Tadeusz Nowakowski

From 1952 onwards Nowakowski worked in the Polish Department of Radio Free Europe (RFE), which had taken up its work on 3 May that year and originally bore the name “Głos Wolnej Polski” (The Voice of Free Poland). His work then took him to Munich. For the RFE he wrote radio plays, edited programmes, interviewed writers (one of whom was Witold Gombrowicz), and commented on political and cultural events. During this time he attempted to continue his literary work as far as this was possible, by publishing novels and a huge amount of short stories in exile magazines and anthologies. His micro-novel Syn zadżumionych (The Son of the Plagued), that appeared in Paris in 1959 attracted prominent interest amongst German readers. It was the first Polish work to take up the process of Germany’s moral rebirth and the genuine desires of young people in West Germany to get their fathers to come to terms with their guilt.
The novel was translated into German under the title Der Sohn (“The Son”), adapted for radio and broadcast from Hamburg in 1963. Nowakowski reported for the RFE on war crime trials, including, from 1963 to 1965, the famous 20 month trial in Frankfurt against the people who had worked in the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Tadeusz Nowakowski received many awards for his literary work. These included the Literature Prize of the Guild of Artists in Esslingen (1959), the “Literary Atlantic Award” from Princeton University (1963), the Tukan Prize (1966) and the Karl Wolfskehl Prize for Exile Literature awarded by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (1992).

As a reporter in the service of the RFE he accompanied Pope John Paul II on thirty journeys of pilgrimage, which he also reported for the German press (“FAZ”).

After the collapse of communism he decided to revisit the country of his birth for the first time in 1990. In 1995 he moved back to his hometown of Bydgoszcz, where he died on 11th March 1996. In 1991 the town of Olsztyn made him an honorary citizen, and three years later, in 1994, he was made an honorary citizen of Bydgoszcz. Tadeusz Nowakowski was buried in his mother’s grave in the cemetery on Zaświat Street in Bydgoszcz.

Wacław Lewandowski, July 2016

Further Reading:

J. Czachowska, A. Szałagan (eds.): Współcześni pisarze polscy i badacze literatury. Słownik bibliograficzny (Contemporary Polish writers and Literary Scholars. A bibliographical lexicon), vol. VI, Warsaw 1999; vol. X (Additions), Warsaw 2007.

T. Nowakowski: Obóz Wszystkich Świętych. Introduction by W. Lewandowski, Warsaw 2003, pp. 5-15.

W. Lewandowski: Tadeusz Nowakowski. Portret literacki w 10. rocznicę śmierci (Tadeusz Nowakowski. A literary portrait on the 10th anniversary of his death), “Kwartalnik Artystyczny” 2006, No. 1 (49).
Wacław Lewandowski (born, 1962) is a literary historian, editor, and associate professor at the Nikolaus Kopernikus University in Toruń.

For all photos (except Porta Polonica): www.wolnaeuropa.pl. 
Courtesy Stowarzyszenie Pracowników, Współpracowników i Przyjaciół Rozgłośni Polskiej Rdia Wola Europa imienia Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego.