Ms Juniewicz, a resident of the southern Polish city of Gliwice, is also the second oldest person in the entire world, following the recent death of Kane Tanaki from Japan.
A week before her birthday, Tekla Juniewicz was visited at her home by Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The PM later wrote on Twitter: “As ever full of joy and energy. May you live another 100 years!”
Tekla Juniewicz was born in Krupsk, near Lviv in today’s Ukraine, on June 10, 1906.
She remembers the time when Poland was partitioned between three neighbouring powers: Russia, Austria and Prussia. Ms Juniewicz was 12 when Poland regained independence in 1918.
At the age of 21, she married Jan Juniewicz, 22 years her senior, and they moved to Borislav (present-day Ukraine), where her husband worked in the crude-oil industry.
After World War II, the Juniewicz family was repatriated from what was then a Soviet territory to Gliwice. They had two daughters.
Tekla Juniewicz has five grandchildren, four great grandchildren and four great great grandchildren. Her youngest great great granddaughter, Iga, was born a year ago, on Ms Juniewicz’s 115th birthday.
(mk/pm)
Source: gerontology.fandom.com, o2.pl