Zofia Posmysz

(1923‒2022) – a Polish author and scriptwriter.

She graduated in Polish Studies from the University of Warsaw. Afterwards, she worked at the Głos Ludu newspaper as a proofreader, and at Polish Radio, co-creating the ‘W Jezioranach’ (In Jeziorany) radio play from 1960 onward.

Her work was dominated by the subject of the camps. This came from her life experience, as during World War II she was a prisoner in the German Auschwitz concentration camp, where she was a victim of pseudo-medical experiments, as well as in Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe.

In 1945, she debuted with an article in Głos Ludu, ‘Znam katów z Belsen. Więźniarka z Oświęcimia opowiada o działalności oskarżonych w Lüneburgu’ (‘I Know Executioners in Belsen: A Prisoner from Auschwitz Speaks of the Work of the Accused in Lüneburg’); she signed it not with her surname, but her camp number, 7566. She gained fame with her radio play, ‘Pasażerka z kabiny 45’ (The Passenger from Cabin 45), whose motifs were used for Andrzej Munk’s film ‘Pasażerka’ (The Passenger), and then a book by the same title. This inspired Mieczysław Weinberg, who wrote an opera first staged in 2010 at the Wielki Theatre in Warsaw. This novel tells the story of Liza and Walter Kretschmer on a luxury ocean liner from Hamburg to Rio de Janeiro. He is meant to become West German ambassador in Brazil, she is enjoying thoughts of the social life of the diplomat’s wife. Her fine mood is disrupted by an encounter with a former prisoner, her victim from back when she was an SS officer and guard at the concentration camp in Auschwitz. The encounter between the two women forces them to face up to the past.

Her book ‘Wakacje nad Adriatykiem’ (Vacations on the Adriatic) also deals with camp memories. This is the story of a friendship between two prisoners, Ptaszka and Sekretarka. Each of them sees reality differently and takes a different approach to survival. The novel’s narrative is from the point of view of Sekretarka, and the action is set over a dozen years after a war, by the seaside where the protagonist is spending her vacation, during which her dramatic experiences revisit her. In ‘Chrystus oświęcimski’ (Christ of Auschwitz), in turn, the author describes the fate of her camp talisman – a medal produced in the camp workshops in Auschwitz given to her by Captain Tadeusz Paolone, pseudonym Lisowski, who perished for his participation in the camp underground.

Zofia Posmysz told her life story to Michał Wójcik in the long interview ‘Królestwo za mgłą’ (Kingdom Through the Fog). She was also the protagonist of Grzegorz Gajewski’s documentary film, ‘Szrajberka z Auschwitz’ (The Scribe of Auschwitz).

She is the winner of numerous prizes, including the Radio and Television Committee Award for radio play writing achievement (1976), the Witold Hulewicz Award (2007), the Minister of Culture Award for ‘outstanding achievement in fostering Polish culture’ (2008) and the Gold Gloria Artis for Merit to Culture Medal (2013). In 2014, she unveiled her paving stone on the Writer’s Avenue in front of the Municipal Public Library in Auschwitz, and a year later, the Federal Union of German-Polish Societies gave her the Dialogue Award (Dialog-Preis) for her contribution to developing relations between the two countries and nations. She has received the most prestigious state awards: the Silver Cross of Service (1955), the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1964), the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1970) and, in 2020, she was honoured with the Order of the White Eagle.