Born: August 10 1889, Kosmin, Russian partition of Poland (presently Poland)
Died: April 9, 1968, Bielsko-Biala, Poland
Early days. Father Tadeusz Kossak, mother_Anna Kisielnicka; grandfather-Juliusz Kossak a renown painter. Zofia’s cousins: well known satirical writer Magdalena Samozwaniec and a poet Marii Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska . Initially she got home schooling and in 1906 she worked as a teacher in Warsaw. During the years 1912-1913 she studied painting in the cademy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and then drawing in the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva.
Writer and activist. In 1915 she married Stefan Szczucki and they lived in Nowosielica in Volhynia (presently Ukraine. In 1916 she he has born a son Juliusz and in 1917 another son- Tadeusz. She and her family survived bloody paesant rebellion and bolshevik invasion. Her memoirs from this time published in 1922 under the title „Pozoga” (Conflagration) were her literary debut. In 1923 after the death of her husband she moved with her sons to her parents and settled in village of Górki Wielkie near Cieszyn, Poland.. In 1925 she married Zygmunt Szatkowski. W 1926 she gave birth to her third son Witold and in 1928 a daughter Anna. She was associated with the Czartak literary group, and wrote mainly for the Catholic press. Her best-known work from that period is Conflagration, a memoir of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Kossak-Szczucka's historical novels include Beatum scelus (1924), Złota wolność (Golden Liberty, 1928), Legnickie pole (The Field of Legnica, 1930), Trembowla (1939), Suknia Dejaniry (Dejanira's Gown, 1939). Best known are Krzyżowcy (Crusaders, 1935), Król trędowaty (The Leper King, 1936), and Bez oręża (Blessed are The Meek, 1937) dealing with the Crusades and later Francis of Assisi, translated into several languages. She also wrote Z miłości (From Love, 1926) and Szaleńcy boży (God's Madmen, 1929), on religious themes. During the German occupation of Poland, she worked in the underground press: from 1939 to 1941 she co-edited the underground newspaper, Polska żyje (Poland Lives). In 1941 she co-founded the Catholic organization, Front Odrodzenia Polski (Front for the Rebirth of Poland), and edited its newspaper, Prawda (The Truth). In the underground, she used the code-name Weronika.
"Protest." In the summer of 1942, when the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto began, Kossak-Szczucka published a leaflet entitled "Protest," which was printed in 5,000 copies. In the leaflet she described in graphic terms the conditions in the Ghetto, and the horrific circumstances of the deportations then taking place. "All will perish ... Poor and rich, old, women, men, youngsters, infants, Catholics dying with the name of Jesus and Mary together with Jews. Their only guilt is that they were born into the Jewish nation condemned to extermination by Hitler." The world, Kossak-Szczucka wrote, was silent in the face of this atrocity. "England is silent, so is America, even the influential international Jewry, so sensitive in its reaction to any transgression against its people, is silent. Poland is silent... Dying Jews are surrounded only by a host of Pilates washing their hands in innocence." Those who are silent in the face of murder, she wrote, become accomplices to the crime. Kossak-Szczucka saw this largely as an issue of religious ethics. "Our feelings toward Jews have not changed," she wrote referring to her prewar anti-Semitic articles. "We do not stop thinking of them as political, economic and ideological enemies of Poland." But, she wrote, this does not relieve Polish Catholics of their duty to oppose the crimes being committed in their country. "We are required by God to protest", she wrote. "God who forbids us to kill. We are required by our Christian consciousness. Every human being has the right to be loved by his fellow men. The blood of the defenseless cries to heaven for revenge. Those who oppose our protest, are not Catholics." "We do not believe that Poland can benefit from German cruelties," she wrote. "On the contrary... We know how poisoned is the fruit of the crime... Those who do not understand this, and believe that a proud and free future for Poland can be combined with acceptance of the grief of their fellow men, are neither Catholics nor Poles." She co-founded the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews (Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom), which later turned into Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Żydom), codenamed Żegota, an underground organization whose sole purpose was to save Jews in Poland from Nazi extermination. Regarding Kossak-Szczucka's Protest (1942), Robert D. Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska wrote in the introduction to Rethinking Poles and Jews: "Without at all whitewashing her antisemitism in the document, she vehemently called for active intercession on behalf of the Jews - precisely in the name of Polish Roman Catholicism and Polish patriotism. The deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto precipitated her cofounding of Żegota that same year - an Armia Krajowa (AK, Home Army) unit whose sole purpose was to save Jews."
My comments. Kossak-Szczucka failed to realize that her pre-war virulently anti-Semitic articles influenced the WWII behavior of many people. How? Indifference which she condemned in her Protest.
Later career. "To Zofia Kossak, the renowned Polish Catholic writer, a woman of great generosity and courage. Placed by her fellow citizens, 1981" (Memorial tablet on the outside of All Saints Parish Church in Górki Wielkie). In 1943 Kossak-Szczucka was arrested, but the Germans did not realize who she was. She was sent first to the prison at Pawiak and then to Auschwitz, where she was held in the concentration-camp, not the adjacent extermination camp (Birkenau) where Jews were sent. She was released through the efforts of the Polish underground and returned to Warsaw. In late 1944 she participated in the Warsaw Uprising. At the end of World War II, a communist regime began to establish itself in Poland under Soviet supremacy. In June 1945 Kossak was called in by Jakub Berman, the new Polish Minister of the Interior, who was Jewish. He strongly advised her to leave the country immediately for her own protection, knowing what his government would do to political enemies, and also knowing from his brother, Adolf Berman, what Kossak had done to save Jewish lives. So he possibly saved her life. Kossak escaped to the West, but returned to Poland in 1957, after the end of the Stalinist period. Kossak-Szczucka published Z otchłani: Wspomnienia z lagru (From the Abyss: Memories from the Camp, 1946), describing her experiences in Auschwitz. Dziedzictwo (1956–67) is about the Kossak family. Przymierze (Alliance, 1952) has biblical themes. Kossak-Szczucka also wrote books for children and teenagers, including Bursztyn (1936) and Gród nad jeziorem (Castle at the Lake, 1938). In 2009, the National Bank of Poland issued a coin posthumously commemorating the work of Kossak, Irena Sendler and Matylda Getter in helping Jews (see Żegota). Zofia's daughter, Anna Szatkowska, who lives in Switzerland, has written a book about her experience during the Warsaw Uprising.
Awards. 1932: literary prize of Silesia voivodshaft; 1936: Golden Academic Laurel of Polish Academy of Literature; 1937: Officer Cross of the Order Polonia Restituta; 1968: Museum named after her created in Gorki Wielkie; 1985: posthumously awarded Righteous Among the Nations title; 2002: Documentary film W góreckim domku ogrodnika; 2006: Documentary film W cieniu zapomnienia; 2009: the National Bank of Poland issued a coin posthumously commemorating the work of Kossak, Irena Sendler and Matylda Getter in helping Jews.
This article uses mostly material from the Wikipedia article "Zofia_Kossak_Szczucka." Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply:
Wikipedia
Other sources:
Wikipedia in Polish
English translations of some of her works:
Constance J. Ostrowski
Return to home page:
Prominent Poles
Published on 11/30/2014
