Spies in My Blood – Two Meetings with Alex Storozynski in Washington DC
Spies in My Blood Alex Storozynski Event
The Spies in My Blood Alex Storozynski Event, hosted by the Kosciuszko Foundation Washington DC, brought audiences together for two captivating evenings with the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Spies in My Blood: Secrets of a Polish Family’s Fight Against Nazis and Communists.
The first evening of the Spies in My Blood Alex Storozynski Event took place on September 16, 2025, at the International Spy Museum, organized in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland and the Kosciuszko Foundation Washington DC. The following evening, September 17, guests gathered at the Foundation’s Washington office for a more intimate conversation, where Storozynski shared personal reflections and stories that inspired his acclaimed memoir.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Storozynski was raised by soldiers, spies, and assassins. Despite his mother’s pleas to keep their secrets, he uncovered the truth when he ventured behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.
Growing up in a family of World War II exiles in New York City, Alex and his older brother George knew that their father fought in the Allied invasion of Normandy, and that their mother was forced by the Germans to work in a Nazi slave labor camp. In 1985, after graduating from Columbia University’s Journalism School, Alex traveled to Warsaw, Poland. There, he interviewed the Communist government’s propaganda minister, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, as well as rock stars, filmmakers, and artists. His presence drew suspicion—he was surveilled and questioned by the secret police, who labeled him an “enemy of the state.”
Back in New York, with a successful journalism career underway, Alex delved into military archives, family correspondence, and artifacts. He uncovered that in the 1930s, his paternal grandfather ran a spy ring that used chimney sweeps to gather intelligence on Russian agents involved in mass murders against Poles and Ukrainians. His father was also a spy during WWII. Additionally, Alex discovered that his maternal grandfather was a tank commander who assassinated German officers in brothels the night before battles during the Allied invasion of Italy.
When the Berlin Wall fell, easing the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe, Alex obtained secret dossiers revealing that the Communist secret police assigned him and his brother the codenames “Rocky and Nemo.” On his deathbed, George confessed that he had also been part of the family intelligence network and worked for the CIA, undertaking one of the Cold War’s most perilous missions.
This extraordinary story is detailed in the memoir, “Spies In My Blood: Secrets of a Polish Family’s Fight Against Nazis and Communists,” available on Amazon.com.
The Spies in My Blood Alex Storozynski Event reflected the Kosciuszko Foundation’s continued efforts to honor Polish-American contributions and preserve shared history through culture, scholarship, and storytelling.
Learn more about upcoming literary and cultural programs on the Kosciuszko Foundation Events page.
