Zbigniew L. Pankowicz: An appreciation

Abstract

In the sad passing of Zbigniew (Ziggy) Pankowicz, many will mourn the loss of a real pioneer in the field of machine trans lation. The world of MT today has moved well beyond the early-generation systems he fostered in his capacity as U.S. Government Technical Expert in matters MT. But wherever this world of MT takes itself, it will always, I think, remain in his debt. Ziggy was not a progenitor but he fos tered, encouraged, and funded many of the important activities of this field in the U.S., from the early sixties to the mid-seventies. He collaborated with everyone, from Leh mann in Texas to Vauquois in Grenoble. I've seen letters on his desk from the Bun dessprachenamt, from Tanke of Siemens, from the Leibniz committee regarding forthcoming meetings, and so on. His reach was impressive. And virtually the entire world of MT at one time or another paid Ziggy their respects at his humble back water office in the Rome Air Development Center in Rome, NY (not an easy place to get to!). It was a ritual act especially for anyone hoping for government funding. People came with proposals in hand, and Ziggy, donning his heavy black-rimmed glasses, with characteristic squint, would start thumbing the pages. If it looked inter esting, dinner would follow. If that went well, it would lead to after-dinner drinks and probably to nightcaps in the wee hours, trading war stories, MT gossip, and political jokes in about equal measure. Ziggy was a Polish nobleman, a young cavalry officer who led a charge against a machine gun emplacement and survived to fight in the underground, who wound up in both Auschwitz and Buchenwald and who in later life showed the tattoo on his arm with a strange lack of bitterness. He was in the full Kierkegaardian sense of the word a 'solitary man'. He lived alone and few truly knew him. All, however, respected him and enjoyed him and will surely remember him with the utmost fondness for his precise scholarly manner, his scrupulosity (he al ways paid for the dinner), his tireless supply of jokes, his basic decency. He was a man many will mourn, because without him the SYSTRANs, the METALs, the LOGOS' most probably would not be around today. Especially we at LOGOS. May God rest his soul!