Special publication in the Year of Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski
06.12.2019
On Friday, 6 December a special multi-lingual publication was launched with the excerpts from the book “A World Apart: The journal of a Gulag Survivor” by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. The publication in Polish, English, Italian, Hebrew and Te Reo Māori was prepared in collaboration with the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation, Victoria University of Wellington.
The launch event in Wellington saw the excerpts of "A World Apart" being read out in English by Prof. Roberto Rabel, Emeritus Professor, Victoria University of Wellington, in Polish by Mrs Krystyna Tomaszyk, a Siberian survivor and one of the Polish Pahiatua Children, in Italian by Ambassador of Italy HE Mr Fabrizio Marcelli, in Hebrew by the Israeli Ambassador HE Dr Itzhak Gerberg, who also translated the text for the publication and in Te Reo Māori by Mr Rere-No-A-Rangi Pope, Research Assistant, Victoria University of Wellington.
Italian version was specially written for the publication by Dr Marco Sonzogni from the School of Languages and Cultures, Victoria University of Wellington. The limited publication was prepared by Wai-te-ata Press run by Dr Sydney Shep, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW).
In his introductory remarks, Ambassador Zbigniew Gniatkowski described Grudziński's relevance and historical connections between the times and countries as well as the book's powerful message for New Zealand.
Grudziński’s work, his testimony and legacy is universally important, it’s bearing a special meaning to us all. Born as a Polish Jew, I have no doubt he was a great Polish patriot, a victim and fervent opponent of both totalitarian systems personified by Stalin and Hitler. Eventually, he made Italy his new home country, where he lived a valuable and constructive life, like the Polish Children in New Zealand. - said the Polish Ambassador.
Among the guests present were numerous ambassadors and representatives of diplomatic missions, i.e. France, Germany, USA, Netherlands, European Union as well as various educational and cultural institutions including the New Zealand Holocaust Centre.
The Polish Embassy has published a number of publications together with the VUW institutions, i.e. pieces by Czesław Miłosz, Karol Wojtyła (St John Paul II), Halina Poświatowska, Zbigniew Herbert. This publication is the first one involving cooperation with other embassies.
Year 2019 marks the centenary since Gustaw Herling-Grudziński was born in Kielce, Poland, into a Jewish-Polish merchant family. Like many others, Grudziński was hugely impacted by the 2nd World War. In late 1939, shortly after the German and Russian invasion of Poland, he co-founded an underground resistance organisation PLAN. In 1940 he was arrested by NKVD and routinely sentenced to five years of hard labour on “espionage” charges and then imprisoned in Vitebsk and two Gulag forced labour camps in Yertsevo and Kargopol in the Arkhangelsk region. Upon his release, Herling-Grudziński joined General Anders’ Army (2nd Polish Corps) and later fought in North Africa and Italy, also taking part in Monte Cassino Battle. He was awarded with the Virtuti Militari, Poland’s highest military distinction. In 1947, Grudziński co-founded the political and cultural magazine “Kultura”, then published in Rome, later in Paris. He settled in Naples, Italy, where he married Lidia, a daughter of the philosopher Benedetto Croce. He died in Naples in 2000.
His book “A World Apart”, written after the war, is a harrowing personal account of life in the Gulag labour camps and the Soviet communist system.
