Jan Szembek (diplomat)

Szembek was born in a szlachta family on July 11, 1881, in the village of Poręba, near Alwernia. He graduated from the Vienna University and took up the post of an Austrian government clerk in Bosnia (1905-1908). In 1908, he settled in Kraków.

In 1919, after Poland regained independence from the partitions of Poland, Szembek was named chargé d'affaires and later he was the Polish ambassador in Budapest (1921-1924), Brussels (1925) and Bucharest (1927), where he remained until 1932. After returning to Poland, he took up the job of deputy secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.

After the invasion of Poland, he left Poland on September 17, 1939, along with other members of the government. His home, in the village of Mloszowa, near Trzebinia, was ransacked by the Germans, who also burned Szembek's personal library. He died on July 9, 1945, in Estoril, near Lisbon.

Szembek wrote two books:

• Diariusz i teki Jana Szembeka 1934 - 1939, t. 1 - 4, London 1964 - 1972
• Jan Szembek Diariusz. Wrzesien-Grudzien 1939, Wydawnictwo PAX Warszawa 1989, ISBN 83-211-1100-9

• Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta
• Medal Decades of Independence Regained
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross (Brazil)
• Order of the Oak Crown (Luxembourg)
• Grand Cross of the Military Order of Christ (Portugal)
• Order of the Crown (Romania)
• Order of the Star of Romania
• Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, 1st class
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy
• Order of the White Star, 1st class (Estonia)

• Młoszowa at mloszowa.mbp.trzebinia.pl
• Ibidem - Zrodla do historii Polski XIX - XX w.(przypisy) at www.ibidem.com.pl

• Szembek's announcement to ambassadors of Great Britain and France, issued in Warsaw on August 29, 1939