Memoirs of communism's prisoners: six books, 1951–1988

In brief

• Six books, six different places of imprisonment: from the Soviet labour camp at Yertsevo to the Stalinist prisons of Mokotów, Wronki and Rawicz^1,2.
• Five of them first reached readers in Poland through the underground press, outside censorship^3,4,5,2,6.
• The only one published officially, Conversations with an Executioner, came out in 1977 in a shortened version; the full, uncensored text appeared only in 1992⁷.
• Among them is Bogumił Studziński's W lochach socjalizmu (In the Dungeons of Socialism): the Kurs publishing house, 1988, 130 pages⁶.

This list covers memoirs by prisoners of communist prisons and camps, ordered by the year of first publication. For each book we say what it is about and where and when it appeared — including in the underground press. Publication data come from the bibliography of the Museum of Free Speech (Muzeum Wolnego Słowa) and from encyclopaedic descriptions. All these books are held in libraries.

1. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, A World Apart (1951)

An account of the Soviet labour camp at Yertsevo in Arkhangelsk Oblast and of the journey to the Polish army forming in Persia. The book first appeared in English, in London in 1951, and in Polish — in London in 1953. In Poland it was published officially only in 1988¹.

In Poland it was published by the underground Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza (NOWa) in March 1980, labelled the “second domestic edition”. An earlier attempt was cut short: on 21 August 1979 the police confiscated some of the printed sheets³.

2. Zbigniew Stypułkowski, Invitation to Moscow (1951)

An account of his arrest by the NKVD in March 1945, of interrogations at the Lubyanka and of the Moscow trial of sixteen leaders of the Polish Underground State, in which Stypułkowski was one of the defendants⁸.

The Polish edition appeared in London in 1951 under the title W zawierusze dziejowej. Wspomnienia 1939–1945 (In the Turmoil of History: Memoirs 1939–1945), and a later one as Zaproszenie do Moskwy (London 1977). In Poland the book was published by the underground Wydawnictwo Spotkania (1981; according to another description, June 1982), with a preface by Hugh Trevor-Roper⁴.

3. Kazimierz Moczarski, Conversations with an Executioner (1977)

Moczarski, an officer of the Home Army, was arrested by the UB secret police on 11 August 1945. From 2 March to 11 November 1949 he shared a cell with Jürgen Stroop, the man responsible for the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto — the book records their conversations. In 1952 Moczarski was sentenced to death; in December 1956 he was found innocent⁷.

The text was serialised in the magazine Odra (1972–1974), a shortened book version came out in 1977, and the full text, free of censorship, in 1992 (PWN). The author did not live to see the book published: he died in 1975⁷.

4. Stefan Wyszyński, Zapiski więzienne (1982)

The Primate of Poland was imprisoned at Rywałd on 25 September 1953. He was later held at Stoczek Klasztorny, Prudnik and Komańcza, and was released on 26 October 1956⁹.

Zapiski więzienne (Prison Notes) were published by Éditions du Dialogue in Paris in 1982. In Poland they were reprinted by many underground publishers — the bibliography lists several dozen descriptions of editions and their variants — as early as 1983 by, among others, Wszechnica Społeczno-Polityczna and Wydawnictwo Przedświt⁵.

5. Władysław Minkiewicz, Mokotów, Wronki, Rawicz. Wspomnienia 1939–1954 (1988)

Memories of three prisons (the title means Mokotów, Wronki, Rawicz: Memoirs 1939–1954), including Rawicz, where Bogumił Studziński also served his sentence. They were first printed in the Paris quarterly Zeszyty Historyczne (1987, nos. 80 and 81). In 1988 a corrected reprint was published in Warsaw by the underground Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza and Oficyna Wydawnicza Pokolenie, and in 1990 by the Novum publishing house².

6. Bogumił Studziński, W lochach socjalizmu (1988)

The memoir of a political prisoner whom the District Military Court in Kielce sentenced in 1951 to 10 years in prison; he served his sentence in Rawicz^10,11. The book appeared from the underground Kurs publishing house in 1988, a year after the author's death: 130 pages, offset-printed from typescript. Second edition: Zalesie Górne 2001, 239 pages⁶.

We are preparing a new edition — more about the book. Memoirs by other prisoners of the author's generation are in the list “Young political prisoners in Poland, 1944–1956”. If you are looking for traces of a family member, see also the guide “How to find a persecuted relative's files in the IPN archive”.