Siblings
Brothers
Kazimierz and Adam
Family
Adam Antoni, called Adaś, was born two years after Józef’s birth, also in Zułów. Like his older brothers, he studied in Vilnius. Bronisław noted in his diary that “Adaś is learning well, even though no one is helping him. His grades are “4” in Greek and math, and “3” in other subjects. He is almost as capable as Ziuk. […] Our dear Adaś is completely following in his footsteps. As for food, he doesn’t like anything except beefsteak and some sweet dishes; he frowns at everything and mutters that it’s not good.” Although gifted, he did not complete his education in a gymnasium. Until 1900, he stayed at the family estate Tenenie in Samogitia. A year later, he took a job at the power plant construction, and then at the Vilnius city authorities. From 1909, he served as a chief bookkeeper for the Vilnius City Board. Together with Mayor Michał Węsławski, he participated in obtaining a bonded municipal loan in the United Kingdom for the construction of the city’s water supply and sewer systems. When he retired in 1932, he was appointed as the government’s financial delegate to the Vilnius City Board, and two years later, he became the deputy mayor of Vilnius. Less than three months before his death, he became a senator of the Polish Republic.
Photo from the collection of the Józef Piłsudski Family Foundation
He was involved in social and philanthropic activities, heading the board in charge of care for the poor in one of the districts. He also held many business positions, including that of a chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Polish Society for Commercial and Economic Knowledge in Vilnius, a member of the Supervisory Board of the Polish Cooperative Craft Bank in Vilnius, and a member of the Audit Committee of the “Interest-free Credit” Society. On 9 November 1932, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for his merits in the national and social fields and local government work. He died in the same year as Zofia and Józef. After coming to Warszawa to represent Vilnius at a meeting of the National Railway Council, two days later he collapsed and his double pneumonia proved fatal. At the time of his passing on 16 December 1935, his daughter, Wanda Pawłowska who was a doctor – the only child he had with his wife Leonia Julia Łodwigowska – was by his side, among other persons. Adam’s funeral took place two days later at the Rossa Cemetery in Vilnius. At the Powązki Cemetery in Warszawa there is his symbolic grave. In May 1939, the Vilnius city authorities decided to build a monument to Adam Piłsudski at its own expense. This intention, however, has not been implemented.
Bronisław was also concerned about the education of another brother. He wrote, “I gave Adaś a book about the uprising to read, and another one to Zinio; you have to get them used to reading […] because I can see that they will be reading.”
Kazimierz Gabriel was born in Zułów in 1871. After the fire of the manor, the siblings’ father Józef Wincenty ran a warehouse and a pressed yeast store in St. Petersburg. Kazimierz stayed in that city before 1914 and worked with his father. Both managed factories producing table wine, liqueurs, and vodka, prepared by the steam method from purified spirit. But after his father’s death, the son was forced to leave the company. He then took a job as an accountant with the Enzelo-Tehran Road Company and worked there until the company’s bankruptcy during the October Revolution. At the same time, in 1913, he became the owner of the St. Petersburg tailoring company “Luiza Louvar and Co”, which sewed clothes for women and artists. The company was named after his wife, an Austrian subject who arrived in St. Petersburg in 1910, and soon became a well-known seamstress of women’s clothing in the Russian capital’s homes. It is known that she was on the list of foreigners in St. Petersburg until 1917, but her further fate is unknown. On the other hand, after World War I, Kazimierz returned to Vilnius where he worked at a bank and then at the Supreme Audit Office. He was an activist of the Polish Chess Federation; in the years 1931-1932, a member of its board and then its vice president; in 1931 and in 1933-1935, a Polish delegate to the International Chess Federation, and from 1937, an honorary member of the Polish Chess Federation. In the same year, he was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit “for merits in the field of social work”, and the following year, he was awarded the Independence Medal “for work toward regaining independence”. With the entry of the Soviets into Vilnius on 17 September 1939, he and his brother Jan were arrested by the NKVD and incarcerated in Soviet prisons (Lubianka and Butyrki). He did not survive these hardships and died in Bukhara at the age of 70. In an interview, the Marshal’s daughter, Wanda Piłsudska, recalled, “Uncle Kazimierz did not survive the war, he died of exhaustion, and uncle Jan, who was younger and stronger, got out to the Middle East, from where he came to Great Britain.”
