Mystery man’s gift to Lowitja
Polish migrant Waclaw Osinski didn’t know Indigenous leader Lowitja O’Donoghue – yet he still thought she’d be the best person to receive the assets of his $850,000 estate.
The assets include around $100,000 in cash to be given direct to O’Donoghue, and a set of four units in Croydon Park which have just been sold.
The money from the property sale (around $750,000) was to be held by the executors and O’Donoghue “to be used part to raise money and part to provide accommodation for Aboriginal student”, the will said. Just how that should be done has only just been finalised in the Supreme Court.
When Osinski died in October 2012, it was the first that O’Donoghue knew of the bequest from a man she had never met.
Osinski had asked his Croydon Park neighbour, Joe Wojcinski, to witness his will and be its executor back in 2007.
“He was a very private person; a passionate, caring and intelligent man with a lifelong concern for the rights of the downtrodden,” Wojcinski told InDaily this week.
“He decided late in life that he wanted to leave his estate to someone who could help the disadvantaged.
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“He had read about Lowitja in the newspaper and seen her on the TV; he kept newspaper cuttings about her.
“When we talked about it, the original plan was that the four units in Croydon Park would be used to provide cheap accommodation for Aboriginal students.
“But in the course of dealing with this, Lowitja suggested the Immanuel College program and how it had the ability to house and educate at the same time.”
Lawyers assisting Wojcinski and O’Donoghue established terms and objectives for “The Osinski-O’Donoghue Trust” and sought directions from the Supreme Court to approve the trust’s receipt of the proceeds of sale.
The trust will provide Indigenous students with accommodation as boarders at *Immanuel College, along with financial support and mentoring.
Settlement of the sale of the units is scheduled for Friday, concluding the Polish migrant’s final wishes.
“It’s been an interesting process and experience,” Joe Wojcinski told InDaily.
“I had known Mr Osinski since I was a kid; I used to walk past his place where he grew his own food in the front yard and the back yard.
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“Then he built those units, doing most of the work himself.
“He was an electrician and engineer who could turn his hand to plastering or whatever.
“If he didn’t know how to do it, he’d get a book to find out. He used to write off to Washington Library and Harvard Library asking for books he couldn’t get here.
“He had served in the Polish military and was very affected by the treatment of Jews and Romani Gypsies during the Second World War.
“He had no family here in Australia and never mentioned any family back home.
“He knew me and trusted me and it’s been very interesting to be involved in this process to make this trust happen.”
Joe Wojcinski has had little contact with Lowitja O’Donoghue.
“I didn’t think she’d want someone ringing her up all the time so we’ve dealt through the lawyers.
“The cash from the estate, the four bank accounts, went to her to do with as she thinks fit.”
The final cash assets included a Commonwealth Bank Term Deposit Account ($65,568), a Commonwealth Bank Pensioner Security Account ($981), a Community CPS Australia Retirement Account ($408) and a Community CPS Australia Investment Account ($23,895).
O’Donoghue’s office has not responded to queries regarding the estate.
*Immanuel College at Novar Gardens offers boarding scholarship to Indigenous students from remote and regional areas to study and board at the school. In 2013 there were 28 Indigenous students who held such scholarships at the school.
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