Train named after Enigma-cracking Polish mathematician
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
12.12.2017 10:31
Polish rail carrier PKP Intercity has named a train after Marian Rejewski, a Polish mathematician who helped break the famous Enigma code, contributing to the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.
![Marian Rejewski. Photo: [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://external.polskieradio.pl/files/55a51fa9-f9ff-41d5-a838-5f1184e2347a.file "Marian Rejewski. Photo: [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
Marian Rejewski. Photo: [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Rejewski worked with fellow Polish mathematicians Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski in the 1930s to crack the Enigma code, which was employed by Nazi Germany to encrypt military communications.
The research conducted by the Poles was handed over to the UK at the start of World War II, in 1939, and was used by British cryptologists at Bletchley Park as part of their own work on the Enigma code.
PKP Intercity, Poland’s state railway company for long-distance trains, announced that the train will run a daily service between the capital Warsaw and the city of Bydgoszcz in north-central Poland, commemorating the fact that Rejewski was born in Bydgoszcz.
The name was chosen following a consultation of PKP Intercity passengers to select historic Polish figures to name trains after. Almost 80,000 votes were received as part of the process.
During the train’s maiden journey all passengers received commemorative material, including information about Rejewski and a logic puzzle to solve.
Rejewski’s role in the Enigma breakthrough remained little known for almost three decades following the war. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Poland’s highest civilian award. (sl/gs)
Source: PAP