Igor Newerly
Encyclopedia
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
) was a Polish novelist and educator. He was born into a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-Polish family. His son is Polish novelist Jarosław Abramow-Newerly. His grandfather Józef Newerly, was a Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
national, who held a title of Łowczy ("Master of Hunt") to the court of Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
.
Igor Newerly studied law at Kiev University
Kiev University
Taras Shevchenko University or officially the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv , colloquially known in Ukrainian as KNU is located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is the third oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and Kharkiv University. Currently, its structure...
but he was relegated for political reasons, arrested and sent to Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
. In 1924 he emigrated illegally to the newly independent Poland
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
and was active in the field of pedagogy in Warsaw. He worked together with the renowned educator Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...
, and in 1926 became his secretary. From 1932 to 1939 Newerly worked for Mały Przegląd (Little Review). He married Barbara Jarecka.
Under the Nazi German occupation of Poland Newerly was a member of the Polish resistance. He helped Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...
at his Orphanage and saved his diary of martyrdom. He also hid from Nazi persecution several of his Jewish colleagues from Nasz Przegląd daily – among them Kuba Hersztein – and transported Lejzor Czarnobroda to Warsaw after he escaped from the train to Treblinka and broke his leg. Newerly was arrested at the beginning of 1943 by the German Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
and imprisoned at Pawiak
Pawiak
Pawiak was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Poland.During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia....
in Warsaw. Until the end of the war he was an inmate of Nazi concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
: Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
, Auschwitz, Oranienburg
Oranienburg
Oranienburg is a town in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Oberhavel.- Geography :Oranienburg is a town located on the banks of the Havel river, 35 km north of the centre of Berlin.- Division of the town :...
and Bergen Belsen where he was liberated.
After the war in 1945 he resumed a pedagogical career. Based on Newerly's novel Pamiątka z Celulozy, the Polish director Jerzy Kawalerowicz made a film Celuloza.
Works
- Chłopiec z Salskich Stepów 1948
- Archipelag ludzi odzyskanych 1950
- Pamiątka z Celulozy 1952
- Leśne Morze 1960
- Żywe wiązanie 1966
- Rozmowa w sadzie piątego sierpnia, Warszawa, Czytelnik 1978
- Za Opiwardą, za siódmą rzeką..., Warszawa, Czytelnik, ISBN 83-07-01165-5 1985
- Wzgórze błękitnego snu, Warszawa, Czytelnik, ISBN 83-07-01369-0 1986
- Zostało z uczty bogów, Paryż, Instytut Literacki, ISBN 2-7168-0085-5 1986
Film screen-plays
- Król Maciuś I, 1957
- Pod gwiazdą frygijską
- Celuloza, 1953