Tribute to Janusz Z. Beer, Ph.D. By W. Howard Cyr, Ph.D. CAPT, USPHS (retired) I am sad at the passing of Janusz, but pleased that I had some 30 years of working with such a good scientist and enjoying Janusz as a friend. Janusz was a great teacher. Although I was not the best wet-lab person, I did learn a lot from him about formulating, conducting, analyzing, and publishing scientific research. In addition, Janusz taught me a lot about administering programs and people, maintaining and managing records and information, “selling” program goals and following through with them, and giving effective speeches and presentations. He was organized – really, really, organized. His files, calendar, work plans, edits, presentations, and goals were highly ordered, and he would review them, on a daily basis, to make sure they were complete and up-to-date. Many of my coworkers can attest to Janusz’s scientific expertise. I could give additional examples, but most of you already know of his accomplishments. I would rather give you a glimpse of a rather unique experience that I had with Janusz that was extremely influential to me and, I hope, interesting to you. I got the opportunity to go to Poland with Janusz and here is my story. In 1988, I was working with Dave Lytle, another of the really good scientists who worked at the Twinbrook Laboratories. We were testing condoms to determine if they were effective barriers to viruses. I was chosen to go to the International AIDS conference in Stockholm, Sweden to present our results. Coincidentally, Janusz was planning a trip to Poland. This was his first trip back to Poland since his departure in 1978. Ten years had passed since he left Poland and Janusz was returning to see family and to re-established scientific connections with the Polish government. Janusz asked me to join him in Warsaw to give a presentation about our AIDS-related work to the Polish Health Department authorities. He was also slightly worried that the Polish authorities might cause him some troubles because of his departure to the US, and wanted me to be in Poland as a witness should something “bad” happen. Although I was completely unsure as to what I could do, I agreed, and rearranged my trip to include a trip to Warsaw. After my conference in Stockholm, I boarded a LOT airplane to Warsaw. Janusz met me at the airport and we traveled downtown. I stayed in a high-rise apartment with Zofia’s mother, who gave me great hospitality and good food. I mention “good food” because we went to the local market the next day to find empty shelves with no meat and no vegetables, but only bread at the market. Food shortages, particularly meats, were apparently fairly common in Warsaw at that time. Zofia’s mother must have gone to some effort to obtain supplies for a good meal. Janusz had arranged for his niece and her boyfriend to take me around Warsaw and entertain me. They really wanted to treat me to a nice evening in Warsaw. We went to a few (3 to 4 bars) looking for beer, wine or mixed drinks. There was none to be had – we left all those places thirsty. Finally, we went into a place that had something – vodka (surprise!). We had a couple (or more – who knows – it’s been a long time ago). I describe all of this because I know that Warsaw doesn’t suffer from these sort of shortages now. Everything is there in abundance including bars, restaurants, hotels, skyscrapers, and apartment stores. But, in 1988, shortages were common. Janusz and I met with the Health authorities (sorry, I don’t remember titles or organizations). Janusz and I gave our presentations and then we met with them in a small conference rooms for an informal Q&A session. Everything went well, and the Polish scientists were friendly and seemed to be interested in our work. Janusz had additional meetings with Polish authorities and I was on my own. I toured Warsaw by myself, totally free with no trouble. Visited a very nice park, went around the Cultural Center, and toured downtown. The very heart of downtown is a plaza with very pretty, historic building around the plaza. When I was there, I only saw buildings that were covered in scaffolding. Warsaw was being re-built. We visited Janus’s old laboratory in Warsaw and chatted with some of his former coworkers. Janusz arranged to borrow a small car (see picture in the Gallery) and we traveled to the small town of Magdalenka in the southwestern suburbs of Warsaw. The Beer family had a very nice summer home in the country (again, see the picture in the Gallery). Janusz related that the family would stay there at times to get out of the city during the war. He showed me a road lined with trees, where he saw lines of Soviet tanks entering the Warsaw area. We also visited a cemetery on the outskirts of Magdalenka where Polish partriots were buried after being massacred by the Nazis. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/idcard.php?ModuleId=10006240 (see last paragraph in the above website) Janusz described how he was educated in secret. The Nazis did not allow children to be schooled at the higher grade levels and he had to be taught secretly at home and at the homes of friends. He also described the brutal treatment by Nazi soldiers. If anyone killed a Nazi soldier, they would round up everyone on that city block and execute all of them in retaliation. One of the most memorable events in Warsaw was a visit to a friend of Janusz’s in the city. We chatted and then were led downstairs to where there was an enormous printing press operation. I was suddenly in the midst of a Solidarity operation! WOW, here I was in a part of the underground that eventually brought down the Soviet Union. As you have surmised, there was no problem with Janusz getting out of Poland. He went to the airport with me, and I took off before him. Needless to say, he came back home to Rockville, MD safe and sound. Not long after my trip, Poland became a free, independent country again. A nice addition to this story is that Janusz, Zofia, Tom, and Kasia went back to Poland several times after this trip, and saw great changes in their former homeland. We will all miss Janusz. My best to Zofia, Tom, and Kasia.