Michal Borwicz

A pioneer of Holocaust studies in Polish, Yiddish, and French, Michal Maksymilian Borwicz was born Maksymilian Boruchowicz in Kraków. Before the war, he was known as a literary critic, poet, and novelist in the Polish language. From 1942 to 1943, he was incarcerated at the Janowska concentration camp on the outskirts of Lwów. He escaped hanging in 1943. Comrades from the Polish Socialist Party helped him escape from Janowska and he joined the Polish partisan resistance, commanding a unit of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) in Kraków, under the nom de guerre “Zygmunt.” After the war, Borwicz led the Jewish Historical Commission in Kraków until 1947, when he moved to Paris. There he directed the Centre d’étude de l’histoire des juifs polonais until his death.