pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen na ...
'' of Zuzanna Polina Gincburg (March 22, 1917 – January 1945) was a
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
-
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
of the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
. Although she published only a single collection of poetry in her lifetime, the book ''O centaurach'' (''On Centaurs'', 1936) created a sensation in Poland's literary circles. She was arrested and executed in
Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
shortly before the end of World War II.
Life
Zuzanna Ginczanka was born Zuzanna Polina Ginzburg ("Gincburg" in Polish phonetic respelling) in
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, then part of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. Her Jewish parents fled the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
, settling in 1922 in the predominantly
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
). Her father, Simon Ginzburg, was a lawyer by profession, with her mother Tsetsiliya ( Цецилия) Ginzburg, ''
née
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
'' Sandberg, a housewife. Ginczanka was holder of a
Nansen passport
Nansen passports, originally and officially stateless persons passports, were internationally recognized refugee travel documents from 1922 to 1938, first issued by the League of Nations's Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees to stateles ...
and despite efforts made to this end, she was unsuccessful in obtaining
Polish citizenship
Polish nationality law is based primarily on the principle of jus sanguinis. Children born to at least one Polish parent acquire Polish citizenship irrespective of place of birth. Besides other things, Polish citizenship entitles the person to a ...
before the outbreak of the
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
.''Współcześni polscy pisarze i badacze literatury: słownik biobibliograficzny'', ed. J. Czachowska & A. Szałagan, vol. 3 (GJ), Warsaw, Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1994, p. 46. , . Abandoned by her father, who after a divorce left for
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, and later by her mother, who after remarriage left for
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, she lived in the Równe home of her maternal grandmother, Klara Sandberg, by all accounts a wise and prudent woman who was responsible for her upbringing. The moderately affluent house of Klara Sandberg in the town's main street, with its ground-floor shop, was described by the writer
Jerzy Andrzejewski
Jerzy Andrzejewski (; 19 August 1909 – 19 April 1983) was a prolific Polish writer. His works confront controversial moral issues such as betrayal, the Jews and Auschwitz in the wartime. His novels, ''Ashes and Diamonds'' (about the immediate ...
, Ginczanka's contemporary who sought her acquaintance, and independently by the poet Jan Śpiewak, the town's fellow resident. She was called "Sana" by her closest friends. Between 1927 and 1935 she attended a state high school at Równe, the Państwowe Gimnazjum im. T. Kościuszki. In 1935 she moved to
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
to begin studies at
Warsaw University
The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...
Gazeta Wyborcza
''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...
'', 29 January 2002 (review of the book by Agata Araszkiewicz, ''Wypowiadam wam moje życie. Melancholia Zuzanny Ginczanki'' published by Fundacja OŚKA, Warsaw 2001).
Early period
Ginczanka spoke both
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, the choice of her emancipated parents, and the Polish of her friends, but did not know a word of Yiddish. Her longing to become a Polish poet caused her to choose the Polish language. According to Ginczanka's mother, she began composing verses at the age of 4, authoring a whole
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
at the age of 8. She published her first poems while still at school, debuting in 1931 at the age of 14 with the poem "Uczta wakacyjna" (A Vacation Feast) published in the bimonthly high-school newspaper ''Echa Szkolne'' edited by Czesław Janczarski. During this period of her life Ginczanka was also active as the author of song lyrics. Her "mainstream" debut in a nationwide forum took place in August 1933 in the pages of the ''Kuryer Literacko-Naukowy'', a Sunday supplement to the well-known '' Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny'', with the publication of the 16-line poem entitled "Żyzność sierpniowa" (Fertility in the Month of August; or perhaps, with greater poetic licence: Fullness of August). In the "Żyzność sierpniowa", the 16-year-old poet speaks with the voice of a mature woman looking wistfully back on the world of young people in the bloom of life, with its ripeness for love (hence the title), from the knowing and indulgent perspective of one whose life had come to fruition long before: the reader can be forgiven for thinking that the author of the verses before him is a person of advanced age. The last two lines, moreover, give voice to the catastrophic sonorities that will forever remain the signature trait of Ginczanka's poetry, often couched in sanguinary imagery as they are here:
Encouraged by
Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim (13 September 1894 – 27 December 1953), known also under the pseudonym "Oldlen" as a lyricist, was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, then part of the Russian Partition. He was educated in Łódź and in Warsaw where he studied la ...
to participate in the Young Poets' Competition (''Turniej Młodych Poetów'') organized the next spring by the '' Wiadomości Literackie'', the most important literary periodical in Poland at the time, she won an honourable mention (third class) with the poem "Gramatyka" (The Grammar), printed in the issue of 15 July 1934 of the weekly that was devoted in part to the results of the competition. She was 17 years old; most if not all of the other 22 finalists (like
Tadeusz Hollender
Tadeusz Hollender (30 May 1910 – 31 May 1943) was a Polish poet, translator and humorist. During World War II, he wrote satirical articles and poems in underground press, for that he was arrested by the German Gestapo and executed in May in the ...
, b. 1910, and
Anna Świrszczyńska
Anna Świrszczyńska (also known as Anna Swir) (1909–1984) was a Polish poet whose works deal with themes including her experiences during World War II, motherhood, the female body, and sensuality.
Biography
Świrszczyńska was born in Warsaw ...
, b. 1909, who won first prizes, or Witold Makowiecki, b. 1903, who won an honourable mention, first class, and
Juliusz Żuławski Juliusz Żuławski (7 October 1910 in Zakopane – 10 January 1999 in Warsaw) was a Polish poet, prose writer, literary critic and translator. He was an editor of ''Nowa Kultura'' (1950–1951), chairman of Polish PEN Club (during the years of 1978 ...
, b. 1910, honourable mention, third class) were her seniors in age. Seven weeks later, in its edition of 2 September 1934, ''Wiadomości Literackie'' will revisit its poetry competition by publishing a list of additional book prizes awarded to the winners: for her contribution, Zuzanna Ginczanka will receive a collection of
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...
's poetry in the translation of
Leopold Staff
Leopold Henryk Staff (November 14, 1878 – May 31, 1957) was a Polish poet; an artist of European modernism twice granted the Degree of Doctor honoris causa by universities in Warsaw and in Kraków. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize i ...
. Ginczanka's poem, which opens boldly with a
punctuation mark
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. A ...
(a
left parenthesis
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
), deals with
parts of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
, describing each in a poetic way beginning with the
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Tra ...
, then taking on the
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
, and ending with a philosophico-philological analysis of the
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
("''I'' without ''you'', ''you'' without ''me'', amounts to nought"; line 30)
To this period belongs likewise Ginczanka's poem "Zdrada" (Betrayal; though the word can also mean "treason") composed sometime in 1934.
Warsaw period
Upon her arrival in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
in September 1935, the 18-year-old Ginczanka, already notable, quickly became a "legendary figure" of the pre-War
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
world of artists of Warsaw as a ''
protégée
Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...
'' of
Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim (13 September 1894 – 27 December 1953), known also under the pseudonym "Oldlen" as a lyricist, was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, then part of the Russian Partition. He was educated in Łódź and in Warsaw where he studied la ...
, the
doyen
Doyen and doyenne (from the French word ''doyen'', ''doyenne'' in the feminine grammatical gender) is the senior ambassador by length of service in a particular country.
