Born: September 15, 1941, Lipniki, Soviet occupied Poland (presently Ukraine)
Early days. He is a survivor of the Volhynian massacres during World War II (1944-45), during which Ukrainian nationalists murdered 19 members of his family, including his father. After WWII he was resettled together with his family to Wolow near Wroclaw, Poland. He finished there elementary school and the high school. In 1969 Hermaszewski started flying on the gliders in the Wroclaw Aeroclub In 1961 he started attending Szkola Orlat in Deblin, Poland where he graduated in 1965 as a fighter pilot on the Soviet jet MiG-15. After finishing this school with distinction he was assigned to the 62 Regiment of Fighter Planes in Poznan where, after two years, he became the 1-st class pilot and was trained in piloting the supersonic jet MiG-21. Finally he finished with distinction the Academy of the General Staff in Warsaw.
Intercosmos program. In 1978 he was chosen from almost 500 Polish pilots to take part in the Soviet Intercosmos space program. Together with Pyotr Klimuk he spent almost eight days onboard the Salyut 6 space station (from 17:27, June 27, 1978 'til 16:31, July 5). During their time in orbit, they carried out geosciences' experiments and photographed the Earth. They landed 300 km west of Tselinograd.
Afterwards. During the period of martial law in Poland (1981-1983), Hermaszewski was a member of the Military Council of National Salvation (Wojskowa Rada Ocalenia Narodowego, WRON), a military quasi-government. In 2006 the prosecutors from IPN (Institute of the National Memory) accused the members of WRON of commiting a communist crime by leading a criminal union of military character. Hermaszewski claimed that he was assigned to WRON without his knowledge or agreement. After that he was a commander of the Fighter Pilots School in Deblin. In 1988 he was promoted to general. Between 1991 and 1992, Hermaszewski served as a second-in-command of the Headquarters of the Airforce. He is currently retired. Since 2001 he run unsuccessfully for Polish Senate and Sejm as a candidate of SLD (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej= Democratic Left Alliance with mostly communist roots). Hermaszewski is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of World's Cosmonauts and Astronauts. He is married to Emilia Hermaszewska and has two children, Miroslaw and Emilia.
Medals. 1978: Order of Grunwald Cross, 1st Class; A Badge Pilot Cosmonaut of PRL; A Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union; Lenin's Order, Soviet Union; 1986: The Order of the Smile; Gold Cross of Merit; 2003: Commander's Cross of Order of Polonia Restituta; 2011: Medal for Merits in Exploration of the Cosmos, Russia.
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This article uses mostly material from the Wikipedia article "Miroslaw Parazynski." Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.:
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