World War II
After the outbreak of the Polish Defensive War of 1939 he was evacuated to Romania, where he headed a committee of relief for Polish war refugees. In January 1940 he moved to France, where he joined the Polish Army in exile and became a proponent of an Allied offensive in the Balkans. However, the German spring offensive and the fall of France made the plan moot and Kowalewski had to flee German-occupied France. Through Vichy France and Spain he reached Portugal, where he formed yet another committee of relief for war refugees. Initially based at Figueira da Foz, he soon moved to Lisbon, then a center of espionage and battleground for spies of all countries involved in World War II. There he made contact with his friend Jean Pangal (Ioan Pangal), a Romanian centrist politician and former Romanian envoy to Lisbon. Though dismissed by the end of 1941 by Romanian leader Ion Antonescu for his pro-Allied stance, Pangal remained in Lisbon and became a collaborator of Polish intelligence in Allied attempts to win over the Third Reich's allies - Hungary, Romania, Finland and Italy.
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