In the English language, the meaning of doyen (feminine form: doyenne) h ...
of the Polish poets at the time, a connection which opened for her the doors to all the most important literary periodicals, salons, and publishing houses of the country. (Her detractors bestowed on her the sobriquet of "Tuwim in a petticoat", ''Tuwim w spódnicy''; while Gombrowicz, known for inventing his own private names for all his acquaintances, monikered her "Gina".) High-calibre critics, such as Karol Wiktor Zawodziński, have traced aspects of Ginczanka's lyricism to the poetic achievement of Tuwim, deemed both indefinable and inimitable but concerning primarily the renewed focus on the word, its freshness, and the ultimate conciseness of expression respective of each particular poetic image or vision treated.
Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
Jarosław Leon Iwaszkiewicz, also known under his literary pseudonym Eleuter (20 February 1894 – 2 March 1980), was a Polish writer, poet, essayist, dramatist and translator.Bartłomiej Szleszyński, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. 2003 Culture.plJaros ...
for his part recalls that Ginczanka was "very good" as a poet from the first, without any initial period of incubation of the poetic talent, and conscious of her literary prowess kept herself apart from literary groupings, in particular wishing to distance herself publicly from the
Skamander
Skamander was a Polish group of experimental poets founded in 1918 by Julian Tuwim, Antoni Słonimski, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Kazimierz Wierzyński and Jan Lechoń. Initially unnamed, in December 1919 it adopted the name ''Skamander'', after ...
circle with which she would have normally been associated by others. Thus for example, her frequenting of the Mała Ziemiańska café, the renowned haunt of the Warsaw literati where with gracious ease she held court at the table of
Witold Gombrowicz
Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and playwright. His works are characterised by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and absurd, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937 he published his f ...
, was memorialized in her poem "Pochwała snobów" (In Praise of Snobs) published in the
satirical magazine
This is a list of satirical magazines which have a satirical bent, and which may consist of fake news stories for mainly humorous purposes.
List
See also
* List of satirists and satires
* List of satirical news websites
* List of satir ...
''
Szpilki
''Szpilki'' was a Polish satirical magazine. It was established in 1936 by a group of leftist literary people, including Eryk Lipiński, , and (chief editor).J. Łojek, J. Myśliński, W. Władyka, ''Dzieje prasy polskiej'', Warszawa 1988, p. 103 ...
Eryk Lipiński
Eryk Lipiński (; 12 July 1908, Kraków - 27 September 1991) was a Polish artist. Satirist, caricaturist, essayist, he has designed posters, written plays and sketches for cabarets, as well as written books on related subjects.
Biography
Eryk ...
, who will play an important role in salvaging her manuscripts after the War, will name his daughter Zuzanna in memory of Ginczanka. The other co-founder, Zbigniew Mitzner, will opine in his
memoirs
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...
that Ginczanka was tied to this particular weekly magazine by the closest bonds of all the alliances that she maintained with the literary press.) In testimony to her fame, she would sometimes be herself the subject of satirical poems and drawings published in literary periodicals, as for example in the 1937 Christmas issue of the '' Wiadomości Literackie'' where she is pictured in the collective cartoon representing the ''
crème de la crème
Crème de la crème (French, ''literally'' 'cream of the cream') is an idiom meaning "the best of the best", "superlative", or "the very best". It may also refer to:
* Creme de la Creme (band), a defunct German band
* '' La Crème de la crème'' ...
Ginczanka was a woman possessed of striking, arresting beauty "the beauty of a
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
", in the words of the slightly older writer Ryszard Matuszewski who remembered her visits to the Zodiak café in Warsaw many of her fellow writers remarking on her eyes in particular (each slightly different, both in some reports enhanced by a strabismus of Venus) and on the irresistibly attractive harmony between her nimble physical appearance and her personal psychology.
Jan Kott
Jan Kott (October 27, 1914 – December 22, 2001) was a Polish political activist, critic and theoretician of the theatre. A leading proponent of Stalinism in Poland for nearly a decade after the Soviet takeover, Kott renounced his Communist P ...
saw in fact a connection between her poetry, "which enthuses all", and her personal beauty: "there was something of a
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
''
qasida
The qaṣīda (also spelled ''qaṣīdah''; is originally an Arabic word , plural ''qaṣā’id'', ; that was passed to some other languages such as fa, قصیده or , ''chakameh'', and tr, kaside) is an ancient Arabic word and form of writin ...
'' in both", he wrote. (Her Italian translator, Alessandro Amenta, has recently taken this line of reasoning further, opining that for her admirers, her body has merged with her text.) For
Kazimierz Brandys
Kazimierz Brandys (27 October 1916 – 11 March 2000) was a Polish essayist and writer of film scripts.
Biography
Brandys was born in Łódź. He was the brother of the writer Marian Brandys and husband of the translator . He graduated in law f ...
, her peer in age, she was a "sacred apparition" with "the eyes of a fawn". The author
Adolf Rudnicki
Adolf Rudnicki, born Aron Hirschhorn (February 19, 1912, Żabno − November 14, 1990, Warsaw) was a Polish author and essayist, best known for his works about The Holocaust and the Jewish resistance in Poland during World War II.
Biography
He w ...
, casting for an apt expression to describe her, settled on "
Rose of Sharon
Rose of Sharon is a name that has been applied to several different species of flowering plants that are valued in different parts of the world. It is also a biblical expression, though the identity of the plant referred to is unclear and is dis ...
" (''Róża z Saronu''), a
trope
Trope or tropes may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept
* Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device
* Trope (music), any of a variety of different things ...
from the '' Song of Songs'', adding that the painter (identified by him only as "C.") for whom she sat in the nude (in the presence of her husband) confessed to him "to have never set his eyes on anything quite so beautiful in his life". Her portrait by the noted Polish painter Aleksander Rafałowski (18941980) a depiction ''en grande tenue'' is well known, and has been reproduced in the '' Wiadomości Literackie'' weekly in 1937. Ginczanka was admired by many for many reasons.
Czesław Miłosz
Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation ...
says that the writer Zbigniew Mitzner, co-founder of the magazine ''
Szpilki
''Szpilki'' was a Polish satirical magazine. It was established in 1936 by a group of leftist literary people, including Eryk Lipiński, , and (chief editor).J. Łojek, J. Myśliński, W. Władyka, ''Dzieje prasy polskiej'', Warszawa 1988, p. 103 ...
'', was romantically involved with her. She was known to repulse her suitors ''
en masse
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...
'', however, sometimes thereby as in the case of
Leon Pasternak
Leon Pasternak (1910-1969) was a Polish poet and satirist. His Jewish family came to Poland in the 1880s from the town of Tula, Russia, which was outside the Jewish Pale of Settlement, where Jews usually were not allowed to reside.
Pasternak was ...
earning their enmity which resulted in their publishing
pasquinade
A pasquinade or pasquil is a form of satire, usually an anonymous brief lampoon in verse or prose, and can also be seen as a form of literary caricature. The genre became popular in early modern Europe, in the 16th century, though the term had ...
s at her expense in revenge. For Stanisław Piętak, one of the most distinguished Polish poets of the
Interbellum period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relativel ...
, to meet her in the street was an experience akin to encountering a star break away from the heavens above and land straight on the pavement next to you. (There is evidence that while outwardly she received all the adulation with gracious warmth, the attention she generated weighed heavy on her mind; she reportedly confided in a female friend ( Maria Zenowicz), "I feel like a
Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
", ''
sc.
