Jozef Hen

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Hen during the Warsaw Book Fair 2013

Józef Hen , actually Józef Henryk Cukier (born November 8, 1923 in Warsaw ) is a Polish writer, publicist and dramaturge.

Life

Born into a Jewish family of craftsmen, while still a child he worked for the children's newspaper “Mały Przegląd” (Little Review), edited by Janusz Korczak . After the outbreak of World War II , he fled to the Soviet-occupied part of Poland in November 1939. He worked in road construction, after the attack by the German Wehrmacht on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, he fled to Samarkand in Uzbekistan .

He tried to join the Polish army formed by General Władysław Anders , but was not accepted. It was not until 1944 that he became a soldier in the Polish People's Army formed by General Zygmunt Berling . During the war he lost his father (murdered in Buchenwald in 1945), his brother Moses (missing in the Soviet Union) and his sister Mirka (murdered in 1942). His mother and sister Stella survived the war. In 1944 he adopted the literary alias "Hen", which replaced his family name. He became editor of the Polish soldiers' newspaper and in 1952 dismissed from military service with the rank of captain.

His first book was published in 1947: Kijów, Taszkent, Berlin. Dzieje włóczęgi (Kiev, Tashkent, Berlin, the story of vagrancy). He has written many novels for adult and young readers, as well as screenplays . He filmed some of these scripts himself.

Since the March 1968 riots in Poland , he has been violently attacked by the anti-Semites. At that time he decided to work with the Polish exile monthly " Kultura " published by Jerzy Giedroyc in Paris , where he published three short stories under the code name "Korab".

In January 1976 he signed the "Memorial 101" - a protest against the changes in the Polish constitution that made Poland a vassal state of the Soviet Union.

He also wrote non-fiction books such as Błazen - wielki mąż ( Court Jester - A Great Man 1998) about the writer Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński and Ja, Michał z Montaigne (Ich, Michel de Montaigne 1978) about the French humanist and politician.

Since the 1980s he has been writing mainly autobiographical books.

Józef Hen was a. a. 1998 with the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta and 2006 with the Gloria Artis Medal of Cultural Merit Award.

Works in German translation

  • The Boxer and Death: Tales: from the Polish. by Renate Lachmann: Munich; Vienna: A. Langen, G. Müller, 1964.
  • The fist and the right: Roman: from the Polish. by Kurt Kelm: Berlin: Volk und Welt, 1974.
  • Yokohama: Roman: from the Polish. by Hubert Schumann: Berlin: Volk und Welt, 1977
  • Novolipie: A Jewish street: from the Polish. by Roswitha Matwin-Buschmann: Leipzig: Reclam, 1996

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Józef Hen  - collection of images
personal data
SURNAME Hen, Józef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cukier, Józef Henryk (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish writer, publicist and dramaturge
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw