Knowing Baczyński’s Jewish roots can help us better understand his writings
Kashistof Kamil Baczyński.
The Jewish Independent — 22 June 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Mati Shemoelof speaks with Dr Michał Laszczkowski, a Polish cultural heritage activist who has worked to uncover and preserve the Jewish history of Warsaw and the Jewish roots of Polish poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński.
Baczyński, one of Poland’s most celebrated poets, was killed by the Nazis at the age of 23 during the Warsaw Uprising. His Jewish family background is less widely known. Laszczkowski discovered the tombstones of Baczyński’s Jewish grandparents in Warsaw’s Okopowa Jewish Cemetery and has worked to bring this part of the poet’s history into public awareness.
The conversation explores how knowing Baczyński’s Jewish background can change the way his poetry and Polish cultural history are understood. It also looks at the importance of Warsaw’s Jewish cemetery as a place of memory and as one of the surviving traces of Jewish life in a city largely destroyed during the Second World War.
Published in: The Jewish Independent
Published: 22 June 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Keywords:
Mati Shemoelof, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, Jewish roots, Polish poetry, Warsaw Jewish cemetery, Michał Laszczkowski, The Jewish Independent