The Song of the Dying: To the History of Jewish Creativity under the Nazi Occupation

Michal Borwicz

1947

Among the illegal publications that appeared in Poland during the Nazi occupation, one can find a small anthology of poems entitled Z otchlani, from the Abyss. This modest volume, published by the clandestine Jewish National Committee, appeared in Warsaw in the spring of 1944. The microfilmed text was smuggled abroad. [ . . . ] On November 18, 1944…

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Creator Bio

Michal Borwicz

1911–1987

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.

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