The abbreviation ''viz.'' (or ''viz'' without a full stop) is short for the Latin , which itself is a contraction of the Latin phrase ''videre licet'', meaning "it is permitted to see". It is used as a synonym for "namely", "that is to say", "to ...
'' a curio.) Only the poet Andrzej Nowicki was seen to enjoy her favour for a time, but even he was deemed by Tadeusz Wittlin to be a companion of convenience without relational entanglement.Tadeusz Wittlin, p. 241 (see
Bibliography
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...
). Ginczanka was seen as abstemious, of studiedly modest demeanour, and virtuous she didn't smoke or drink ("except for a few drops now and then under the duress of social propriety"): Wittlin calls her "Virtuous Zuzanna (''Cnotliwa Zuzanna'') in the literal 'i.e.'',_ecclesiastical.html"_;"title="i.e..html"_;"title="'i.e.">'i.e.'',_ecclesiastical">i.e..html"_;"title="'i.e.">'i.e.'',_ecclesiasticalsense".__This_perception_was_shared_by_others;_the_poet_:pl:Alicja_Iwańska.html" "title="i.e.">'i.e.'',_ecclesiastical.html" ;"title="i.e..html" ;"title="'i.e.">'i.e.'', ecclesiastical">i.e..html" ;"title="'i.e.">'i.e.'', ecclesiasticalsense". This perception was shared by others; the poet :pl:Alicja Iwańska">Alicja Iwańska
Alicja Iwańska (also known as Alicia Iwanska, 13 May 1918 – 26 September 1996) was a Polish sociologist, academic and writer. Born into the landed gentry of Poland, her family were members of the intelligentsia and encouraged Iwańska to pu ...
, whose literary journey largely coincided with Ginczanka's, remembers that despite the exquisite poetry she kept publishing in the best literary journals of the country and a personal beauty that had a dazzling effect on the onlookers, Ginczanka was often diffident, given to blushing, and stammered when put on the spot.
Józef Łobodowski
Józef Stanisław Łobodowski (19 March 1909 – 18 April 1988) was a Polish poet and political thinker.
His poetic works are broadly divided into two distinct phases: the earlier one, until about 1934, in which he was sometimes identified as ...
, perhaps the most serious contender for her hand between 1933 and 1938, dedicated to her several poems published in '' Wiadomości Literackie'' and later in the Polish
émigré
An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate".
French Huguenots
Many French Huguenots fled France followi ...
press, as well as devoting to her one of his last collections of poetry, ''Pamięci Sulamity'' ("In Remembrance of the
Shulamite
A Shulamite (or Shulammite) is a person from Shulem. The Hebrew Bible identifies as a Shulamite the swarthy, female protagonist in the Song of Songs (in the King James Version and in other Bibles called the Song of Solomon or the Canticle of Ca ...
Woman
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...
"; see
Bibliography
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...
), with a valuable autobiographical introduction. While the poet Jan Śpiewak, of all the Polish '' littérateurs'', could claim an acquaintance with Ginczanka extending over the longest period of time (having been a resident of Równe contemporaneously with her, as well as having shared her Jewish background and her status as a
Volhynia
Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. Th ...
n settler hailing from the lands of the former Russian Empire), it is the subsequent recollections of Łobodowski that will strike the most intimate note among all the reminiscences published after the
War
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
by those who knew Ginczanka personally, betraying an undying love and affection on his part carried over an entire lifetime.
With the kind of celebrity she enjoyed, her apartment in the ulica Szpitalna in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
(picture at right) was transformed into the premier literary salon of Poland on the occasions of her birthdays, name-days, etc.
Eryk Lipiński
Eryk Lipiński (; 12 July 1908, Kraków - 27 September 1991) was a Polish artist. Satirist, caricaturist, essayist, he has designed posters, written plays and sketches for cabarets, as well as written books on related subjects.
Biography
Eryk ...
reports that it is here that he saw the famed author
Witold Gombrowicz
Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and playwright. His works are characterised by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and absurd, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937 he published his f ...
in the flesh for the first time.
Publication
Although she published only a single collection of poetry in her lifetime, the book ''O centaurach'' ("About the Centaurs"), it created a sensation.Piotr Kuncewicz, ''Agonia i nadzieja'' (vol. 1 of ''Literatura polska od 1918''),
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, Polska Oficyna Wydawnicza BGW, 1993, p. 112. . She explained the title by pointing to the dual nature of the
centaur
A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse.
Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being ...
, a mythological creature that was part man, part horse here adopted as a
simile
A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors cr ...
for her poetical project of uniting in verse the disparate qualities of sagacity and
sensuality
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of Stimulus (physiology), stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the cen ...
, "tightly conjoined at the waist like a centaur". This is especially significant to the feminist literary theory as it presents a vision of what has traditionally been considered male and female elements fused together in art and life. To those who had not heard of Ginczanka before, the first exposure to her verses was often an awakening. The testimony of the poet Tadeusz Bocheński may be cited as a case in point, being the more valuable for having been expressed in a private letter and not intended for public consumption. Writing in February 1936 to the editor-in-chief of the literary monthly '' Kamena'', Kazimierz Andrzej Jaworski, Bocheński excoriates the well-known poets Tuwim and Pawlikowska while at the same time stating the following:
:Jastrun inspires interest, s doesGinczanka, otherwise unknown to me: I feel instinctively that we are dealing here with a deeper nature, with poetry of a higher pedigree (''rasowsza poezja''); who is she? where is this lady coming from?
One of the most distinguished modern Ukrainian poets and the one most hated by the Soviets, Yevhen Malanyuk (18971968), then living in exile in Warsaw, on being first introduced to Ginczanka's poetry by Julian Tuwim ran breathlessly into the editorial offices of the '' Biuletyn Polsko-Ukraiński'' with the news of the revelation from a new "excellent poetess". Ginczanka did not hesitate to lend her art to the furtherance of a social cause, as shown in her poem "Słowa na wiatr" (Words To the Four Winds), published in the '' Wiadomości Literackie'' in March 1937, whose message impugns the honesty of the country's authorities and industrial groupings in making promises to render assistance to those in need during the difficult winter period. Her voice here is mercilessly biting and derisive ("they count, and count, and lick their fingers, and count some more" ''
sc.
The abbreviation ''viz.'' (or ''viz'' without a full stop) is short for the Latin , which itself is a contraction of the Latin phrase ''videre licet'', meaning "it is permitted to see". It is used as a synonym for "namely", "that is to say", "to ...
'' the remaining winter pages in the tear-off calendar on the wall, and the money to be saved) as she accuses the potentates of stalling for time in the hope that the cold spell will pass and they will not have to make good on their pledges.
Radio dramas
Ginczanka wrote several
radio dramas
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
for the Polish national broadcaster, the Polskie Radjo. In July 1937 her programme ''Pod dachami Warszawy'' ("Under the Roofs of Warsaw"), authored jointly with Andrzej Nowicki, was broadcast. In March 1938 Polish press carried an announcement of another radio drama authored by Ginczanka jointly with Nowicki, ''Sensacje amerykańskie'' ("American Sensations"), on the theme of
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
's journey to America, broadcast by the Polskie Radjo.
