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Seweryna Szmaglewska - Polish writer; one of the most famous Auschwitz survivors
Seweryna Szmaglewska was born on February 11, 1916 in Przygłów near Piotrków Trybunalski. She studied psychology and literature to become a teacher. After the beginning of German occupation of Poland, she worked in one of the hospitals in Piotrków Trybunalski as a volunteer nurse and was engaged in illegal education. In 1940 she joined a student resistance organization that run an underground library of Polish literature. For her involvement in the resistance she was arrested by the Gestapo. On October 6, 1942, she became a prisoner of the Au
Seweryna Szmaglewska - Polish writer; one of the most famous Auschwitz survivors
Seweryna Szmaglewska was born on February 11, 1916 in Przygłów near Piotrków Trybunalski. She studied psychology and literature to become a teacher. After the beginning of German occupation of Poland, she worked in one of the hospitals in Piotrków Trybunalski as a volunteer nurse and was engaged in illegal education. In 1940 she joined a student resistance organization that run an underground library of Polish literature. For her involvement in the resistance she was arrested by the Gestapo. On October 6, 1942, she became a prisoner of the Auschwitz camp.
Immediately after escaping from an evacuation transport (January 18, 1945), she began to write her memoirs which became one of the first – if not the first – personal books about the experience of Auschwitz.
Since 1945, ‘Smoke over Birkenau’ has been reprinted frequently and widely translated. “Smoke over Birkenau is not a book about death or hatred,” one critic wrote. “It is a powerful act of the will to live and a profession of the noblest humanism. The victorious idea of life is woven through every page. Maintaining, cultivating, and instilling in oneself the imperative: You must endure! You must live! – a plan carried out unswervingly despite everything.”
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