Ignacy Jan Paderewski arrived in the United States for the last time on November 6, 1940. As always, he checked into the Gotham Hotel at 5th Avenue and 55th Street; the hotel does not exist anymore. However, several weeks later he transferred to a less expensive Hotel Buckingham at 6th Avenue and 57th Street. He was short of funds.
Despite his age, he was very active. He tried to convince Americans to step up their support for the British war effort. The CBS Radio broadcast his message on December 8, 1940. During a meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Paderewski requested an intervention on behalf of Poles living in France under the Vichy Government. Already in November, 1940, Polish press published his memorandum Do Wychodźstwa (To the Émigrés), in which he stated the reasons for his arrival in America and called for generous assistance for Poland.
Unfortunately, his tireless promotional and diplomatic efforts brought incommensurably poor results. In January 1941, Paderewski traveled to Palm Beach, Florida to escape the unpleasant New York winter. He met there with General Wladysław Sikorski and Stanisław Mikolajczyk. They spent together Easter discussing various approaches to obtaining greater support of the United States for Poland. However, the political situation was getting more and more complicated. The possibilities of managing quickly developing and rapidly changing conditions were less than meager, especially when compared with the period of World War I, when Paderewski’s authority was sufficient to gain the support for the Polish cause from a number of influential individuals, including presidential advisor Colonel Edward House and President Woodrow Wilson.
Neither the immense prestige of those past years, nor the legend of the great piano virtuoso, were sufficient to maneuver in the intricate meanderings of the 1940’s politics.
In May, 1941, Ignacy Paderewski returned to New York, but even though he was still active, it was obvious he was getting weaker. His sister, Antonina Wilkonska and his closest friends, the Strakaczs, tried to dissuade him from going to Oak Ridge, New Jersey on June 22 for a meeting with the Blue Army veterans. In 1941, the month of June was very hot - the inhospitable city, shrouded in heat and humidity consumed the remnants of the old man’s energy. Meanwhile, a day before the trip (in the evening hours of New York time), Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In the company of Sylvin Strakacz, his secretary and the Polish consul in New York at that time, Paderewski listened to the news on the radio throughout the entire night. On Sunday morning, he went to Oak Ridge and delivered a long and fiery speech.
A witness to Paderewski‘s memorable patriotic encounter with Polonia in the meadow of Polish National Alliance facility in Oak Ridge was Joseph C. Radzik, a Polish-American NYPD officer, who served as Paderewski’s bodyguard at that time. In a letter addressed to Father Lucius Tyrasinski on June 29, 1986, the day when the urn containing Paderewski’s heart was placed at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, he recalled that event as one of the most memorable in his life. Joseph C. Radzik stated: “To know him, or to know about him, was to love him. [To me] as an American of Polish descent, he was a great inspiration [...] with respect to my Polish heritage.” The Old Maestro touched and awakened the hearts of generations of Americans descending from Polish immigrants of the past. These generations identified themselves with America while respecting their heritage. However, the Blue Army veterans belonged to the past. In the changed political configuration of the 1940s, they couldn't play a significant role.
The severe heat and intense emotions during the rally in the meadow of Oak Ridge, and a chilled drink he had had, set the scene for a devastating outcome. Paderewski developed pneumonia. The doomed battle lasted for a week. Ignacy Jan Paderewski died in his hotel room at 11:00 PM on Sunday, June 29, 1941 in the country he fell in love with and one that loved him back. President Roosevelt authorized his burial with full military honors at the Arlington National Cemetery. Paderewski’s temporary grave was located near the Grave of the Unknown Soldier. When I visited the cemetery in 1986, I went to see the Polish pianist‘s grave. Poland wasn't independent yet, and it was not possible to consider returning Paderewski’s remains to his Motherland, where he had wished to be buried. It became feasible after 1989 and occurred in 1992. Exactly on the 51st anniversary of the artist’s death, the body of I. J. Paderewski was transported to Poland by the U.S. military aircraft. The official ceremonies lasted until July 4th, held at first at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, then in Poznan, and again in Warsaw at the Church of the Holy Cross. On U. S. Independence Day, a procession proceeded to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, where after a Funeral Mass offered in the presence of Presidents George Bush and Lech Walesa, Ignacy Paderewski's remains were interred in the Cathedral’s crypt. His coffin rests next to that of Henryk Sienkiewicz.
Nothing was known about the heart for a long period of time; not even the fact that it had been separated from the body. While visiting Cypress Hill Cemetery in Queens, New York, together with his brother-in-law Henryk Archacki in 1959, Conrad J. Wycka unexpectedly discovered this fact. They decided to visit the graves of the necropolis and a mausoleum built in 1926 on Memorial Day weekend, customarily beginning the summer season. Fascination with the cemetery's mausoleum led the discoverer to walk farther and farther into the aisles of the mausoleum. In the niche No. 25 of a side aisle that was marked “G“, there was a small marble plate label: Ignacy JanPaderewski, 1860-1941. An opportune set of circumstances. Henryk Archacki, publisher, journalist, artist, illustrator, historian specializing in Polonia affairs, and affectionate lover of Poland took matters into his own hands. Prior to publicizing the matter, however, he verified the discovery and determined some of the facts concerning this incredible history.