Intimations of war
As observed by attentive readers such as Monika Warneńska, Ginczanka had prophetically foreseen the onset of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and the annihilation that it would bring with it, but expressed it all in poetic touches so delicate that their true import might have been missed before the event. Such is her poem entitled "Maj 1939" (May 1939) published on the first page of the '' Wiadomości Literackie'', the premier literary periodical in pre-War Poland, 61 days before the outbreak of the War, in July 1939. The poem is surrounded on all sides by the massive article by Edward Boyé analyzing the nature of the Italian Fascism, the only other piece printed on the page. Ginczanka's poem, deceptively insouciant almost ebullient in tone while it considers the uncertainty as to whether the Spring might pass under the shadow of war or alternatively under the spell of love, employs the
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
of the
fork in the road
Fork in the road may refer to:
* Fork (intersection), the point at which a road branches into two
* Fork in the road (metaphor), a metaphor for making a decision
Film and television
* ''A Fork in the Road'' (TV series), a 1992–2006 Australian ...
where either of the two divergent arms, though ostensibly very different and having the opposite direction "at odds" with the other, does in fact lead " to the last things" (''do spraw ostatecznych''; line 28). Thus, in a twist on Robert Frost'sfamous poem, it makes no difference ''here'' to take "the one less travelled by":
Invasion of Poland
Ginczanka left Warsaw in June 1939 to spend her summer vacations (as was her habit every year) with her grandmother in Równe Wołyńskie. Here she was caught by the outbreak of the Second World War occasioned by the
Invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
on Friday, 1 September 1939, and in reaction to this news decided to stay at Równe, a town which, being located on the Eastern Borderlands of Poland, was relatively sheltered from the hostilities of war. This circumstance changed dramatically just two weeks later with the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's attack on Poland from the East on 17 September, which brought Soviet rule to Równe (a town never to be returned to Poland again), and with it communist harassment and attacks targeting the "bourgeois elements" and the propertied classes in particular. The grandmother Klara Sandberg's ground-floor business (pharmacy store) in the town's main street was immediately expropriated, while their second-story living quarters were in large measure requisitioned for Soviet officials, squeezing the owners (including Ginczanka) into a single servant's room. These developments forced upon Ginczanka the decision to leave Równe to try to find accommodation in the much larger Polish city of
Lvov
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...
, situated 213 kilometres to the south-east and likewise occupied by the Soviet Union. Before departure, the grandmother packed all the family heirlooms and valuables like table silver into her luggage, both as a means of preserving her ownership of the movable property and to provide for Ginczanka's future dowry. In Lvov Ginczanka rented a flat in the apartment building in the ulicaJabłonowskich № 8a (pictured to the right), where her co-residents included
Karol Kuryluk
Karol Kuryluk (27 October 1910 – 9 December 1967) was a Polish journalist, editor, activist, politician and diplomat. In 2002, he was honored by Yad Vashem for saving Jews in the Holocaust.
Biography
Kuryluk was born on 27 October 1910 in Z ...
, and the writers
Władysław Bieńkowski Władysław is a Polish given male name, cognate with Vladislav. The feminine form is Władysława, archaic forms are Włodzisław (male) and Włodzisława (female), and Wladislaw is a variation. These names may refer to:
Famous people Mononym
*W ...
(19061991), Marian Eile (19101984), and Franciszek Gil (19171960).
During the years 19391942 Ginczanka lived in the city of Lvov in occupied Poland, working as an editor. She wrote a number of Soviet propaganda poems. She narrowly managed to avoid arrest by Ukrainian forces targeting Jewish population of the city, being shielded by her Nansen passport which, unfamiliar to them, impressed them sufficiently to spare her.Izolda Kiec, "Dzieje swarliwe i wielkie przyjdzie ci jeszcze przemierzyć"; in '' id.'', ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 149. .
Early in 1940, at the age of 22, she married in Lvov the Polish art historian Michał Weinzieher, her senior in age by 14 years (in some accounts, by 16 years), a move which she did not elect to explain to her friends. While officially married to Weinzieher, she carried on a contemporaneous relationship with an artist Janusz Woźniakowski, a young Polish
graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...
extremely devoted to her poetry. Woźniakowski helped her avoid detection after Nazi Germany's invasion of Lvov late in June 1941 and offered her general moral support. In the report of the writer Franciszek Gil (19171960) who lived in the same apartment building with Ginczanka, she became for Woźniakowski the sole reason for his existence. During this period Ginczanka was very active literarily, composing many new poems which, while unpublished, were read during small gatherings of friends. Most of the manuscripts with these works have perished, very few of them being recreated after the War from memory by those who had come to know them by heart.
With the invasion by Nazi Germany of the Eastern Borderlands of Poland on 22 June 1941, an area previously occupied since 17 September 1939 by the Soviet Union, the situation of the Jewish population once again changed dramatically for the worse, the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
being already in full swing at that time. In Równe, Ginczanka's grandmother and her closest relative in Poland, Klara Sandberg, was arrested by the Nazis and died of a heart attack induced by the horror of impending death while being transported to a place of execution at Zdołbunów, barely 17 kilometres away.Izolda Kiec, "Gdy oto pęka wiersz nie mogąc pomieścić grozy"; in '' id.'', ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 155. . In Lvov, the female concierge in the building where Ginczanka resided, resentful of having allocated space in her building to a refugee like Ginczanka in the first place, saw her opportunity to rid herself of the unwelcome tenant and at the same time to enrich herself. In the summer of 1942 she denounced Ginczanka to the Nazi authorities newly in power in town as a Jew hiding in her building on false papers. The Nazi police immediately made an attempt to arrest Ginczanka, but other residents of the building helped her avoid arrest by slipping out the back door, etc. On one single day the
Schupo
The or the ''Schupo'' was the State (Reich) protection police of Nazi Germany and a branch of the . ''Schutzpolizei'' is the German name for a uniformed police force. The was the uniformed police of most cities and large towns. State police d ...
made three separate raids on the building in an effort to arrest Ginczanka. They finally succeeded in capturing her. While a narrow brush with death, this arrest did not result in Ginczanka's execution as on this occasion she escaped from captivity. Sources differ as to the exact circumstances in which this happened. According to the court documents from the
post-War
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
trial of Zofja Chomin, as reported in the press ( see Aftermath below), she managed to give her captors a slip after having been brought to the police station but before being securely imprisoned; according to other sources, her friends managed to redeem her from Nazi hands by bribery. Whatever the details of this outcome, the incident led Ginczanka to the writing of her best known poem "Non omnis moriar" ( see insert).
Kraków period
In September 1942 Michał Weinzieher, Ginczanka's husband, decided to leave Lvov in order to escape the internment in the Lvov Ghetto. They moved to Kraków in the hope that the large city where he was unknown would provide him the anonymity necessary for survival on false papers.Izolda Kiec, "Nie zostawiłam tutaj żadnego dziedzica"; in '' id.'', ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 159. . His own younger brother had already been murdered two years earlier by the
Soviets
Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union.
Nationality policy in th ...
in the
Katyn Massacre
The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...
