Ewa Rozecka-Pollard (61), owner of Fletcher Lodge, said Mr Kaczynski (60), an identical twin, lived in a nice part of Warsaw in the 1950s.
She saw the "cute twins" playing, knew them by sight, but not personally.
She recalled the twins gained fame as child actors, in the Polish film The Two Who Stole the Moon.
She attended the same university, Warsaw, as the president, where they both studied law, but in different years.
Mrs Rozecka-Pollard said that as a child of a resistance member, she knew not to discuss certain things outside the immediate family, including the fact her family listened to the BBC.
The Polish Heritage of Otago and Southland Charitable Trust is organising a commemorative Mass at Dunedin's St Joseph's Cathedral at 6pm tomorrow for the 96 victims of the crash.
As well as the President, the crash claimed the lives of top-ranking Polish officials, politicians, and intellectuals.
The Polish delegation was flying to western Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the killing of thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals at Katyn forest by Soviet secret police during World War 2.
Mrs Rozecka-Pollard, whose grandfather was one of the Polish officers killed, said she had great respect for Mr Kaczynski.
As leader, he was a man of principle.
Regardless of whether people agreed with his right-leaning politics, Mr Kaczynski was respected as an "honest and straight person", she said.
Only in recent years were her family able to add an acknowledgement of her grandfather's death to her grandmother's gravestone, because of the Russian denial of the massacre throughout the communist years.
Cecylia Klobukowska (55), who teaches commerce at Dunedin's Columba College, said she taught economics in the early 1980s at Gdansk University, where Mr Kaczynski taught law.
She did not know Mr Kaczynski.
He represented her generation of Poles born under communism who lived through the repression-turned-reform era, Mrs Klobukowska said,Sadly, the group instrumental in ensuring the horrors of Katyn were exposed, such as historians and family members, were on the aeroplane too, she said.
Dunedin Poles had had direct contact with three of those who died.
Mr Kaczynski awarded one of Poland's top honours, the Gold Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland, to five founding members of the Polish Heritage of Otago and Southland Charitable Trust in 2008.
The same year, Reserve Bank of Poland Governor Slawomir Skrzypek gave Dunedin a set of commemorative coins depicting Joseph Conrad's ship Otago.
Last September, Mrs Rozecka-Pollard was granted a personal audience with Mr Skrzypek, where she presented him with artwork depicting Otago.
Later, the trust received a letter from under-secretary of state Mariusz Handzlik, thanking the trust for the prints on behalf of Mr Kaczynski.
Trust secretary Russell Chiles, whose ancestors emigrated to New Zealand in the 1870s, said he was honoured Mayor Peter Chin was writing a tribute to be read at tomorrow's service, which Mr Chin was unable to attend.
The city would also fly the Polish flag at half-mast for two days, tomorrow and Saturday.
Governor-General Anand Satyanand will represent New Zealand at the state funeral of Mr Kaczynski and his wife Maria, the Government announced yesterday.
