Zofia Posmysz, who wrote about life in concentration camps, dies at 98
His radio play, "The Passenger in Cabin 45", has become a novel translated into 15 languages, a film and an acclaimed opera.
Zofia Posmysz, who endured three years in concentration camps for associating with the Polish resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II, was subsequently acclaimed for her work on the Holocaust as a journalist, novelist, playwright and screenwriter, died August 8 in Oswiecim, Poland. She was 98 years old.
Her death, in the city where the remains of the Auschwitz concentration camp have been kept as a reminder of man's ability to make a unfathomable evil, was announced by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
Ms. Posmysz (pronounced POCE-mish) was born on August 23, 1923 in Krakow, Poland to a Roman Catholic family. She was arrested by the Gestapo in May 1942 for associating with fellow students at an underground university who distributed anti-Nazi leaflets. She was taken to Auschwitz, where some 1.1 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, would perish.
She survived the brutality at Auschwitz, but was later assigned to work in the camp kitchen and storeroom. In mid-January 1945, she was transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp and its annex Neustadt Glewe, from which she was released on May 2.
Along with 20 other women, she returned to Krakow and lived for many years in Warsaw, where she had an older sister.
Her writing career began when she was hired as journalist and editor. She did not seek a byline for her first article, an account of the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany. Instead, she signed with her Auschwitz ID number: 7566.
Ms. Posmysz began writing for Polish radio in the early 1950s. On a mission to Paris in 1959, she wandered Place de la Concorde among tourists, many of whom spoke German.
"Suddenly someone appears behind me", recalled long after on "Stories From the Eastern West", a Polish podcast. “It was the voice of my overseer. Since all this time, she leads a peaceful life in Paris. She soon realized that the woman was not, in fact, her former guard at Auschwitz, but that moment "just wouldn't leave me alone", she recalled.
It gave birth to his best-known work, "The Passenger in Cabin 45", later titled "The Passenger". It was released as a radio play in 1959, a novel published in 1962 which has been translated into 15 languages, a film, in which she collaborated on the screenplay with the director, Andrzej Munk, and an opera.
< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The opera was composed by Polish-born Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who was Jewish and had lost his parents and a sister in the Holocaust, while the libretto was written by Alexander Medvedev, a Russian. It was designed in the Soviet Union and completed in 1968; Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich praised the opera, but it was banned by the Soviets.The opera reverses the moment in Paris when Ms. Posmysz thought she had bumped into her former Auschwitz guard. He tells Liese, ...
His radio play, "The Passenger in Cabin 45", has become a novel translated into 15 languages, a film and an acclaimed opera.
Zofia Posmysz, who endured three years in concentration camps for associating with the Polish resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II, was subsequently acclaimed for her work on the Holocaust as a journalist, novelist, playwright and screenwriter, died August 8 in Oswiecim, Poland. She was 98 years old.
Her death, in the city where the remains of the Auschwitz concentration camp have been kept as a reminder of man's ability to make a unfathomable evil, was announced by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
Ms. Posmysz (pronounced POCE-mish) was born on August 23, 1923 in Krakow, Poland to a Roman Catholic family. She was arrested by the Gestapo in May 1942 for associating with fellow students at an underground university who distributed anti-Nazi leaflets. She was taken to Auschwitz, where some 1.1 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, would perish.
She survived the brutality at Auschwitz, but was later assigned to work in the camp kitchen and storeroom. In mid-January 1945, she was transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp and its annex Neustadt Glewe, from which she was released on May 2.
Along with 20 other women, she returned to Krakow and lived for many years in Warsaw, where she had an older sister.
Her writing career began when she was hired as journalist and editor. She did not seek a byline for her first article, an account of the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany. Instead, she signed with her Auschwitz ID number: 7566.
Ms. Posmysz began writing for Polish radio in the early 1950s. On a mission to Paris in 1959, she wandered Place de la Concorde among tourists, many of whom spoke German.
"Suddenly someone appears behind me", recalled long after on "Stories From the Eastern West", a Polish podcast. “It was the voice of my overseer. Since all this time, she leads a peaceful life in Paris. She soon realized that the woman was not, in fact, her former guard at Auschwitz, but that moment "just wouldn't leave me alone", she recalled.
It gave birth to his best-known work, "The Passenger in Cabin 45", later titled "The Passenger". It was released as a radio play in 1959, a novel published in 1962 which has been translated into 15 languages, a film, in which she collaborated on the screenplay with the director, Andrzej Munk, and an opera.
< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The opera was composed by Polish-born Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who was Jewish and had lost his parents and a sister in the Holocaust, while the libretto was written by Alexander Medvedev, a Russian. It was designed in the Soviet Union and completed in 1968; Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich praised the opera, but it was banned by the Soviets.The opera reverses the moment in Paris when Ms. Posmysz thought she had bumped into her former Auschwitz guard. He tells Liese, ...
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