Objects

The writer, Julian Stryjkowski (1905-1996), born in Stryj, then still named Pesach Stark, studied Polish Studies at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv. Before World War II, he was a teacher and a journalist. He was also involved in politics; he belonged to the Communist Party of Western Ukraine and between 1935 and 1936, he was imprisoned for his activity in the communist movement.

During World War II, he was in the Soviet Union. He wrote about this period in his novel Wielki Strach (The Great Fear) (1980). He told Piotr Szewc how he heard in Moscow, in 1943, about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising: "I learned that overnight the Jewish nation ceased to exist, which after the Holocaust became mine again," he said years later. A Communist Jew ceased to be a Jew. I felt Jewish again. [...] I must erect a tombstone for the Jewish insurgents and the entire nation, to the extent of my modest strength. I must save what I can from oblivion. And I went back to my childhood years, to the years that were lost under the mire of oblivion. And with a great effort of memory I lifted this seemingly lost, forever sunken Atlantis. Scenes, details, people who had been resurrected emerged from under the threshold of my memory. And so my first novel, Głosy w ciemności (Voices in the Dark), was written. And this became the theme of my whole life" (Julian Stryjkowski, Piotr Szewc, Ocalony na Wschodzie. Z Julianem Stryjkowskim rozmawia Piotr Szewc (Ocalony na Wschodzie. With ed by Piotr Szewc interviews Julian Stryjkowski), Montricher 1991, p. ). Voices in the Dark (1956) opens his great cycle devoted to the life of Galician Jews before World War I, which also includes Austeria (1966), Sen Azrila (Azril's Dream) (1975) and Echo (1980).

Krzysztof Gierałtowski photographed Julian Stryjkowski in 1987 in his studio at 9 Panieńska Street.

Renata Piątkowska