Wojdowski's early years are associated with the neighbourhood of Warsaw's Towarowa Street (near the Central Station), and it was here that he first went to school. Until the war, the family lived on Srebrna Street, where his father, carpenter-upholsterer Szymon Jakub Wojdowski, had a workshop. The boy's fate during the Holocaust was also connected with Warsaw: in the ghetto, the Wojdowskis lived on Krochmalna Street, and when his parents managed to organise a hiding place for their children (Dawid-Bogdan and Irena) on the so-called Aryan side, he stayed in various places, mainly in Warsaw (for some time without his sister, who was hidden separately; she also survived the Holocaust): in Koło, Żoliborz, at Zielna Street, but also near the Wyszków town and near Ożarow Mazowiecki. Orphaned, he initially lived in Karpacz after the war, but moved to Żoliborz district of Warsaw while still in high school, where he passed his final high school exams and subsequently went on to study Polish philology at Warsaw University (graduating in 1954). He debuted with a collection of short stories 'Wakacje Hioba' ['Job's vacation', no English edition] that was finished in 1957 but got published only in 1962, having been withheld for censorship reasons (the book was eventually published in a heavily revised form). Wojdowski is one of the most eminent Polish post-war writers, and his 1971 novel, 'Chleb rzucony umarłym' ('Bread for the Departed') is considered a masterpiece of Polish literature.
