The article presents the life, work and different faces of Sergiusz Piasecki (1899–1964). He was a soldier, policeman, intelligence agent, smuggler, cocaine addict, forger, thief, prisoner, writer, model, Home Army executioner, officer, father, emigrant, and worker. The author researched records kept in Lithuanian, British and Polish archives.

Sergiusz Piasecki’s political grotesque illustrates the first year of communist rule in post-war Poland in an artistically interesting convention. The author personally saw many of the described events before his emigration, or used direct eyewitness accounts. The text attempts to answer the question of to what extent it can be considered an important historical source concerning the first year of communist Poland and whether there were issues omitted in the book. The author of the article underlines a very wide panorama of the issues raised in the novel, including: Soviet crimes and repressions against the Poles, building and supporting the local criminal security apparatus; the huge scale of Soviet robberies impoverishing Poland’s economic resources; various pathologies of the new government, whether from the new administration or the Polish Workers’ Party; extremely extensive and to a large extent mendacious communist propaganda, fully modeled on the Soviet experiences, as well as a number of other political, economic and cultural issues of the period between May 1945 and April 1946. The author also presented various social problems, such as the huge problem of illegal alcohol production and, above all, the scale of its consumption. The question of the state of Polish-Soviet relations in this period appeared in most of the more important matters. All these issues were elements of an extremely critical panorama of communist rule in Poland. This panorama, as well as other works by Piasecki, resulted in an official ban on the publication of his works that lasted until the fall of the communist regime in Poland.

The article concerns the abovementioned novel about the adventures of the devil Marek in post-war Poland. The publishing history of the work and the conflict between the author and the publisher are discussed on the basis of the archival records. The status of genrefiction was considered — from the initial idea of reportage to a hybrid of a reportage novel, satire and political grotesque. A lot of attention has been paid to documentarian and authentic (or close to authentic) elements in the text. The status of the fantastic hero and the author’s conviction about the devilish nature of communism, expressed in the novel, were also considered. The views on the character of Piasecki’s work, established in the literature in the field, are presented and critically addressed. An analysis of the work was carried out, enabling to judge which of the events depicted by the writer were reported from his own experience. The existence of the novel’s main line was emphasized – conviction about the Polish nation’s aversion to communism, and fidelity to the idea of independence and sovereignty of Poland.

Sergiusz Piasecki has an unusual biography distinguishing him among other writers. He was a soldier, a partisan, a smuggler, a criminal, a prisoner, and a political émigré. At various times in his life, he participated in armed conspiracies, and sometimes acted outside the law. The author of the article poses questions about facts and episodes in the life of the writer, about which there is no precise knowledge, and which remain uncertain or unexplained.

The article presents the activities of Sergiusz Piasecki, a later writer, as an intelligence agent of Branch No. 6 of the Second Division of the General Staff of the Polish Army (military intelligence), located in Brest on Bug. The aim of the article is primarily to show the institutional background of this activity – the formation of the field structure with which the author of the novel Equal to Night Gods (Bogom nocy równi) cooperated, which was established after Polish independence in 1918, as a part of Polish military intelligence. The formal conditions for participating in intelligence service at that time were also indicated. This contribution to the history of Polish intelligence in the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic gives a picture of the involvement of the Polish secret services in the discussed activities from the perspective of the analysis of documents kept by the agents of Branch No.

The article is an introduction to the comparison of biographies of two outstanding Polish prose writers and witnesses of the 20th century: Sergiusz Piasecki (1901–1964) and Józef Mackiewicz (1902–1985). The parallels concern aspects of their extraordinary biographies, expressive worldviews and the specificity of their literary works. Within these comparative perspectives, the author of the article characterizes both the similarities and the differences between the writers. On the one hand, they are alike: their biographies symbolically reflect the fate of Poles from the eastern borderlands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth born at the turn of the 20th century, whose main historical experience involved face-to-face encounters with Soviet and German totalitarianism and, as a consequence, political emigration to Western countries. Moreover, the prose of both authors closely corresponds to autobiographical experience and authentic historical realities. Their works have a tendency to be strongly persuasive, and are characterised by a suggestive and polysensory evocation of the presented world. On the other hand, the writers clearly differ in their involvement in social and political life, their journalistic temperament and the poetics of their writings (Mackiewicz’s historical and historical-political novels; Piasecki’s thriller and adventure novels).

