Adolf Rudnicki
Adolf Rudnicki, originally named Aron Rudnicki, was born in 1912 in Zabno, Galicia, a region in southeastern Poland. He was the youngest of eight children in a Jewish family. His early education was rooted in traditional Jewish studies, followed by Polish schooling and a trade school, leading to a career as a bank clerk. After World War II, he experienced three marriages and had a son. Rudnicki's literary career began with his novel "Szcury" (Rats), which explores themes of isolation amidst evil. Initially focusing on social realism, he later delved into Jewish themes, especially after the outbreak of World War II, during which he served in the military and engaged in underground publishing while living in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Following the war, he became part of a group of writers aiming to reshape Polish culture and dedicated himself to memorializing the Jewish experience through works like the "Epoka pieców" series. His writing is noted for its psychological depth and lyrical quality, earning him state literary awards in 1955 and 1966. Rudnicki passed away in 1990, leaving behind a significant impact on Polish literature with his works translated into multiple languages.
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Adolf Rudnicki
Author
- Born: February 19, 1912
- Birthplace: Zabno, Galicia, southeastern Poland
- Died: November 15, 1990
- Place of death: Warsaw, Poland
Biography
Born in Zabno in Galicia, a region on the north slope of the Carpathian Mountains in southeastern Poland, most likely on January 22 or February 19, 1912, Adolph (originally Aron) Rudnicki was the youngest child of eight children born to Izaak Hirschhorn and Necha Schneider. Before Hirschhorn became a refugee in Vienna during World War I, he ran a tavern. Rudnicki’s early education was a typical Jewish one; he then attended a Polish secondary school and went on to a trade school, after which he worked as a bank clerk. His name change was part of an attempt to become more fully integrated into Polish society. After World War II, he was married three times; he had one son.
Rudnicki’s first novel, Szcury (rats) portrays an isolated person who is surrounded by evil. While his early novels feature Jewish characters, Rudnicki appears to have deliberately downplayed their Jewishness. By 1938, however, the Jewish theme came to the fore. With the outbreak of World War II, Rudnicki enlisted in military service and was taken prisoner after the German invasion of Poland in September, 1939. He was able to escape and go to Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), which was then under Soviet control. While there, he published two novellas in Nowe widnokregi (new horizons), a Polish communist literary monthly publication. He adhered to the social- realist aesthetic of the times by focusing on class, rather than on being Jewish.
In 1942, Rudnicki returned to Warsaw, where he lived on the Aryan side with falsified papers—the Nazis confined about 500,000 Jews to a section of the city called the ghetto. There he engaged in underground publishing. In 1944, he fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After the war, he became a part of the group of writers known as Kuźnica (the forge) in Ladz. The goal of the group was to restructure the cultural life of Poland.
By this time, Rudnicki felt that he had made a mistake in not dealing with Jewish issues in his work, and he resolved to make it his mission to keep the memory alive of the fate of Jews in Poland. He did this with a cycle of accounts titled Epoka pieców (the epoch of crematoriums), beginning with Szekspir (Shakespeare) in 1948, followed by Ucieczka z Jasnej Polany (escape from Yasna, Poland) in 1949. A 1952 work, Żywe i martwe morze, documented the ravaging of Polish Jews and attempted to explain its larger implications. Among the strengths of Rudnicki’s writing is his skill in painting psychological portraits and in writing cultured and lyrical prose. He has his characters take the high road and do what is right even if it means forfeiting survival.
After a time, Rudnicki turned from the novel genre to short story writing; some of his stories resembled documentaries. Several of these story collections were published during the 1950’s and 1960’s. His works were translated into English, French, Hebrew, German, and Russian. The English translations are out of print and are difficult to obtain. Rudnicki was awarded state literary prizes in 1955 and again in 1966. At the time of his death, on November 15, 1990, he was working on a study of Jewish elements in the work of Franz Kafka.