Homo viator. Józef Wittlin – podróżnik, banita, uciekinier

Abstract

The article by Dr. Nina Taylor-Terlecka is devoted to the travels and escapes of Józef Wittlin, an outstanding prose writer and poet of Polish Jewish origin, author of the novel Salt of the Earth and the collection of essays Orpheus in the Hell of the 20th Century. Using the material of his correspondence, the researcher shows Wittlin’s travels before, during, and after World War II. They include Austria, France, Spain, and the United States. Everywhere in his travels, he was accompanied by the awareness of his Jewish origin and the memory of anti-Semitic statements formulated against him. As the author points out, to his own salvation, Wittlin had ambivalent feelings; to his daughter, he reminded: “how much gratitude you owe to God for choosing you out of millions of Polish and Jewish children and allowing you to bring your innocent life out of hell on earth and out of purgatory.”