Teresa Torańska

Teresa Torańska (2005)

Teresa Sławomira Torańska (born January 1, 1944 in Wołkowysk ; † January 2, 2013 in Warsaw , Poland ) was a Polish journalist and author. Her book Oni ( Eng. You ) became a bestseller and received international attention and has been translated into several languages.

Live and act

Torańska was born in 1944 during the Second World War in the then German-occupied Wołkowysk. Her parents were both teachers and her mother taught French. While her uncle was slain in Kharkiv , the Russians abducted her father to a Gulag camp in Molotovsk . He was not released until 1948.

Torańska studied law at the University of Warsaw and then journalism. In the 1970s she worked for the weekly Argumente and then 1973–1975 for the magazine Światowid . In 1975 and 1976 five travel guides were published in which she had contributed, for example from Berlin, the capital of the GDR; Dresden and Leipzig. Since 1975 she has worked as a journalist for the popular Polish weekly Kultura (Kultura “warszawska”). After martial law was imposed in 1981 , Torańska wrote for the most important journal of Polish emigration , Kultura (“paryska”) , which was banned in communist Poland.

The book Oni ( German you ) could only appear in samizdat in Poland and abroad in 1985. In 1981–1984 she interviewed five prominent communists from the Stalinist era of Poland (1945–1956) and asked them about their assessment of the achievements of socialism in Poland. Her interlocutors were Edward Ochab , Jakub Berman , Roman Werfel , Stefan Staszewski and Julia Minc, herself a functionary and the widow of Hilary Minc, who died in 1974 . Torańska exposed the interviewees as loyal Stalinists. The way they conduct conversations has been compared to Oriana Fallaci 's. In 2000 she received an award from the Polish PEN Club for this book.

In the 1990s Torańska was in the television sector for the talk show Teraz Wy radio station TVP2 operate as well as for the historical format "powtórka z PRL-u". She interviewed General Wojciech Jaruzelski , a call for which they awarded in 2005 with the first Barbara Łopieńska Prize and the script for the documentary Dworzec gdański , which was broadcast in 2007 and is about Jews who had to leave Poland after the March riots in 1968. On the anniversary of the plane crash near Smolensk , she spoke to the Polish presidential couple . From 2000 to 2012 was Torańska journalist for Gazeta Wyborcza and 2012 she published interviews to Newsweek Polska . in the field of television, she was the talk show Teraz Wy operates the transmitter TVP2.

Torańska died after a long illness, one day after her 69th birthday. She was buried in the Powązki Military Cemetery (Cmentarz Wojskowy na Powązkach) in Warsaw. The President praised Teresa Torańska “for outstanding contributions to the development of Polish journalism and special journalistic achievements in disseminating knowledge about the recent history of Poland”. She was married to the computer scientist Leszek Sankowski. Her half-brother Błażej Torański (* 1960) is a journalist and publicist.

Honors

• 2013 Commander's Cross of the Order Odrodzenia Polski , awarded posthumously at her funeral
• 2001 Officer's Cross of the Order Odrodzenia Polski

Works (selection)

• Widok z dolu. (The view from below). Warszawa 1980. ISBN 978-83-207-0236-1 .
• Oni. (She). Samizdat: Warszawa 1985; Kraków 1985. Aneks, London 1985. New editions since 1989.
  • The one up there. Made Polish Stalinists speak. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1987. ISBN 3-462-01819-1 .
  • Them. Stalin's Polish Puppets. HarperCollins, 1988. ISBN 978-0-06-091493-6 .
• My. (We). Warszawa 1994. ISBN 83-85611-23-1 .
• Byli. (Be). Warszawa 2006. ISBN 83-247-0246-6 .
• Są. Rozmowy o dobrych uczuciach. Warszawa 2007. ISBN 978-83-247-0791-1 .
• Jesteśmy. Rozstania '68. (We are; conversations with emigrants from 1968) Warszawa 2008. ISBN 978-83-247-1027-0 .
• Śmierć spóźnia się o minutę. (Three interviews with Michał Bristiger, Michał Głowiński and Adam Daniel Rotfeld ). Warszawa 2010. ISBN 978-83-268-0049-8 .
• Wywiady Teresy Torańskiej. (Interviews). Biblioteka Newsweeka 2012 (tom I – IX). ISBN 978-83-7813-276-9 .

Filmography

• Dworzec gdański. (Danziger Bahnhof) Documentary. Director: Maria Zmarz-Kozanowicz; Poland 2007.

Web links

Commons : Teresa Torańska  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Teresa Torańska. (engl., biography)
• Błażej Torański: Teresa, moja siostra . (Polish, January 18, 2013)
• Interview with Peter Lachmann : When a German converts to Poland. (Part 1, slightly abbreviated translation, 2004)

References and comments

1. ↑ For example with Andrzej Górkot: Berlin - stolica NRD i okolice. Mały przewodnik turystyczny. Warsaw 1976.
2. ^ Roman Werfel (1906–2003), editor of various party organs and candidate for the Politburo.
3. ↑ prezydent.pl: Order Odrodzenia Polski dla Teresy Torańskiej. (Polish, January 9, 2013)
4. ↑ Monitor Polski 2001. nr 21 poz. 345.