Stanisław Grzesiuk

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Stanisław Grzesiuk (1918-1963) was a Polish writer, poet, comic and singer. He is notable as one of the few people to use and promote the folk-lore and dialect of Warsaw, almost extinct after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Stanisław Grzesiuk was born May 6, 1918 in Małków near Chełm. Early in his life his family moved to Warsaw's borough of Czerniaków, a distinct cultural area populated mostly by factory workers and other lower classes of the society. After graduating from a local gymnasium he finished a trade school and started working as an electrotechnician for various enterprises. After the outbreak of World War II, in 1940 he was arrested by the Germans and sent to Germany as a slave worker. However, on April 4 of that year he was sent to Dachau concentration camp. Later sent to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, Grzesiuk spent more than 5 years in German concentration camps.

Liberated on May 5, 1945, he returned to Poland. Although he survived the Holocaust, his health never recovered and Grzesiuk suffered from serious tuberculosis, which eventually became the cause of his death. After the war, Grzesiuk started documenting his pre-war and wartime experiences. In 1958 he debuted with Pięć lat kacetu (Five Years in Concentration Camps), a striking description of his stay in Nazi Germany during the war. The following year he published Boso, ale w ostrogach (Barefoot but with spurs), a description of the pre-war life of Czerniaków, one of the most colourfull boroughs of Warsaw. Since then, he became known as the person to document the life of pre-war Warsaw in numerous songs, including the street ballads he became the best known for. He also became known as a singer, as he took played a vital role in various Warsaw folk groups in the role of a songwriter, singer and banjo player.

In the 1960's he started his work on yet another novel, Na marginesie życia (On the Margin of Life), documenting his struggle against tuberculosis, as well as the Polish post-war welfare services. Stanisław Grzesiuk died January 21, 1963 in Warsaw. His last book was published posthumously the following year.