Non Omnis Moriar
In memoriam of the late Professor Stanisław Woyke (1928-2009)

In memoriam of the late Professor Stanisław Woyke

(1928-2009)

“Lives of great men are the best lessons for everyone”

(Seneca)

Prof. Woyke was born on 18th January 1928, in Malenin, close to Tczew, Poland. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the Medical University in Poznań in 1951. On the basis of his dissertation “Observations on histological diagnosis of neuromas” the Faculty of Medicine of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin awarded Him the degree of Ph.D. “summa cum laude”. His habilitation thesis was devoted to experimental tumours of nerve fibers. In 1972, he was appointed an associate professor and in 1979 he became a full professor. Ever since his graduation he worked in the Department of Pathological Anatomy (led by Professor Kazimierz Stojałowski). He was the head of the Laboratory of Electron Microscopy at the Institute of Biostructure of the Pomeranian Medical University (1970-1983), the head of the Laboratory of Clinical Cytology of the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the Institute (1975-1980) and the head of the Department of Tumor Pathomorphology of the Pomeranian Medical University (1983-1991). Between 1972 and 1978 he served his university as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Additionally, for several years he was the curator of the Student Scientific Association and the regional consultant in oncology. Together with Professor W. Olszewski he organized Laboratory of Cytology at the Kuwait Cancer Centre in Kuwait. Between 1976 and 1977 he was the president of the European Federation of Cytology Societies and in 1975 he received Alfred Jurzykowski Prize awarded by the Polish Scientific Institute in New York.

Professor Woyke was probably the only Pole who decided to become a Solidarity trade union member at a public meeting after the organization had been made illegal. On Monday, following the introduction of martial law in Poland, during a meeting of several hundred Solidarity members – employees of the 1st Clinical Hospital of the Pomeranian Medical University – he asked to be registered as a member of Solidarity trade union, what at that time was an act of great courage. During the first months of the martial law in Poland he was suspended from the position of the head of the Laboratory of Electron Microscopy and the member of the Senate of Pomeranian Medical University, where he was an elected representative of the Faculty of...


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