Sergiusz Piasecki belongs to the best-known Polish 20th century writers. As a most intriguing and mysterious author, Piasecki is present on the German book market, but this fact does equals with being well-known. Piasecki’s name is mainly connected with only one novel Kochanek Wielkiej Niedźwiedzicy (The Lover of Ursa Major), demonstrating the many faces of the controversial author and his literary figures as outlaws, soldiers, smugglers, spies, and criminals. Piasecki was appreciated in (West) Germany first of all because of his staunch anti-communism. The reception of an unknown, foreign author often depends on specific political and cultural conditions, but also on literary criticism and reviews including the reception in film and radio broadcasts. Literary scholars in German-speaking countries have „overlooked” Piasecki. Often, negative stereotypes concerning the unknown, „wild” borderlands of Eastern Europe and Poland were repeated in their literary criticism. For a proper appreciation of Piasecki’s literaturę and his figures, it seems necessary to know something of the history of the Eastern borderlands and the thrilling life of the author. While reading Piasecki’s books, readers may experience many exciting things, gaining new insights into a mainly unknown history and culture. Because of political and ideological reasons, Piasecki was not mentioned in East Germany. The Polish title Kochanek Wielkiej Niedźwiedzicy needs an explanation in the German context. In its ambiguity, the title was translated literally as „The Lover of the Great Bear”. The rich German source material concerning Piasecki can be used for further evaluations, promising new complex insights, discoveries, and connections. Sex, crime, but also a kind of „crude romanticism” may attract new readers, since Piasecki’s novel is evaluated as one of the most important „books for men”.

This article aims to present the provisions of the regulation requiring Jews to wear armbands with the Star of David, and its application to Jewish inhabitants of Warsaw during World War II. The discussion includes the reactions of both Jews and Poles to the regulation, as well as issues related to the severity of punishments for violations, which were largely determined by the timing of the offense. The cases analysed are divided here into two main categories, those being proceedings initiated against Jews before and after the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto. The primary source for this article consists of remaining files of the court proceedings related to violations of the Armband Regulation, conducted before the Special Court in Warsaw (Sondergericht Warschau). These materials were cross-checked with the testimonies and memories of the Jews themselves, which provided answers to the question of how the proceedings in these cases were conducted. The article also examines the attempts made by Jews to appeal the judgments of the Warsaw Sondergericht, as well as their requests for exemptions from the obligation to wear the armband.

Umwandererzentrale-Lager (UWZ-Lager) Zamość was the central transit camp set up for Polish civilians forcibly deported from the Zamość region between 1942 and 1943, during the implementation of “Generalplan Ost” in the General Governorate. Upon entering the camp, the unimaginable tragedy for those imprisoned there began. After registration and a selection process assessing their potential for Germanisation, and suitability for slave labour in the Reich, the prisoners awaited the formation of transports for their further deportation. The duration of stay “behind the barbed wire” in Zamość typically ranged from several days to several weeks. During this time, prisoners endured inhumane living and sanitary conditions, characterised by hunger, cold, overcrowded barracks, the spread of diseases (particularly infectious ones), and a lack of medical care. As a result, many perished, especially children and the elderly. The most severe fate befell those children who did not meet the Nordic race criteria and were forcibly separated from their parents during the selection process, and often placed under the care of the elderly. These children were left with relatives during the racial selection – most commonly mothers (very rarely fathers), grandmothers, or occasionally grandfathers – who attempted to provide them with assistance. The aim of this article is to outline selected examples of survival strategies employed by prisoners of UWZ-Lager Zamość in the camp conditions through the prism of individual experiences (excluding the spiritual aspect and internal experiences), as recorded in their post-war accounts. These sources show how prisoners tried to adapt to life in the camp in the first months of its operation.