, and Weinzieher was literally running away from death. During his stay in Kraków with the Güntner family Weinzieher (unwisely for the times) continued to pursue his left-wing political activism and continued to maintain contacts with underground left-wing political parties. It is here, and in these circumstances, that he was joined a few months later by his wife, Zuzanna Ginczanka, whose false papers indicated that she was a person of Armenian nationality.Izolda Kiec, "Nie zostawiłam tutaj żadnego dziedzica"; in '' id.'', ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 160. . The few months that separated her and her husband's arrival in Kraków were spent by Ginczanka with Woźniakowski at his aunt's in
Felsztyn
Skelivka (; ; ) is a village in Lviv Oblast, Sambir Raion, Ukraine on the Strwiąż River. It belongs to Khyriv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine.
The village is located a few kilometers from the border with Poland, in the easter ...
, 97 kilometres to the south-west of Lvov, where Ginczanka was presented as Woźniakowski's fiancée. The false papers on which Ginczanka and Weinzieher travelled were provided in both cases by Janusz Woźniakowski.
In Kraków Ginczanka occupied a room next door to Weinzieher's, spending most of her time in bed. According to her hosts, Ginczanka used to say that "My creative juices flow from my laziness". Here her most frequent visitor was Janusz Woźniakowski, but she also maintained close contacts with the noted painter, Helena Cygańska-Walicka (19131989), the wife of the
art historian
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
Michał Walicki
Michał Marian Walicki (8 August 1904 in St. Petersburg – 22 August 1966 in Warsaw) was a Polish art historian and professor at the Warsaw University of Technology and School of Fine Arts (later Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw).
Life and work
F ...
, Anna Rawicz, and others. Because even on rare outings in the street Ginczanka was attracting the unwelcome attention of passers-by with her exotic beauty, she decided to change her hideaway by moving to the (then suburban) spa locality of Swoszowice on the southern outskirts of Kraków, where she joined up with a childhood friend of hers from Równe, Blumka Fradis, who was herself at the time hiding there from the Nazis.Izolda Kiec, "Nie zostawiłam tutaj żadnego dziedzica"; in '' id.'', ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 161. .
At the beginning of 1944, apparently as an entirely fortuitous mishap, Janusz Woźniakowski was arrested in a mass ''
łapanka
''Łapanka'' () was the Polish name for a World War II practice in German-occupied Poland, whereby the German SS, Wehrmacht and Gestapo rounded up civilians on the streets of Polish cities. The civilians to be arrested were in most cases chosen ...
'' or random round-up of Polish citizens in the street. The laundry receipt found on his person indicated the address of Ginczanka's ''old'' hideout, no longer occupied by her but a place where Woźniakowski continued to reside with Weinzieher. During a search of the premises, which a bloodied Woźniakowski was made to witness, Ginczanka's husband, Michał Weinzieher, was additionally arrested. On 6 April 1944 there appeared pasted on the walls of Kraków an announcement issued by the " Summary Tribunal of the
Security Police
Security police officers are employed by or for a governmental agency or corporations to provide security service security services to those properties.
Security police protect facilities, properties, personnel, users, visitors and enforce cer ...
" (''Standgericht der Sicherheitspolizei'') listing 112 names of people sentenced to death: the first 33 names were those on whom the sentence of death had ''already'' been carried out, the rest were those awaiting execution. Janusz Woźniakowski's name is the fifth on the list. Michał Weinzieher's is further down.
Arrest
Zuzanna Ginczanka frequently changed hiding places, the last one was in the apartment of Holocaust rescuer Elżbieta Mucharska; located at Mikołajska № 5 Street in the heart of
Kraków Old Town
Kraków Old Town is the historic central district of Kraków, Poland.Ingrid GustafsonLet's Go: Eastern EuropePublished by Macmillan, page 444. Let's Go Publications, 2008. It is one of the most famous old districts in Poland today and was the c ...
. The circumstances of Ginczanka's arrest were pondered upon by postwar memorist. The first account is that of Wincentyna Wodzinowska-Stopkowa (19151991), published in her 1989 memoir ''Portret artysty z żoną w tle'' ("A Portrait of the Artist with the Wife in the Background").Wincentyna Wodzinowska-Stopkowa, ''Portret artysty z żoną w tle'', Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1989. . The artist of the title is Andrzej Stopka (19041973; see Andrzej Stopka (pl)), Wodzinowska-Stopkowa's husband, Polish
scenographer
A scenographer or production designer, develops the appearance of a stage design, a TV or movie set, a gaming environment, a trade fair exhibition design or a museum experience exhibition design. The term originated in theater. A scenographer work ...
and painter, pp. 54–55, 258. ''Also in:'' Izolda Kiec, ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 161. . Ginczanka's hideout and the passwords used by her rescuers was intercepted by Gestapo from several clandestine messages intended to be smuggled out of prison ( pl, gryps), and addressed to them. The Stopkas, who were themselves incriminated by the clandestine messages in question, managed to get the Gestapo to leave without arresting them by bribing them with bottles of liquor and gold coins, "which disappeared into their pockets in a flash". As soon as the Gestapo were safely away Wodzinowska-Stopkowa rushed to Ginczanka's nearby hideout to forewarn her of imminent danger, only to be greeted at the door by a sobbing woman who directly said, "They took her already. She yelled, spat at them..." Wodzinowska-Stopkowa then ran breathlessly to the residences of all the other people named in the "kites" written by Woźniakowski, arriving in each case too late, after the arrests of the individuals concerned.
A separate account of Zuzanna Ginczanka's arrest was given orally to Professor Izolda Kiec of the
University of Poznań
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
46 years after the fact, in January 1991, by Jerzy Tomczak, grandson of Elżbieta Mucharska, Ginczanka's last hostess in Kraków mentioned in the preceding paragraph; it is included in her 1994 book ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'' ("Zuzanna Ginczanka: Life and Work"; see
Bibliography
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...
), to date the most serious book on Ginczanka a poet who is still awaiting a proper critical, academic biography. At the time of Ginczanka's arrest in the autumn of 1944 Tomczak was ten years' old and living in one room with Ginczanka for about a month or so.Izolda Kiec, "Nie zostawiłam tutaj żadnego dziedzica"; in '' id.'', ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 162. . He recalls that during her stay Ginczanka never left the premises even once for security reasons, and she would never open the door if she happened to be alone. The only visitor she received was a high-school friend of hers, "a blonde without Semitic features" (Blumka Fradis). Returning from school one day he was intercepted on the stairs by a neighbour who told him to back off: "''They'' are at your place...". He withdrew at this and went into the entryway of the apartment building across the street (pictured to the right). About half an hour later, from this vantage point, he observed Zuzanna Ginczanka and Blumka Fradis being escorted by the Gestapo out of his building. He comments: "I have no idea how they managed to track them down. I suspect a denunciation by a neighbour. There is no other possibility."
