Leon Birkholc won a bronze medal in coxed fours at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, the first ever Olympic medal won by Poland in rowing. Birkholc graduated from business school in 1921 and then worked as a bookkeeper and cashier for several years. He later became an executive in the banking industry. In late September 1939 he was taken prisoner by the Nazis, and held in a POW camp in Radom, but for only a few days. After the war he returned to banking for a short time but in 1948 became a production manager in a glass factory.
In 1960 Birkholc joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, taking permanent vows in 1964. He died only a few years later, the result of a motorcycle accident in 1968. In 1978 he was posthumously awarded the Medal of the 100th Anniversary of the Polish Rowing.
Poland