During World War II, Poland suffered many casualties. Among them were children taken to Nazi Germany as part of the process of Germanizing. After the war, the authorities in Warsaw took steps to recover them. From March 1947, tasks in this field were carried out by the team of the Government Plenipotentiary for the Recovery of Polish Children. The deputy manager of this institution was Wiktor Pietruszka (1910–2003), from Łódź, an experienced social worker. He created the interesting concept of searching for entire groups of children, not just individuals. However, there was not enough time and support among his cooperators to implement this method. After being recalled to Poland at the end of 1949, Pietruszka returned to academic institution, and over time he became a director of the Municipal Statistics Office in Łódź. Referring to statistics, he aired his views including the fate of Polish children during World War II. The aim of the article is to present his profile and determine his role in Polish efforts to recover these children. The issue of searching for and recovering Polish children from occupied Germany requires looking at through the prism of biographical research, which is shown in this text.

From the very beginning of its existence in Poland, the communist regime aimed to transform the social environment of the academic community, primarily by increasing the share of young people from working-class and peasant families among students. Over time, these young people were expected to integrate into and “improve” the social profile of the academic and teaching staff. A key tool in these efforts was the system of preferential admission for working-class and peasant youths to studies, which evolved over time, resulting in changes to its effectiveness. Particularly after 1956, a demand among academic staff appeared to admit students solely based on their knowledge and skills. However, practical changes in admission policy in this direction were neither revolutionary nor free from strict party and government control. This trend was ultimately reversed as a consequence of the events of March 1968. As a result, representatives of party and government circles began to view the trend toward objectifying university admission criteria as an evidence of allegedly growing “revisionist” tendencies within the academic community, often linked at the time to “Zionism”. This diagnosis led to increased party and government control over universities and other academic and research institutions (facilitated by the provisions of the Act of 20 December 1968 amending the Act on Higher Education,) and to a significant widening of preferences for admitting working-class and peasant youth to universities and general secondary schools, which served as the primary sources of student candidates (these matters were largely arranged by ministerial documents of a lower level). Another key step in reshaping the Polish academic environment was the democratisation of access to higher education through its expansion and ’massification’. At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, various types of higher education institutions were established in many cities, particularly voivodeship cities, that previously had no academic traditions. As a result, the authorities succeeded in increasing the share of young working-class members and peasants at universities by just over 6 percentage points over three years, which was a modest result when compared to the expected target of 8-10 percentage points within a single year. Following the initial intensive transformations, related to the dismissals and departures of academic staff and the promotion of so-called March [’68] associate professors, the growth in the percentage of academic staff from working-class and peasant backgrounds slowed even further. This occurred despite a significant rise in employment and major organisational changes, as the number of academic teachers at Polish universities nearly doubled between 1968 and 1978.

Celem niniejszej analizy jest przedstawienie czechosłowackiego systemu szkolnictwa w czasach totalitarnego reżimu komunistycznego, tj. w latach 1948–1989. Przedstawiono najważniejsze przekształcenia tego systemu w omawianym okresie – zarówno zmiany ideologiczne, jak i stopniowe wysiłki reformatorskie. W czasach reżimu komunistycznego kształt szkolnictwa w Czechosłowacji był modyfikowany wielokrotnie. Kilka razy zmieniano długość okresu obowiązkowej edukacji, system szkół oraz ich nazwy. W okresie objętym analizą funkcjonowały ogólnokrajowe programy nauczania i sylabusy, które zmieniano w odpowiedzi na zmiany w przepisach oświatowych. Przeprowadzono wiele dyskusji eksperckich na temat kształtu czechosłowackiego systemu edukacyjnego, jednak nie były one w stanie przekroczyć ograniczeń ówczesnych czasów. Co więcej, wiele zmian przeprowadzono przede wszystkim z powodów ideologicznych i bez uwzględnienia racji pedagogicznych. Szczególnie lata pięćdziesiąte mogą być postrzegane jako problematyczne. Lata sześćdziesiąte przyniosły nadzieję, której kulminacją była tzw. Praska Wiosna 1968 r. Nadzieja ta legła jednak w gruzach w sierpniu tego roku wraz z inwazją wojsk Układu Warszawskiego. Późniejszy okres „normalizacji” przyniósł powrót do surowego komunizmu. Wpływ Związku Sowieckiego i jego pedagogiki oraz silna ideologizacja edukacji (będącej pod wpływem ideologii marksizmu-leninizmu) były widoczne przez cały ten okres.