Janina D. Pietrzyk Photo

Janina D. Pietrzyk passed away quietly attended by her two sons, John and Rick Pietrzyk. She was 97, a few weeks shy of her 98th birthday. She was born in Warsaw, taken prisoner by German troops when she was 14, and spent the war years working in a labor camp near the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. She met her husband Witold, also Polish, in a displaced persons camp in 1945 as the war drew to a close. They came to America aboard a Liberty ship and settled briefly in Merced California, before coming to Millbrae where Witold found a position at United Airlines. Janina in turn worked as the Laboratory Manager at the College of San Mateo's Biology Department. Following retirement she traveled extensively, including visits to Poland to meet with surviving friends and relatives. As a survivor of the horrors of war she was always outspoken about politicians and foreign policies that brought wars into existence. Passionate about Nature, she saw our increasing embrace of technology as a step in the wrong direction.

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