part in the Warsaw Uprising, where he was in charge of the defense of the Krasiński Library (Biblioteka Ordynacji Krasińskich w Warszawie) building, and took part in the battle for the German SS-held PAST skyscraper. Following the defeat of the uprising he was interned in POW camps in Pomerania, and near Lübeck (northern Germany). After the end of World War II in Europe, and a brief tour of duty with the 1st Independent Parachute Brigade (Poland) (1 Samodzielna Brygada Spadochronowa – SBS) stationed in north-western Germany, he returned to Poland in December 1945. He was reunited with his wife and son, Krzysztof Oskar Ciołek (1940–1953) in Olsztyn. The family returned to Warsaw. Between 1946 and his death in 1966, Ciołek lectured at the Institute of Architecture at the Politechnika Warszawska. From 1948 he was also professor of Urban Planning and Landscape Design at the Cracow University of Technology (Politechnika Krakowska). In the early-1950s he co-designed a tourist chalet in the Tatra Mountains, the 'Schronisko Górskie PTTK w Dolinie Pięciu Stawów Polskich', which opened in 1954. During those 20 years of work in Kraków and Warsaw he taught students, supervised roughly fourteen Doctoral dissertations, worked on the reconstruction of over 100 historical parks in Poland that included sites in Arkadia, Baranów Sandomierski, Krasiczyn, Lubartów, Nieborów, Rogalin, as well as the Royal Park in Wilanów )). He was a member of the State Council for the Nature Conservation ('Panstwowa Rada Ochrony Przyrody', PROP), as well as served on the Boards of Directors of the Tatra National Park and the Pieniny National Park. He authored more than 60 research papers and books. His groundbreaking work, Ogrody Polskie (Gardens of Poland), was published in 1954. In 1958, Ciołek was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta ('Krzyz Kawalerski Orderu Odrodzenia Polski'). In 1965, he embarked on two of his largest projects yet: a history of monastic architecture in Poland over the past 1,000 years; and an encyclopaedia of world gardens and garden design. However, he died the following year, aged 56, while skiing in the Tatra Mountains, without completing this final work. His unpublished research is archived as the Teki Ciołka (Ciołek files) here. Selected publications Ciołek, Gerard. 1954. Ogrody polskie. T. 1, Przemiany treści i formy (Gardens of Poland. Vol. 1, Transformations of form and content). Warszawa: Budownictwo i Architektura. Ciołek, Gerard. 1955. Zarys historii kompozycji ogrodowej w Polsce (An