Shortly before his death, Ignacy Paderewski communicated his last wish to his sister Antonina Paderewska Wilkonska that his body should be laid to rest in free Poland, but his heart was to remain in the United States. The funeral arrangements of the virtuoso Paderewski were handled by a wealthy and influential man, Jan Smoleński - the owner of a well-known funeral home in Brooklyn, New York, a Vice-President (as of 1929) and later President (1942-53) of the Polish National Alliance, and the Assemblyman of the New York State Legislature for 16 years. In his memoirs he remarked: “One the most significant of the arrangements that I oversaw was that magnificent service of Ignacy Paderewski in New York, including transfer of the remains to Washington“. After Antonina Wilkonska communicated to him her brother’s last wishes, Jan Smolenski removed Paderewski’s heart and embalmed it separately. Then, he waited for further instructions, but none came. Four months after her brother’s death, Antonina Wilkonska passed away on October 6, 1941. The urn with Paderewski’s heart continued to remain in Smolenski’s Funeral Home. Time was going by and he grew increasingly concerned about the fate of the heart and his obligations towards it. Finally, Jan Smolenski decided to place Paderewski’s heart in the mausoleum at the Cypress Hills Cemetery. The Record No. 222146 shown to Henryk Archacki by the Mausoleum's administrator, Louis Worthington, contained all essential facts involved with the deposition of Paderewski’s heart in the mausoleum on December 21, 1945, including a transit permit No. 1528 for transportation from the funeral home issued three days earlier for $25. Jan Smolenski did not publicize this matter, and after his death on May 31, 1953, no one knew the location of the great pianist's heart, until the accidental discovery six years later.
A small niche in the mausoleum on Cypress Hill remained for a long time the resting site of Paderewski's heart, while Henryk Archacki in vain searched for a location which would be appropriate and emotionally meaningful for the American Polonia.
The Polish American Congress was advised about this matter in 1983 (for the first time the information was shared in 1966, but neither PAC nor the Kosciuszko Foundation took any action). It took three years to form a Paderewski Heart Committee with Henryk Archacki as a chairman. An anniversary of the pianist’s birth was approaching. It occurred to Archacki that a suitable location for the heart could be the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The other members of the committee enthusiastically agreed with their Chairman. They also received Father Lucius Tyrasinski’s keen approval who wrote to Archacki: “The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa is honored and happy to accept Paderewski’s heart.” The American Czestochowa was ready to act, and the timing was perfect. After years of limited activity, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Czestochowa was thriving. Its role was growing as a spiritual center for American Polonia, for whom the heart of this great Pole's had always beaten. Now it was to return to rest among Polonia forever.
The heart was so small it could fit in the palm of the monk’s hand. It was light, shrunken, and enveloped in a clearly visible net of blood vessels. It drew the strong attention of people surrounding it. They were overcome by emotion. The urn that had been found by Archacki did really contain Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s heart.
On Saturday, June 21, 1986, the urn arrived at the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture in Mercerville, NJ, at the workshop of sculptor Andrzej Pitynski. There it was greeted by the seven-member committee, consisting of: Henryk Archacki, Chair of the Paderewski Heart Committee; Colonel Anthony K. Podbielski, Vice-Chairman; Fr. Lucius Tyrasinski, Director and Curator of the Marian Sanctuary in Doylestown; Andrzej Pitynski, Stanisława Peczynska Dziekanowski, Jerzy Koss, and Malina Stadnik, journalist of Nowy Dziennik. The committee had decided to unwrap the thick layers of bandage to verify what it concealed. There was no doubt. The embalmed, fragile heart of the Great Pole was completing the final stage of its unique journey. Shrouded in fresh gauze and blessed by Father Lucius it was placed in the urn together with a document signed by all present. Then the urn, decorated with a bas-relief designed by Andrew Pitynski, was soldered. It was piece of art worthy of the Master. The bronze cast, 47-inch in diameter and 9-inch thick, presents Paderewski’s face above a gilt heart that rests on a fragment of a piano keyboard, and is set against a background of a crowned Polish Eagle with wide-spread wings. That same day, the urn was transferred to the Shrine of Our Lady and attached to a marble wall on the eastern side of the sanctuary’s vestibule. The unveiling and dedication ceremonies took place on June 29, 1986, on the 45th anniversary of Paderewski’s death.
Next to the entrance to the Hotel Buckingham, on Manhattan’s West Side, there hangs a bronze plaque which informs that this was the last residence of Ignacy Paderewski (1860-1941), Polish Prime Minister, great pianist, composer, and a friend of six Presidents of the United States. It further explains that his patriotic efforts resulted in the rebirth of an independent Poland at the end of WWI, and that Paderewski debuted at Carnegie Hall during his first concert tour in the United States, in 1891 - and as we read the last part of the plaque - that he participated actively in the cultural life of New York until his death.
