1. Ludwik Rajchman is regarded as the founder of UNICEF, and served as its first chairman from 1946 to 1950.
18 Facts About Ludwik Rajchman
1. 2.
Ludwik Witold Rajchman was born to Aleksander Rajchman, the founder and first director of the Warsaw Philharmonic, and Melania Hirszfeld, a socialist and women's rights activist.
3.
Ludwik Rajchman was from a family of Christianized Polish Jews.
4.
Ludwik Rajchman is the brother of Aleksander Rajchman, a prominent Polish mathematician and of Helena Radlinska, a Polish sociologist and he is the first cousin of Ludwik Hirszfeld, a Polish microbiologist.
5.
Ludwik Rajchman grew up in Warsaw in the difficult conditions of the Russian partition.
6.
At an early age, he and his sister Helena Ludwik Rajchman became keenly aware of the social injustices in their "country" and were involved as teenagers in teaching young workers.
7.
Ludwik Rajchman studied medicine at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he met his future wife, Marja Bojanczyk who was a medical student.
8.
Ludwik Rajchman became fascinated by bacteriology as taught to him by Odo Bujwid who had worked with Louis Pasteur.
9.
Ludwik Rajchman did his post-doctoral studies at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, then briefly returned to Krakow, before being named to a prominent bacteriological laboratory in London.
10.
Ludwik Rajchman was very active in the fight against several waves of a typhus epidemic which was devastating Eastern Europe and as such was noticed by the burgeoning League of Nations, which named him in 1921 to set up a Health Organization for the LN in Geneva, Switzerland.
11.
Ludwik Rajchman's family moved to France, purchasing a "chateau" in Sarthe, in the west of France.
12.
Ludwik Rajchman went to see the President of the Polish government in exile, General Sikorski whom he knew personally.
13.
When UNRRA announced at a UN meeting in Geneva that it would be putting an end to its relief efforts, Ludwik Rajchman stood up before the assembly and called for the creation of a Fund dedicated to helping children throughout the world.
14.
Ludwik Rajchman's proposal was accepted and by the beginning of 1947, UNICEF was already helping children, notably with nutrition and immunization.
15.
Ludwik Rajchman remained chairman of the board at UNICEF until 1950 and refused to be paid for his work.
16.
Ludwik Rajchman's last visit was to Warsaw in 1963, to visit the public health institute he had founded in 1918.
17.
Ludwik Rajchman was married to Marja Bojanczyk and together the couple had a daughter Marthe Ludwik Rajchman, who became a cartography specialist.
18.
Ludwik Rajchman died in Chenu, Sarthe, in 1965 due to complications of Parkinson's disease.