Hanna Krall | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1935 Warsaw, Poland |
| Occupation | novelist, journalist |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Notable awards | Herder Prize, 2005 |
Hanna Krall (born 1935) is a Polish writer with a degree in journalism from the University of Warsaw, specializing among other subjects in the history of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. [1]
Krall is of Jewish origin, the daughter of Salomon Krall and Felicia Jadwiga née Reichold. She was born in Warsaw, Poland, [2] but her date of birth is contested between 20 May 1935 and 20 May 1937. [3] She was four (or two) years old, living in Lublin, when World War II began with the Nazi German invasion of Poland. Krall lost most of her close relatives in the Holocaust, including her mother and father, who were murdered in Majdanek. [4] She survived deportations to death camps only because she was hidden from the Germans by the Polish rescuers. [1] After the war, she stayed in her childhood home in Otwock until going to the University of Warsaw for her education from 1951-1955.
She is married to reporter Jerzy Szperkowicz and together have one daughter, Katarzyna.
After Krall finished her studies in journalism, she started working for the Polish local paper Życie Warszawy ("Warsaw Life") from 1955 to 1966. She debuted her first article In 1966, she left the paper and began to write for the well known magazine Polityka ("Politics"). In 1981, Wojciech Jaruzelski, then Prime Minister of the former People's Republic of Poland, declared martial law, Krall was forced to leave Polityka. Afterwards, she worked as a freelance writer for the rest of the decade, writing articles for the Catholic newsletter Tygodnik Powszechny [5] . In the early 90s, after the fall of Communism, she started writing articles for the Gazeta Wyborcza, under Adam Michnik.
During Krall's time working for Polityka, she published her first book named Na wschód od Arbatu ("Heading east from Arbat") in 1972, written after she spent several years as a correspondent in Moscow. The book depicted day-to-day life in Moscow during the 1960s.
Commercial success came with the publication of the 1977 Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem (engl. title: Shielding the Flame ). The book is based on an interview with a Polish Jewish cardiologist and social activist, Marek Edelman, who was one of the founders of Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Combat Organization) and who took over its leadership after the head-commander Mordechai Anielewicz had perished. 'Shielding the Flame can be seen as a model for most of Krall's works. Krall describes the relations between Jews, Poles and Germans during the Holocaust and the years thereafter.
Her most famous success Król kier znów na wylocie ("Chasing the King of Hearts") has been translated into 17 languages an earned many awards since its publication in 2006, including the German Würth Preis for European Literature 2012 and the Found in Translation Award 2014. [6]
Apart from the central Holocaust theme, Krall's writings also reflect her search for her own identity, as can be seen very clearly in Dowody na istnienie ("Evidence for Existence"). Another theme in this book is the often complicated destiny of the Polish people in history and the influence of the past on people's lives in the present. Krall was a friend of Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, and inspired Decalogue Number 8 in the series of films made by these two men.
Her publication Widok z okna na pierwszym piętrze (engl. title: View from the Window on the First Floor) was a collaboration for the film Krótki DzieńPracy (1981) by Kieślowski. [7]
Her works have been translated into many languages and have received the most recognition in Germany and Sweden. [5] The Belarusian 2015 Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich described Krall as a key influence. [8] Krall was a member of the Polish Writer's Union (Polish: Związek Literatów Polskich, ZLP) from 1978 to 1983 and the Stowarzyszenie Pisarzy Polskich (Polish Writer's Association) from 1989 to 2020. [9]
| Polish Title | English title | Year/ City of Publication | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gra o moje życie | My Life at Stake | Warsaw, Polityka, 1968 [5] | |
| Na Wschód od Arbatu | Heading East from Arbat | Warsaw, 1972 | |
| Dojrzałość dostępna dla wszystkich | Maturity Available for Everyone | Warsaw, 1977 | |
| Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem | Shielding the Flame | Kraków, 1977 | |
| Sześć odcieni bieli | Six Shades of White | Warsaw, 1978 | |
| Subloklatorka | The Subtenant | Paris, 1985 | |
| Hipnoza | Hypnosis | Warsaw, 1989 | |
| Trudności ze wstawaniem. Okna. [11] | Problems with Getting Up. Windows. | Warsaw, 1990 | |
| Taniec na cudzym weselu | Dancing at Someone Else’s Wedding | Warsaw, 1993 | |
| Co się stało z naszą bajką | What Happened to Our Fairy Tale | Warsaw, 1994 | |
| Dowody na istnienie | Evidence for Existence | Poznań, 1996 | |
| Tam już nie ma żadnej rzeki | There Is No River There Anymore | Kraków, 1998 | |
| To ty jesteś Daniel | So You are Daniel | Kraków, 2001 | |
| Wyjątkowo długa linia | An Exceptionally Long Line | Kraków, 2004 | |
| Spokojne niedzielne popołudnie | A Quiet Sunday Afternoon | Kraków, 2004 | |
| Król kier znów na wylocie | Chasing the King of Hearts | Warsaw, 2006 | |
| Żal | Regret | Warsaw, 2007 | |
| Różowe strusie pióra | Pink Ostrich Feathers | Warsaw, 2009 | |
| Biała Maria | White Maria | Warsaw, 2011 | |
| Sześć odcieni bieli i inne historie | Six Shades of White and Other Stories | Warsaw, 2015 |
Krall has been the recipient of many prestigious awards in Poland and across the world including the Solidarity Cultural Prize (1985), Herder Prize (2005) for her work of autobiographical fiction, Sublokatorka (The Subtenant), the Journalist Laurels of the Polish Journalists' Association (2009), the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (2014), the Julian Tuwim Literary Award (2014), [10] and the Władysław Reymont Literary Prize (2009). [17] She was also nominated for the Nike Literary Award for Tam już nie ma żadnej rzeki (1998) and Wyjątkowo długa linia (2004) and the Angelus Central European Literary Award for Król kier znów na wylocie (2007) [17] .
