vice-president. During World War II, Iwaszkiewicz participated in the Polish Underground State's activities, working in the Department of Education, Science and Culture of the Government Delegation for Poland. He collaborated with Prof. Stanisław Lorentz in his efforts to protect and rescue Poland's works of art. Iwaszkiewicz and his wife Anna had extensive contacts within the Jewish-Polish intelligentsia circles and assisted their former neighbors, friends and acquaintances in a variety of ways during the German occupation of Poland. Iwaszkiewicz family's Villa Stawisko residence served as a hiding place for many Jews and Poles who faced the threat of being arrested by Nazi Germans, especially after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. At one time, more than 40 people were sheltered in the mansion. During the war, Stawisko also functioned as a center of Polish underground literature and art. In 1945–1946, 1947–1949 and 1959–1980, Iwaszkiewicz served as head of the Polish Writers' Union. In 1945–1949 and 1955–1957 he was literary manager of the Polish Theatre in Warsaw. From March 1947 to December 1949, he published the Nowiny literackie ('Literary News') magazine. Beginning in 1956, for many years he was chief editor of the monthly Twórczość ('Creativity'). Vice-president of the Polish PEN Club in 1950–1965. Iwaszkiewicz was an organizer of the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace held in Wrocław in 1948 and a delegate to the World Peace Congress in 1950. He served as a nonpartisan member of parliament from 1952 until his death in 1980. In his last three terms, he was the Senior Marshal of the Sejm. Iwaszkiewicz wrote of his deeply socialist convictions, but was ambivalent and privately bitter about the political reality of the Polish People's Republic, within which he officially functioned. Nevertheless, he was greatly impressed by the appreciation note that he received from Bolesław Bierut on the 40th anniversary of Iwaszkiewicz's literary career. In 1956, he was thrilled by the Polish October events. After a conversation with Edward Ochab in 1961, Iwaszkiewicz wrote: "They blame me for not having done anything as a member of the Sejm, but then they want me to be a deputy again". He continued his lifelong habit of making many foreign trips. Iwaszkiewicz wrote novels and short stories, poems, dramatic works, essays and columns, and translations from French, English, Russian and Danish literatures. His major epic novel is Sława i Chwała ('Fame and Glory') – a panorama