Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński was born on the 21st of January 1921 in Warsaw as the son of a teacher Stefania and the famous interwar literary critic Stefan Baczyński.

Baczyński started writing poems as a teenager. In high school, he belonged to the secret radical socialist group Spartakus as well as to the scouting movement. 

In his short novels and poems, Baczyński demonstrated both romantic traditions and catastrophism. His writings depict the brutality of war and suggest that love is the only force that can effectively defend a human being against it. His first known poem was entitled Accident at work (1936).

When WWII broke out in September 1939 following the German aggression on Poland, Baczyński had to hide his Jewish origin’s in the midst of the witch hunt organised by the Wehrmacht across the country. 

In addition, it is worth mentioning that his socialist sympathies weakened following the Soviet Union’s aggression on the 17th of September 1939 and eventually cooled off after the discovery in April 1943 of the graves in Katyń.

In June 1942, Krzysztof Baczyński married a student of underground Polish studies, Barbara Drapczyńska. The latter would die just a few weeks after her husband. 

In the summer of 1944, he participated as a volunteer in the Warsaw Uprising under the nickname “Jan Bugaj”. He was shot on the 4th of August, by a German sniper. Krzysztof Baczyński and his wife Barbara are both buried at the Military Cemetery in Warsaw’s Powązki cemetery.

Author: Sebastien Meuwissen

Cover photo: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej/British Poles