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the German authorities within the new General Government territory of occupied Poland. At its height, as many as 460,000 Jews were imprisoned there, in an area of 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi), with an average of 9.2 persons per room, barely subsisting on meager food rations. Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Nazi concentration camps and mass-killing centers. In the summer of 1942, at least 254,000 ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp during Großaktion Warschau under the guise of "resettlement in the East" over the course of the summer. The ghetto was demolished by the Germans in May 1943 after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had temporarily halted the deportations. The total death toll among the prisoners of the ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000 killed by bullet or gas, combined with 92,000 victims of starvation and related diseases, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the casualties of the final destruction of the ghetto.
Mordechai Anielewicz was the leader of the Jewish Combat Organization during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; the largest Jewish resistance movement during the Second World War. Anielewicz inspired further rebellions in both ghettos and extermination camps with his leadership. His character was engraved as a symbol of courage and sacrifice, and was a major figure of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps.
Marek Edelman was a Polish political and social activist and cardiologist. Edelman was the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Long before his death, he was the last one to stay in the Polish People's Republic despite harassment by the Communist authorities.
Jan Tomasz Gross is a Polish-American sociologist and historian. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society emeritus and professor of history emeritus at Princeton University.
Eliza Orzeszkowa was a Polish novelist and a leading writer of the Positivism movement during foreign Partitions of Poland. In 1905, together with Henryk Sienkiewicz, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Franciszka Hanna Arnsztajnowa was a Polish poet, playwright, and translator of Jewish descent. Much of her creative oeuvre falls within the Young Poland period, stylistically encompassing the twilight of neo-romanticism. She is called "the legend of Lublin".
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been represented in the arts and popular culture.
Michał Klepfisz was a chemical engineer, activist for the Bund, and member of the Jewish Morgenstern sports organization. During World War II he belonged to the Jewish Combat Organization, fighting the Nazi German forces in Poland. He was killed in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was posthumously decorated by the Polish government in exile with a Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari.
Maria Ajzensztadt was a Polish singer, who was murdered in the Holocaust.
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word Polin in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a legend about the arrival of the first Jews to Poland. Construction of the museum in designated land in Muranów, Warsaw's prewar Jewish quarter, began in 2009, following an international architectural competition won by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamäki and Ilmari Lahdelma.
Dekalog: Eight is the eighth part of Dekalog, the drama series of films directed by Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski for television, connected to the eighth imperative of the Ten Commandments - "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor".
Abraham Blum was a Polish-Jewish socialist activist, one of the leaders of the Bund in the Warsaw Ghetto and a participant in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Luba Bielicka Blum was a Polish socialist activist of the Bund, and a nurse in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Izrael Chaim Wilner, nom de guerre "Arie" and "Jurek" was a Jewish resistance fighter during World War II, member of the Jewish Fighting Organization's (ŻOB) leadership, a liaison between ŻOB and the Polish Home Army, a poet, and a participant in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The Rainbow was an artistic construction in the form of a giant rainbow made of artificial flowers erected on the Savior Square in the Polish capital of Warsaw in the summer of 2012. It was designed by Julita Wójcik and maintained by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. It was vandalized several times, generating significant media coverage in Polish media, usually in the context of LGBT rights in Poland. The construction was permanently removed in August 2015.
Ignacy Hugo Stanisław Matuszewski was a Polish politician, publicist, diplomat, Minister of Finance of the Second Polish Republic, colonel, infantry officer and intelligence agent of the Polish Army, member of the International Olympic Committee. A strong supporter of Józef Piłsudski, he was counted among the "Colonels" and co-founded the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America.
Grzegorz Michał Braun is a Polish politician. He served as a member of the Sejm for Rzeszów from 2019 to 2024. He has been Chairman of the Confederation of the Polish Crown since 2019 and a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie since 2024.
Katarzyna "Kasia" Moś is a Polish singer, songwriter, and dancer. She was previously a member of The Pussycat Dolls Burlesque Revue in 2011, and in 2012, she came third in the third series of the Polish version of Must Be the Music. She represented Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Flashlight", and finished in 22nd place.
Teresa Ferenc was a Polish poet.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
