National Library. In 2025, volume 33 of the Catalogue of Manuscripts of the National Library of Poland: Archives of Centro Incontri e Studi Europei and Associazione Pier Giorgio Frassati. Appendix – Materials from the Wanda Gawrońska Archive: Shelfmarks 18000–18249 was published. Compiled by Dr Anna Maria Osińska of the National Library’s Manuscripts Department, the catalogue contains descriptions of 250 volumes and constitutes an important resource for research into Polish-Italian relations and the humanitarian and cultural activities of the circles associated with the Gawroński family.
Also in 2022, Luciana’s son Jaś Gawroński donated materials from the archive of his father, Jan Gawroński, to the National Library, while Giovanna Gawrońska-Gilardini donated Jan Gawroński’s family photograph album, containing pre-war photographs of the Gawroński family estate in Szukle.
The plaque unveiled on Nowy Świat Street commemorates the remarkable life of Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska, a woman who repeatedly used her courage, social standing and personal connections to help Poland and its people. The documents donated to the National Library by her family make it possible to preserve, catalogue and share the history of several generations whose lives were uniquely intertwined with the histories of Poland and Italy.