Notes from the prison cell
Izolda Kiec (b. 1965), the author of the 1994 book on Ginczanka, was able to track down a person who was in direct contact with Ginczanka ''after'' her last arrest in the autumn of 1944. This person is a woman named Krystyna Garlicka, the sister of the Polish writer Tadeusz Breza (19051970), who resided in 1992 in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. Krystyna Garlicka was apparently incarcerated at one point together with Ginczanka, in the same cell, and as a fellow-prisoner developed a rapport with her which made her privy to Ginczanka's confessions and much of her ultimate fate unknown to outsiders. According to Garlicka's report given to Kiec in 1992, 47 years after the fact, Ginczanka accepted her in prison because she was acquainted with her brother, Tadeusz Breza.Izolda Kiec, ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994, p. 163. . They slept together on a single straw mattress that was spread out on the floor for the night, a time when Garlicka would listen to Ginczanka's confessions. According to Garlicka, Ginczanka told her that her final arrest was due to a betrayal by her Kraków hostess, Elżbieta Mucharska, as she herself never left the house and "no one had any knowledge of her whereabouts". Ginczanka, who was at first detained in the notorious facility in the ulica Montelupich, was very afraid of torture (for which that prison was infamous), and to stave off attacks on her body she affected a particular concern for her hair, which she would repeatedly touch during interrogations to make small corrections to her locks, etc. This was noticed by the Gestapo interrogators, and when they came to torment her it was her hair that was selected for special treatment: she was dragged across the floor by the hair. Although she screamed in pain, she was never broken and never admitted to being Jewish. However, this was not the case with her friend (Blumka Fradis), who broke down: "perhaps she lacked the courage and the willpower of Ginczanka", Garlicka comments. Blumka Fradis made a confession which spelled the end of the investigations and "sealed the fate for both of them". Ginczanka was apparently hoping to be deported in the aftermath to the
Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp
, known for =
, location =
, coordinates =
, built by =
, operated by = Nazi Germany
, commandant = Amon Göth (until September 1944)Arnold Büscher (September 1944 – January 1945)
...
in the first instance, and thence to
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, resolved to overcome everything and survive. This however did not happen, as she was transferred to another prison in Kraków.
Place and date of death
There is no consensus among the published sources as to the exact place of Ginczanka's death. There ''is'' a broad consensus on the circumstance of her having been ''executed by firearm'', either by single firearm or by firing squad, in a ''prison'' located in the ''southern suburbs'' of Kraków. Many older sources identify the suburb in question as
Płaszów
Płaszów is a suburb of Kraków, Poland, now part of Podgórze district. Formerly a separate village, it became a part of the Greater Kraków in 1911 under the Austrian Partition of Poland as the 21st cadastral district of the city. During World ...
(administratively part of the municipality of Kraków since 1912, but colloquially referred to as a separate community) not to be confused with the Nazi concentration camp of the same name situated in the same locality: no claim has ever been made that Ginczanka was deported to ''any''
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
. Other sources identify the suburb in question to have been the neighbouring spa locality of Swoszowice (likewise today within the southern borders of Kraków municipality). More recently the prison courtyard of the infamous facility in the ulica Montelupich № 7 in Kraków has been pointed out as the place of her death. This identification, perhaps conjectural, would contradict the earlier sources, as the prison in question lies in the city ''centre'' and not on the southern confines of the metropolitan area. Finally, and perhaps most authoritatively, Izolda Kiec (see
Bibliography
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...
), a professor in the
University of Poznań
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
, basing her conclusions on unpublished written sources as well as on the numerous oral interviews with eyewitnesses and others directly connected with Ginczanka's life conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, indicates for the first time the courtyard of the prison facility located in the ulica Stefana Czarnieckiego № 3 in Kraków as the place of Ginczanka's martyrdom (see picture to the right). The latter identification does not contradict the earlier sources citing Płaszów, as ''both'' the Płaszów precinct ''and'' the ulica Czarnieckiego are located in the same southern Kraków district of
Podgórze
Podgórze is a district of Kraków, Poland, situated on the right (southern) bank of the Vistula River, at the foot of Lasota Hill. The district was subdivided in 1990 into six new districts, see present-day districts of Kraków for more details. ...
. Moreover, Kiec also states thereby possibly reconciling all the earlier sources that Ginczanka was indeed imprisoned at first in the Montelupich Prison, where her interrogation under torture took place, and only after that had been completed was she transferred to the (smaller) prison in the ulica Czarnieckiego, where she was murdered. Ginczanka was 27 years old.
Ginczanka's high-school friend, Blumka Fradis, was shot in the courtyard at Czarnieckiego 3 together with her.
Józef Łobodowski reports the privileged information he received in the 1980s from a source he does not reveal to the effect that Ginczanka's execution took place "just before" (''tuż przed'') the liberation of Kraków (a historical event dated to 18 January 1945) that is to say, in the first part of January 1945. Without specifying the 1945 date, Izolda Kiec says much the same thing ("a few days (''na kilka dni'') before the end of the war"). If the expressions "just before" and "a few days" were to be interpreted figuratively to mean "a short time" but not necessarily "a ''very'' short time", the date of Ginczanka's death could be pushed back to December 1944, but this procedure would involve stretching the literal meaning of the words of these two key witnesses. Wacław Iwaniuk, a personal acquaintance of Ginczanka, strongly corroborates our dating of Ginczanka's death: in an interview given in 1991, Iwaniuk states: "Ginczanka was murdered by the Gestapo in Kraków, ''probably on the last day of Kraków's occupation''" (''chyba w ostatnim dniu okupacji Krakowa'') '' i.e.'', on 17 January 1945.
In an article published in the ''
Gazeta Wyborcza
''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...
'' in December 2015, Ryszard Kotarba, the historian of the aforementioned
Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp
, known for =
, location =
, coordinates =
, built by =
, operated by = Nazi Germany
, commandant = Amon Göth (until September 1944)Arnold Büscher (September 1944 – January 1945)
...
, speculates however that Ginczanka might have been among the several prisoners brought to that camp by truck on 5 May 1944, most of whom were executed on the spot.
"Non omnis moriar"
Her single best known poem, written in 1942 and untitled, commonly referred to as "Non omnis moriar" from its opening words (Latin for "Not all of me will die", the ''
incipit
The incipit () of a text is the first few words of the text, employed as an identifying label. In a musical composition, an incipit is an initial sequence of notes, having the same purpose. The word ''incipit'' comes from Latin and means "it beg ...
'' of an ode by
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
), which incorporates the name of her purported betrayer within the text, is a
paraphrase
A paraphrase () is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. The term itself is derived via Latin ', . The act of paraphrasing is also called ''paraphrasis''.
History
Although paraphrases likely abounded in oral tra ...
of
Juliusz Słowacki
Juliusz Słowacki (; french: Jules Slowacki; 4 September 1809 – 3 April 1849) was a Polish Romantic poet. He is considered one of the "Three Bards" of Polish literature — a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of mode ...
's poem "
Testament mój
''Testament mój'' (variously translated as ''My Testament'', ''My Last Will'', ''The Testament of Mine'', ''My Will and Testament'' and likewise) is a poem written by Juliusz Słowacki, one of the Three Bards of Polish poetry, in Paris around 183 ...
" (The Testament of Mine). The "Non omnis moriar" was first published in the weekly periodical '' Odrodzenie'' of Kraków in 1946 at the initiative of
Julian Przyboś
Julian Przyboś (5 March 1901 – 6 October 1970) was a Polish poet, essayist and translator, one of the most important poets of the Kraków Avant-Garde.
Life
Przyboś was born in Gwoźnica near Strzyżów to a peasant family. From 1912, he ...
