There are people whose passing leaves behind a void – one that is irreplaceable for their loved ones – but whose influence on public life and the shaping of social attitudes only grows with time. Marian Turski was unquestionably one of those people. He was attentive, kind, and deeply sensitive – a man of quiet engagement and genuine compassion for those in need of moral support. He possessed what might be called a soft charisma. In her introduction to a collection of Turski’s writings, Olga Tokarczuk wrote: “The darkness through which he passed marked his personality with great strength, wisdom, and directness. He is a man who sees the world in the right proportions – perhaps because he created it himself.” (Marian Turski, XI. Thou shalt not be indifferent, p. 5).
I met Marian in the early 1960s, when I brought to the editorial office of the Polish weekly Polityka excerpts from the stenographic records of the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences – the talks between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin – which I had published in the Polish monthly journal International Affairs. Marian, then head of Polityka’s historical section, approved the documents for publication without much discussion. It was exactly what I had hoped for and expected.
Just a year earlier, Polityka – uniquely in the world – had published the Eichmann diaries, made available to Daniel Passent by Thomas Harlan, the son of the infamous Nazi film director Veit Harlan. Harlan’s movie Jew Süss was a cornerstone of anti-Semitic propaganda, preparing German society for the “Final Solution”, the Holocaust of European Jews. Thomas Harlan renounced his father – and even the German language. He wrote his poetry in French and held strong left-wing convictions.
The publication of Eichmann’s notes in the pages of Polityka doubled the magazine’s circulation and brought the Polish weekly both international popularity and recognition. This success was due as much to Passent and Harlan as it was to Marian, who – true to form – made a point of remaining in the background.
From our very first conversation, I had the impression that I was speaking to someone who truly knew how to listen, who could grasp the essence of an issue instantly, and who deserved trust from the very first moment. He had a warmth and openness in his interactions with people, even in brief, passing encounters. That first impression only deepened over the years.
When I was appointed Foreign Minister, Marian encouraged me to publish an excerpt from my memoirs entitled “That’s All I Remember” (Polityka, no. 7, 19 February 2005). The dedication Marian addressed to me in his book XI. Thou shalt not be indifferent – “Daniel, I love you! You are one – alas, now – of the few people in the world closest to me!” – I now see as a commitment I can no longer fulfil.
II
Marian Turski was born in 1926 in Druskininkai as Moshe Turbowicz, as he wrote in his biography. He was fourteen when he was sent to the Łódź ghetto, where he became active in the underground Left Union organization. In 1944, on one of the final transports, he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Germans murdered his father and younger brother there. In the winter of 1945, he survived two death marches: in January to Buchenwald, and in April from Buchenwald to Theresienstadt, where he lived to see liberation by the Red Army on 8 May – in a state of near agony. Marian Turski left Auschwitz in the company of his closest comrades. Only five of them lived to see the end of the war.
In a speech delivered during a formal session of the United Nations General Assembly (New York, 28 January 2019), held to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, he recalled: “In Auschwitz, I had no name. I had nothing but a tattooed number – B-9408 (…)”
When asked whether it wasn’t the hunger, the cold, or the lice that were the worst, then what was it – Marian replied: “The worst was the humiliation! (…) People often ask me: »You, who have lived through hell, who have witnessed such evil – what do you take from that experience? What would you want to say to young people living today?« If I had to choose, from all those experiences and the lessons they taught me, just a few words… I would choose these: empathy and compassion. These are the two most important things in life”.
III
On 26 November 2013, I attended a ceremony to present Marian with the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany at the German Embassy in Warsaw. In his speech, Marian posed the question, “Should a former prisoner of Auschwitz and other camps and a man who had the rare good fortune to have survived two death marches – accept a German decoration?” To justify a positive answer, Marian recalled a memory from 18 January 1945. It was the first death march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald. He marched in a group of ten prisoners with whom he started life in the camp. By the end of the war, five had survived.
The only food during the six days of the march was snowflakes. On reaching their destination, the prisoners are called to roll call. The head of the block (Blockälteste – the oldest prisoner in the block) to which they were assigned speaks: “Burschen (Boys)! You have arrived at a different camp from the one you knew before. There will be less food here, as the country’s situation is more difficult. But no one here will beat or mistreat you. However, I warn you: if one prisoner steals another prisoner’s bread, we will bludgeon him. Now, step forward if any of you acted as a supervisor with particular cruelty in the previous camp.”
