Tadeusz Borowski was a Polish writer and journalist. His wartime poetry and stories dealing with his experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz are recognized as classics of Polish literature and had much influence in Central European society.
Background
Tadeusz Borowski was born on November 12, 1922 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. In 1926, his father, whose bookstore had been nationalized by the communists, was sent to a camp in the Gulag system in Russian Karelia because he had been a member of a Polish military organization during World War I. In 1930, Borowski's mother was deported to a settlement on the shores of the Yenisey, in Siberia, during Collectivization. During this time Tadeusz lived with his aunt. In 1932, Borowski was repatriated from the USSR (Russia) to Poland due to the efforts of the Polish Red Cross. He settled in Warsaw with his brother Juliusz. Shortly after their return to Warsaw, Borowski's father was freed from the gulag after a prisoner exchange with a Polish communist. In 1934, Borowski's mother was released and returned to Poland.
Education
In 1940 Borowski finished his secondary schooling in a secret underground lyceum in Nazi-occupied Poland, and then began studies at the underground Warsaw University (Polish language and literature).
Career
Tadeusz worked as a night watchman in a warehouse. He also became involved in several underground newspapers and started to publish his poems and short novels in the monthly "Droga". It was during this period that he wrote most of his wartime poetry, and he clandestinely published his first collection, titled "Gdziekolwiek Ziemia" ("Wherever the Earth"). He was imprisoned in Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps from 1943 till 1945. Borowski was a political journalist and publicist in Germany from 1948 till 1951. He worked as a journalist, joined the Communist-controlled Polish Workers' Party in 1948 and wrote political tracts as well. In the summer of 1949 he was sent to work in the Press Section of the Polish Military Mission in Berlin.
Achievements
In 1950 Tadeusz received the National Literary Prize, Second Degree.
Tadeusz Borowski was a communist. He joined the Communist-controlled Polish Workers' Party in 1948 and wrote political tracts as well. At first believed that Communism was the only political force truly capable of preventing any future Auschwitz from happening.
Connections
Borowski married his fiancee Maria in December 1946. But in 1950 he entered into an extramarital affair with a young girl in Warsaw. His wife Maria had given birth to their daughter three days prior to his death.
Spouse:
Maria
Borowski was living with his fiancee Maria in Warsaw. After Maria did not return home one night in February 1943, Borowski began to suspect that she had been arrested. Maria survived the camps and emigrated to Sweden. She returned to Poland in late 1946, and they were married in December 1946.