, a poet who had been one of the most distinguished members of the so-called Kraków Avant-garde ('' Awangarda Krakowska''). Przyboś appended a commentary entitled "Ostatni wiersz Ginczanki" (Ginczanka's Last Poem), saying in part:
:Hers is the most moving voice in Polish lyrical literature, for it deals with the most terrible tragedy of our time, the Jewish martyrdom. Only the poems of Jastrun, serving as they are as an epitaph on the sepulchre of millions, make a similar impression, but not even do they evince the same degree of bitterness, of irony, of virulence and power or convey the same brutal truth as does the testament of Ginczanka. I find its impact impossible to shake off. We read it for the first time pencilled on a torn and wrinkled piece of paper, like the secret messages that prisoners smuggle out of their dungeons. (…) The most despairing confessions, the most heartrending utterances of other poets before their death fall far below this proudest of all poetic testaments. This indictment of the human beast hurts like an unhealed wound. A shock therapy in verse.
The "Non omnis moriar" was highly esteemed by many others, including the poet Stanislaw Wygodzki, while another Polish poet,
Anna Kamieńska
Anna Kamieńska (12 April 1920 in Krasnystaw – 10 May 1986 in Warsaw) was a Polish poet, writer, translator and literary critic who wrote many books for children and adolescents.
Life
Kamieńska was born on 12 April 1920, in Krasnystaw. Her pa ...
, considered it to be one of the most beautiful poems in the Polish language. Scholars have uncovered textual parallels between "Non omnis moriar" and the '' Petit Testament'' of
François Villon
François Villon (Modern French: , ; – after 1463) is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of these ex ...
. However, perhaps the most significant aspect of the "Non omnis moriar" is its indictment of
Polish antisemitism
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
by a Jewish woman who wished more than anything else to become a Polish poet, and to be ''accepted'' as Polish (rather than as an "exotic Other"). In her entire ''oeuvre'' Ginczanka never espoused anything like a Jewish identity, her preoccupations with identity having been focused exclusively on her being a woman. It is the reference made in the "Non omnis moriar" to the "Jewish things" (''rzeczy żydowskie''; line 6) Ginczanka's personal effects that will now be
looted
Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...
collaborationism
Wartime collaboration is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime, and in the words of historian Gerhard Hirschfeld, "is as old as war and the occupation of foreign territory".
The term ''collaborator'' dates to t ...
Zuzanna Ginczanka's betrayer before the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, Zofja Chomin, and her son Marjan Chomin were arrested and tried in a court of law. Ginczanka's poem "Non omnis moriar" formed part of the evidence against them. (This is considered by many scholars to be the only instance in the annals of juridical history of a poem being entered in evidence in a criminal trial.) According to the article which appeared in the newspaper '' Express Wieczorny'' of 5 July 1948 (page 2), Zofja Chomin, the concierge in the building (in the ulica Jabłonowskich № 8a) where Ginczanka lived in Lwów, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for betraying Ginczanka's identity to the Nazis the poem "Non omnis moriar" again being cited in the writ of the sentence while her son was acquitted. Zofja Chomin's defence before the court were to be her words, intended to refute the charge of collaborationism: "I knew of only one little Jewess in hiding..." (''znałam tylko jedną żydóweczkę ukrywającą się...''). An account of these events is given in a study by Agnieszka Haska (see
Bibliography
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...
).
Remembrance
Despite the quality of her poetry, Ginczanka was ignored and forgotten in postwar
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
, as communist censors deemed her work to be undesirable. Renewed interest and recognition of her work emerged only after the collapse of communism.
She is the subject of a moving poem by
Sydor Rey
Sydor Rey born Izydor Reiss (6 September 1908 – 15 November 1979) was a Polish literature, Polish poet and novelist. During Polish culture in the Interbellum, the Interbellum he worked in the Korczak's orphanages, Jewish orphanage of Janusz Kor ...
, entitled "Smak słowa i śmierci" (The Taste of the Word and of Death) and published in 1967, which ends: "I will know at the furthermost confines , The taste of your death". Another poem in her honour is the composition "Zuzanna Ginczanka" by Dorota Chróścielewska (19481996).
In 1987, poet
Józef Łobodowski
Józef Stanisław Łobodowski (19 March 1909 – 18 April 1988) was a Polish poet and political thinker.
His poetic works are broadly divided into two distinct phases: the earlier one, until about 1934, in which he was sometimes identified as ...
published a collection of poems in memory of Ginczanka entitled ''Pamięci Sulamity''. In 1991, after
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
regained independence, a volume of her collected poems was published. Izolda Kiec published two books devoted to Ginczanka: a biography entitled ''Zuzanna Ginczanka. Życie i twórczość'' (Zuzanna Ginczanka. Life and Works) in 1994 and ''Ginczanka. Nie upilnuje mnie nikt'' in 2020.
In 2001, Agata Araszkiewicz, published a book ''Wypowiadam wam moje życie. Melancholia Zuzanny Ginczanki'' (I Am Expressing to You My Life: The Melancholy of Zuzanna Ginczanka).
In 2003, poet Maciej Woźniak, dedicated a poem to her in his collection of poems ''Obie strony światła'' (Both Sides of Light). In 2015, the Museum of Literature in Warsaw hosted an exhibition ''Tylko szczęście jest prawdziwym życiem'' (Only Happiness Is Real Life) devoted to the works of Ginczanka.
In 2017, on the centenary of Ginczanka's birth, a commemorative plaque was unveiled on a tenement house on Mikołajska Street in Kraków where she was in hiding during her stay in the city. The same year, Marek Kazmierski translated and published the first book of her work in English. In 2019, Jarosław Mikołajewski published a book ''Cień w cień. Za cieniem Zuzanny Ginczanki'' which deals with her life and literary legacy.
In 2021, Hanna Kubiak and Bernhard Hofstötter published the first German edition of works by Ginczanka.
Publications
* ''O centaurach'' (1936)
* ''Wiersze wybrane'' (1953)
* ''Zuzanna Ginczanka wiersze' (1980)
* "Non omnis moriar" (before 1990)
* ''Udźwignąć własne szczęście'' (1991)
* ''Krzątanina mglistych pozorów: wiersze wybrane = Un viavai di brumose apparenze: poesie scelte'' (2011; bilingual edition: text in Polish and Italian)
* ''Von Zentauren und weitere ausgewählte Gedichte'' (2021; German edition; ISBN 978-3347232334)
;Translation
*
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
, ''Wiersze'', translated into Polish by Zuzanna Ginczanka (1940)
;Antologies
* Sh. L. hemuʾel-LeybShnayderman, ''Between Fear and Hope'', tr. N. Guterman,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, Arco Publishing Co., 1947. (Includes an English translation of "Non omnis moriar", pp. 262263, perhaps the first publication of the poem, in any language, in book form. Important also for the background information on the situation of the Jews within the Polish society in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, shedding light on their situation before and during the War.)
* R. Matuszewski & S. Pollak, ''Poezja Polski Ludowej: antologia''.
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, Czytelnik, 1955. (Includes the original text of "Non omnis moriar", p. 397.)
* Ryszard Marek Groński, ''Od Stańczyka do STS-u: satyra polska lat 19441956'', Warsaw, Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1975. (Includes the original text of "Non omnis moriar", p. 9.)
* I. Maciejewska, ''Męczeństwo i zagłada Żydów w zapisach literatury polskiej''. Warsaw, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1988. . (Includes the original text of "Non omnis moriar", p. 147.)
* R. Matuszewski & S. Pollak, ''Poezja polska 19141939: antologia''. Warsaw, Czytelnik, 1962.