One man was pointed out. (…) The block leader nodded to his assistants, who dragged the man to the latrine and drowned him there.
“It so happened”, Marian Turski continued, “that for several weeks in 1945, German prisoners – socialists and communists – held positions of authority in Buchenwald. I don’t know the name of that Blockälteste, but I do know he was German. And it was he who preserved the humanity in me: teaching me not to see every German as a criminal. He saved me from fanatical xenophobia and nationalist prejudice. He restored my human dignity. Unknown by name, my German colleague and comrade, Blockälteste – to honour you, I accept the decoration bestowed upon me by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany”.
Marian Turski’s hometown was Łódź. He was born in Druskininkai because, as he explained in the interview “Three Against One”, published in Cracow’s periodical Zdanie (no. 3/4, 2014), it was common in many Jewish families for women to give birth at their parents’ home – hence Druskininkai. His father dreamed of Marian becoming an “outstanding scholar”, which is why he pushed for him to attend the best school in Łódź. It was a school for children from wealthy families. As Marian recalled, ‘things were not going well’ at home, and his mother tried to negotiate a reduction in the tuition fees. The headmaster was adamant: “Our school is a piece of cake! If you can’t afford a piece of cake, you shouldn’t send your child to our school.” Reflecting on those years, Marian quips, “That’s when I became a socialist.”
He was the best Hebraist in his class and the top student in all subjects – except drawing and gymnastics.
After the liberation of Theresienstadt, he could have emigrated to the United States or Canada. However, he made a conscious decision to return to Poland, which after the war “was to be the Poland I had dreamed of…” Upon his return, he was remembered by friends from the Left Union. He ended up in a hospital in Frydland (now Mieroszów), where the director was Arnold Mostowicz, who would later become the long-time editor-in-chief of the popular satirical magazine Szpilki (Pin).
True to his nature, Marian became involved in social activism, organizing the local Youth Fight Union in Wałbrzych. He gained recognition and was promoted. He belonged to the group of activists who saw the thaw as an opportunity to liberalize the system and enthusiastically engaged in the process of change following October 1956.
There is a saying: “Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.” Marian’s close friends included Roman Zimand, Leszek Kołakowski, and Mieczysław Rakowski. Each, in their way, played an important role in Marian’s life going forward. They were people courageous enough to criticize their own mistaken, sometimes fanatical, commitments. Through their lives, they bore witness to an honest moral reckoning with their past.
It was then, after October 1956, that Marian made a choice that would define more than 65 years of his active life. He went on to become the longest-serving head of the history section at the weekly Polityka – in the history of the whole Polish press. After the events of March 1968 – when the party he trusted, and whose internationalist programme he believed in, unleashed an anti-Semitic campaign – he chose not to leave Poland. Thus began a new chapter in Marian’s life: he became fully engaged in the creation of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which has become one of the most important museums in Warsaw, Poland, Europe, and the world. He emerged as a dedicated guardian of the memory of the Holocaust of Polish Jews.
V
He was a wise and good man – erudite, yet unconcerned with personal recognition. He never sought the spotlight; he simply was himself. He enjoyed meeting people, especially the young, and believed the world could be a better place. Through his actions, he sought to inspire future generations with this belief. He met crowned heads and world leaders alike, and spoke many times from the podiums of the United Nations, UNESCO, and countless congresses dedicated to answering a vital question: what must be done to ensure that the atrocities he endured are never repeated?
Marian was no Man of Marble or Iron – to borrow from the titles of Wajda’s films. He was a man of morality, empathy, and truth. Olga Tokarczuk wrote: “I regard testimonies – stories, warnings, reflections – as a kind of vaccine against evil. If we do not inoculate ourselves with the most terrible experiences of the past, the disease will return.”
Our Nobel Prize winner was right. Today, there is a shortage of moral authorities in public life – people so eminent yet modest that, like Mahatma Gandhi in India, Andrei Sakharov in Russia, and Marian Turski in Poland, they have made the world a better, safer, and fairer place simply by their presence. Their moral integrity and sense of responsibility towards others remain a standard of measure – a kind of moral “Sèvres metre”.
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Foto By Mariusz Kubik - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/...
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