Polish city's tribute to locally-born diplomat

Sean Lester was born in the Borough in September 1888 and would go on to be one of the Irish Free State’s top diplomats before holding important roles for the League of Nations - including that of its final Secretary General.

From 1933 until 1937, when League agreed to Nazi demands for his recall to Geneva, he served as the organisation’s High Commissioner in the Free City of Danzig, which had formerly been part of Germany and is now the Polish city of Gdansk.

In that capacity, he opposed discrimination against and persecution of Jews in Germany and worked to prevent conflict over the issue of the Polish corridor, which had also been part of Germany prior to the Great War.

Last week, in the presence of Lester’s daughter Ann Gorski, a meeting room in the city’s local government headquarters was officially named after the man sometimes referred to as the most hated in the Third Reich.

Council chairman Bogdan Oleszek paid tribute to Lester’s courage and “firm attitude” against totalitarianism.