RUDNICKI, Adolf

Nationality: Polish. Born: 19 February 1912. Military Service: Fought in the campaign to defend Poland, 1939. Career: Writer. Imprisoned during World War II; lived in Lwów, Poland, 1942, before returning to Warsaw; participant, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1944. Died: 1990.

Publication

Collections

Blic; Drobiazgi zolnierskie; Zolnierze; Po latach. 1967.

Opowiadania, edited by Marianna Sokolowska. 1996.

Novels

Szczury [Rats]. 1932.

Żołnierze [Soldiers]. 1933.

Lato. 1938.

Profile i drobiazgi zolnierskie. 1946.

Wniebowstąpienie (novella). 1948; as Ascent to Heaven, 1951.

Krowa. 1959.

Kupiec lódzki: Niebieskie kartki. 1963.

Teksty male i mniejsze. 1971.

Noc bedzie chlodna, niebo w purpurze. 1977.

Rogaty Warszawiak. 1981.

Sto jeden [One Hundred and One]. 1984.

Dzoker Pana Boga. 1989.

Short Stories

Niekochana [Unloved]. 1937.

Szekspir [Shakespeare]. 1948.

Ucieczka z Jasnej Polany [Escape from Jasna Polana]. 1949.

Wybór opowiadan. 1950.

Paleczka: Czyli kazdemu to, na czym mu mniej zalezy. 1950.

Narzeczony beaty: Niebieskie kartki [Beata's Fiancé]. 1961.

Złote okna i 9 innych opowiadań [Golden Windows and Nine Other Stories]. 1964.

50 opowiadan. 1966.

Daniela naga. 1977.

Memoirs

Wrzesien. 1946.

Żywe i martwe morze. 1952; as The Dead and the Living Sea, and Other Stories, 1957.

Other

Zolnierski dzien powszedni. 1936.

Major Hubert z armii Andersa. 1946.

Czysty nurt. 1946.

Kon. 1946.

Wielkanoc. 1947.

Manfred: Dramat w czterech aktach. 1954.

Mlode cierpienia. 1954.

Niebieskie kartki: Slepe lustro tych lat (essays) 1956.

Kartki sportowe. 1956.

Niebieskie kartki: Przeswity. 1957.

Obraz z kotem i psem. 1962.

Pyl milosny: Niebieskie kartki. 1964.

Weiss wpada do morza: Niebieskie kartki. 1965.

Wspólne zdjęcie: Niebieskie kartki [Collective Photo] (es-says). 1967.

Zabawa ludowa: Niebieskie kartki. 1979.

Krakowskie Przedmieście pełne deserów [Krakowskie Przedmieście: A Street Full of Desserts]. 1986.

Teatr zawsze grany. 1987.

Sercem dnia jest wieczór, with Janusz Majcherek. 1988.

Sto lat temu umarl Dostojewski (literary criticism). 1989.

Editor, Wieczna pamiec. 1955; as Lest We Forget, 1955.

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Critical Study:

"Assimilation into Exile: The Jew As a Polish Writer" by Zygmunt Bauman, in Poetics Today, 17, Winter 1996, pp. 569-97.

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Born in Warsaw into a Jewish family and often called the "Jeremiah of the Warsaw Ghetto," Adolf Rudnicki started his literary career in 1932 by publishing his first novel, Szczury ("Rats"), which manifested the author's specific anti-aesthetic program. His next work, Żołnierze (1933; "Soldiers"), confirmed that his writing is documentary or, more precisely, combines the elements of real life with his own imaginary invention. He uses the elements of reportage but frequently modifies them and thus has created this genre's new forms. His prose contains features of a document, fiction, and a psychological account at the same time. Present in all his writings, this "internal contradiction," as stated by Czesław Miłosz, suggests perhaps where the essence of his artistry is located. The long short story Niekochana (1937; "Unloved") is full of this contradiction and is widely regarded as Rudnicki's best prewar achievement. It is also classified as a psychological study of an unwanted love.

Although Rudnicki was prolific in the early years of his career, his creativity peaked during and after the Second World War. The impact of the war's tragedies and especially of the fate of the Polish Jews on Rudnicki's writings is most powerful. From then on he embarked upon a major project to leave a testimony to the tragedy of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. He was well predisposed to carry out his project, as his war experiences testify: he took part in the failed September 1939 campaign to defend Poland and was taken prisoner by the Germans but managed to escape; until 1942 he lived in the Polish city of Lwów, then occupied by the Soviets; when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, he moved back to Nazi-occupied Warsaw, where he managed to survive outside the ghetto while being active in clandestine cultural organizations; and in 1944 he participated in the Warsaw Uprising.

Rudnicki's project aimed at depicting, in various narrative forms, the whole array of the Nazis' victims and their experiences. Faithful to his prewar anti-aesthetic program, his narrative forms continued to consist of short stories (he did not consider the novel a genre suitable for his project) that again mixed fiction and reality through the use of the elements of literature and reportage, the personal diary, and the feuilleton. Shuffling factual data and rewriting the personal lives of real persons in diverse narrative forms are the most typical features in Rudnicki's postwar works, including Szekspir (1948; "Shakespeare") and Ucieczka z Jasnej Polany (1949; "Escape from Jasna Polana"). The short stories from these two collections later constituted a short-story cycle known as "Epoka pieców" ("The Epoch of Ovens") and are regarded as both Rudnicki's best literary achievement and one of the most poignant testimonies of the Holocaust. A revised and extended version of the cycle was published later under the title Żywe i martwe morze (1952; The Dead and the Living Sea, and Other Stories, 1957). It contains a strong moral message that expressed faith in the dignity of man. It also signifies the author's ever-present concern that his work is never perfect or even complete and that it needs constant revision.

The aims and possibilities of literary art faced with the imperative task of giving an account of the Jews' plight constitute a major problem in Rudnicki's work. He chooses to describe the moral aspect of the tragedy of the Jews rather than their martyrdom. His heroic characters in, for example, Wniebowstąpienie (1948; Ascent to Heaven, 1951), "Narzeczony Beaty" (1961; "Beata's Fiancé"), and "Wspólne zdjęcie" (1967; "Collective Photo") defend their dignity, find strength, and remain faithful to themselves through solidarity with their dying nation. They oppose its tragic plight not only by fighting for their survival but also by preserving the highest human values of love, compassion, and dignity. In his presentation of these values, Rudnicki combines a lyrical, even sentimental, commentary full of pathos with dry reporting filled with irony and sarcasm. Standing alongside other notable Polish authors who gave convincing literary accounts of the war's genocide, such as Tadeusz Borowski and Kornel Filipowicz, Rudnicki unquestionably remains one of Poland's leading chroniclers of the Holocaust. Numerous collections of his old and new short stories, feuilletons, essays, and memoirs (notably Złote okna i 9 innych opowiadań [1964; "Golden Windows and Nine Other Stories"], Sto jeden [1984-88; "One Hundred and One"], and Krakowskie Przedmieście pełne deserów [1986; "Krakowskie Przedmieście: A Street Full of Desserts"]) were published between 1960 and 1990.

—Andrzej Karcz

See the essay on Ascent to Heaven.