Zdzislaw Karol Beltkiewicz

Born on November 28, 1939, in Stary Sambor, Poland (now Staryi Sambir, Ukraine), Zdzisław Karol Bełtkiewicz was the eldest child of Janina (née Orłowska) and Antoni Bełtkiewicz. His infancy was marked by war and occupation. Then, when he was five, his family was uprooted from their ancestral homeland and forced westward across the postwar Polish border.

His family settled in Jedlicze, a small town in Poland’s Subcarpathian region, where Zdzisław grew up. In 1969, after marrying Bożenna Malinowska and welcoming their daughter, he moved with his family to Białogard, a town near the Baltic Sea, to pursue a career in electronics at the Unitra-Unitech factory. Their son was born five years later. By 1980, Zdzisław had earned the respect of his colleagues and became a founding member and chairman of the factory’s Solidarity (NSZZ Solidarność) trade union committee, which advocated for workers’ rights and political freedoms.

When Poland’s communist government imposed martial law on December 13, 1981, in an attempt to suppress the movement, he helped to lead an occupation strike in defiance of the regime. In the early hours of December 15, government security forces stormed the factory and arrested the strikers. On Christmas Eve, Zdzisław was sentenced to several years in prison. Following an amnesty and his release in 1983, he continued to face surveillance, harassment, and exclusion from employment. To protect his family from further persecution, he made the painful decision to leave Poland and uproot his life once more, a choice he would later describe as a personal tragedy.

After seeking asylum in the United States, the family first settled in Idaho, where Zdzisław worked as a farm laborer and a cosmetics factory worker, before moving to the Polish Triangle in Dorchester, MA. Polonia was not Poland, but its familiar language, cultural traditions, and institutions connected him - and, importantly, his children - to the country he had left behind. He took whatever work he could to support his family, including jobs in electronics, audio-video repair, and as a janitor. His Catholic faith remained a constant source of comfort and continuity. Having once served as an altar boy in Poland, he continued to practice his faith at Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish in South Boston, where services were offered in his native Polish, and at the Holy Cross Cathedral, where he particularly enjoyed the traditional Latin Mass.

He also developed an unexpected love for Dorchester’s Vietnamese food, a love that somehow triumphed over his nonexistent tolerance for spice. A local Vietnamese restaurant became a go-to family destination, and after meals, he insisted on taking “digestion walks.” He loved any excuse to walk, whether for exercise or to simply connect with nature. At home, Zdzisław was a lifelong tinkerer, always taking apart, repairing, or building electronic gadgets. He was an equally devoted photographer, preserving graduations, holidays, marriages, birthdays, and the countless smaller moments that make up a family’s history on film - and even developing that film himself.

In addition to his parents, Zdzisław was predeceased by his brother, Tadeusz, and sister, Zofia. He is survived by his wife, Bożenna; his daughter, Anna, and her husband, Andrzej Kielasiński; his son, Wojciech; his granddaughter, Eva Kielasiński; his grandson, Peter Kielasiński; and his great-grandson, Adam Hain. He is also survived by his siblings, Jadwiga Wład, Stanisław, Jan, Maria, and Zygmunt, along with extended family and friends who will cherish his memory.

Family and friends will honor and remember Zdzislaw’s life by gathering for visiting hours in the Murphy Funeral Home, 1020 Dorchester Ave., Dorchester, on Tuesday morning, October 20, 2026, at 9:00 A.M. Followed by a Funeral mass in Our Lady of Czestochowa Church, 655 Dorchester Avenue, South Boston, at 11:00 A.M.

Burial will follow in Mt. Vernon Cemetery in Abington.