15th President of the Polish National Alliance

Born in North Chicago, Illinois of parents who were themselves participants in local PNA life, Mazewski became active in Alliance activities as a teenager, rising to a leadership role in Council 41 during the 1930s. He energetically organized Polish American youth activities as a high school and college student and was President of the Polish Students' dub at Lane Technical High School, the Chicago Polish Students' Association and the Polish American Junior League (which included seventeen Chicago high school units).

Earning a law degree from De Paul University on the eve of World War II, Mazewski volunteered for military duty and served as an intelligence officer and later as an army hospital chief administrator. He left the army in 1946 with the rank of major.

 

In 1947 he was elected to the national board of directors of the PNA and won reelection to the board in 1951. In 1967 he was elected President of the PNA in a spirited contest against Charles Rozmarek and he has been reelected at each successive national convention.

 

In 1968 Mazewski was elected President of the Polish American Congress. Under Mazewski's direction, the PNA thoroughly modernized its insurance program to meet the increasingly diverse needs of its membership. In addition, he directed the restructuring of the investment portfolio of the Alliance. Thanks to these reforms, the Polish National Alliance has been provided with the means to remain a large and dynamic institution into the next century.

 

Similarly, Mazewski's leadership of the Polish American Congress enabled it to become the universally recognized voice of a unified American Polonia that it is in the 1980s. It is no exaggeration to state that PAC views on foreign and domestic matters concerning Polish Americans are recognized as authoritative in Washington.

 

During Aloysius Mazewski's administration, the Polish National Alliance had successfully transformed itself from a Polish-American organization into a truly indigenous institution both proud of its rich ethnic heritage and able to compete successfully in the insurance field with the largest commercial firms.