* ''Szczutek. Cyrulik Warszawski. Szpilki: 19191939'', comp. & ed. E. Lipiński, introd. W. Filler, Warsaw, Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1975. (Includes Ginczanka's poem "Słówka", p. 145.)
* ''Poezja polska okresu międzywojennego: antologia'', 2 vols., comp. & ed. M. Głowiński & J. Sławiński,
Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...
, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1987.
See also
*
Betrayal of Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...
*
Henryka Łazowertówna
Henryka Łazowertówna (; ''in full'' Henryka Wanda Łazowertówna); ''also'' Henryka Lazowert, or incorrectly Lazawert, (June 19, 1909, Warsaw – August 1942, Treblinka extermination camp) was a Polish lyric poet. While in general deeply pers ...
*
Polish culture during World War II
Polish culture during World War II was suppressed by the occupying powers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both of whom were hostile to Poland's people and cultural heritage. Policies aimed at cultural genocide resulted in the deaths of tho ...
Michał Głowiński
Michał Głowiński (born 4 November 1934, in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish philologist, historian and literary theorist specializing in the history of Polish literature. Głowiński is a professor of humanities and member of the Polish Academy ...
, "O liryce i satyrze Zuzanny Ginczanki", ''
Twórczość
''Twórczość'' (Creativity, or Creative Output) is a Polish monthly literary journal, first published in 1945. Since 1 April 2000, ''Twórczość'' has been published by the state-funded Book Institute (Instytut Książki).Jan Śpiewak (19081967), "Zuzanna: gawęda tragiczna"; in '' id.'', ''Przyjaźnie i animozje'', Warsaw, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1965, pages 167219.
*Jan Śpiewak, "Zuzanna"; in '' id.'', ''Pracowite zdziwienia: szkice poetyckie'', ed. A. Kamieńska, Warsaw, Czytelnik, 1971, pages 2649.
*
Józef Łobodowski
Józef Stanisław Łobodowski (19 March 1909 – 18 April 1988) was a Polish poet and political thinker.
His poetic works are broadly divided into two distinct phases: the earlier one, until about 1934, in which he was sometimes identified as ...
, ''Pamięci Sulamity'',
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, Polski Fundusz Wydawniczy w Kanadzie, 1987. (The introduction critiques, in part, Śpiewak's contribution "Zuzanna: gawęda tragiczna" (see above), pointing out inaccuracies in his text and his lapses of memory.)
* Aleksander Hertz, ''The Jews in Polish Culture'', tr. R. Lourie, ed. L. Dobroszycki, foreword by Cz. Miłosz, Evanston (Illinois), Northwestern University Press, 1988, page 128. . (1st Polish ed., Paris, 1961.)
* Tadeusz Wittlin, ''Ostatnia cyganeria'', Warsaw, Czytelnik, 1989, pages 241248. . (1st ed.,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, 1974. Recollections of a personal acquaintance of Ginczanka.)
* Natan Gross, ''Poeci i Szoa: obraz zagłady Żydów w poezji polskiej'',
Sosnowiec
Sosnowiec is an industrial city county in the Dąbrowa Basin of southern Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship, which is also part of the Silesian Metropolis municipal association.—— Located in the eastern part of the Upper Silesian Industria ...
, Offmax, 1993, pages 118 ff. .
* Izolda Kiec, ''Zuzanna Ginczanka: życie i twórczość'',
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Obserwator, 1994. .
*Mieczysław Inglot, "Non omnis moriar Zuzanny Ginczanki w kręgu konwencji literackiej"; in: ''Studia Historyczno-Demograficzne'', ed. T. Jurek & K. Matwijowski,
Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...
, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1996, pages 135146. (With a summary in German.)
*''Żydzi w Polsce: antologia literacka'', ed. H. Markiewicz, Cracow, Towarzystwo Autorów i Wydawców Prac Naukowych Universitas, 1997, page 416. . (Includes the original text of "Non omnis moriar".)
*Jadwiga Sawicka, ''Wołyń poetycki w przestrzeni kresowej'', Warsaw, DiG, 1999, '' passim''. .
*Rafael F. Scharf, "Literature in the Ghetto in the Polish Language: Z otchlaniFrom the Abyss"; in: ''Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust through Diaries and other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts'', ed. R. M. Shapiro, introd. R. R. Wisse, Hoboken (New Jersey), Ktav, 1999, page 39. .
* Agata Araszkiewicz, ''Wypowiadam wam moje życie: melancholia Zuzanny Ginczanki'', Warsaw, Fundacja Ośka, 2001. .
* Bożena Umińska, ''Postać z cieniem: portrety Żydówek w polskiej literaturze od końca XIX wieku do 1939 roku'', Warsaw, Sic!, 2001, pages 353 ff. .
*Ryszard Matuszewski (19142010), ''Alfabet: wybór z pamięci 90-latka'', Warsaw, Iskry, 2004, page 125. . (Recollections of a former personal acquaintance of Ginczanka.)
* Elzbieta Adamiak, "Von Schräubchen, Pfeilern und Brücken… Dichterinnen und Theologinnen mittel- und osteuropäischer Kontexte ins Wort gebracht"; in: ''Building Bridges in a Multifaceted Europe: Religious Origins, Traditions, Contexts and Identities...'', ed. S. Bieberstein, K. Buday & U. Rapp,
Louvain
Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic c ...
, Peeters, 2006, pages 924. , . (Includes a German translation of the poem "Non omnis moriar", p. 19. Together with "Non omnis moriar", the article considers two other poems, by
Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna
Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna (6 August 1892 – 16 February 1983) was a Polish poet, prose writer, playwright and translator. She was one of the most acclaimed and celebrated poets during Poland's interwar period.
Life and work
She was born o ...
and
Wisława Szymborska
Maria Wisława Anna SzymborskaVioletta Szosta gazeta.pl, 9 February 2012. ostęp 2012-02-11 (; 2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent ( ...
Polityka
''Polityka'' (, ''Politics'') is a centre-left weekly news magazine in Poland. With a circulation of 200,050 (as of April 2011), it was the country's biggest selling weekly, ahead of ''Newsweek''s Polish edition, ''Newsweek Polska'', and ''Wpr ...
'', No. 13 (2698), 28 March 2009, p. 63. See online
*Bożena Shallcross, ''Rzeczy i zagłada'', Cracow, Towarzystwo Autorów i Wydawców Prac Naukowych Universitas, 2010. , . (Includes the original text of "Non omnis moriar", p. 32; and an English summary of the entire book, pp. 207208.)
*Bożena Shallcross, ''The Holocaust Object in Polish and Polish-Jewish Culture'', Bloomington (Indiana), Indiana University Press, 2011, esp. pages 1350, and '' passim''. , . (Includes a translation of the poem "Non omnis moriar", pp. 3738, more accurate than the one given above, and a detailed, deconstructive analysis of the work.)
Further reading
* Agata Araszkiewicz ''Wypowiadam wam moje życie. Melancholia Zuzanny Ginczanki.'' (2001)
*Agnieszka Haska, "'Znałam tylko jedną żydóweczkę ukrywającą się…': sprawa Zofii i Mariana Chominów", ''Zagłada Żydów: Studia i Materiały'', No. 4, 2008, pages 392407.
* Izolda Kiec ''Zuzanna Ginczanka. Życie i twórczość.'' (1994)