Background
Różycki was born in what is now Ukraine, the fourth and youngest child of Zygmunt Różycki, a pharmacist and graduate of Saint St. Petersburg University, and Wanda, née Benita.
Różycki was born in what is now Ukraine, the fourth and youngest child of Zygmunt Różycki, a pharmacist and graduate of Saint St. Petersburg University, and Wanda, née Benita.
He attended a Polish school in Kiev before moving with his family to Poland in 1918. In 1926 he completed secondary school at Wyszków on eastern Poland"s Bug River. Różycki studied mathematics 1927–1932 in western Poland, at Poznań University"s Mathematics Institute, graduating with a master"s degree February 19, 1932.
He would later earn a second master"s degree from Poznań University, in geography, on December 13, 1937. In 1929, while still a student, Różycki, proficient in German, was one of twenty-odd Poznań University mathematics students who accepted an invitation to attend a secret cryptology course organized at a nearby military installation by the Polish General Staff"s Cipher Bureau, headquartered in Warsaw. From September 1932 Różycki served as a civilian cryptologist with the Polish General Staff"s Cipher Bureau, housed till 1937 in Warsaw"s Saxon Palace.
He worked there together with fellow Poznań University mathematics alumni and Cipher Bureau cryptology-course graduates Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski.
After Rejewski had reconstructed the German military Enigma machine in December 1932, Różycki and Zygalski likewise worked at ongoing development of methods and equipment to exploit Enigma decryption as a source of intelligence. Różycki invented the "clock" method, which sometimes made it possible to determine which of the machine"s rotors was at the far right, that is, in the position where the rotor always revolved at every depression of a key.
Różycki perished in the Mediterranean Sea on January 9, 1942, while returning to the Cadix center, near Uzès in southern, Vichy France, from a stint at its branch office at the Château Couba on the outskirst of Algiers. His passenger ship, the Lamoricière, sank in unclear circumstances near the Balearic Islands.
Fellow victims of the disaster, among the 222 passengers killed, included Piotr Smoleński and Captain
January Graliński, of the prewar Cipher Bureau"s Russian section, and a French officer accompanying the three Poles, Captain François Lane.
In 1938, aged 29, Różycki had married Maria Barbara Mayka.