Janina Bauman ( Lewinson; 18 August 1926, in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

– 29 December 2009, in

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

) was a Polish journalist and writer of Jewish origin.

Biography

She was the daughter of Szymon Lewinson (1896–1940), a

urologist Urology (from Greek οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and ''-logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary system and the reproductive organs. Org ...

and

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...

officer murdered in the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...

, and of Alina, née Fryszman (1900–1980). She had one sister, Zofia (1930–1971). On her mother's side she was the granddaughter of the physician Aleksander Fryszman (1874–1939) and the niece of Jerzy Fryszman (1904–1976) and of Leon Płockier (1895–1965). During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

she was a prisoner in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

with her mother and sister. They managed to escape and were sheltered by a peasant family in the countryside. After the war she studied journalism at the Warsaw Academy of Political and Social Science, where she met her future husband,

Zygmunt Bauman Zygmunt Bauman (; ; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish–British sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. ...

. She subsequently worked in the film industry as a translator, researcher and script editor. She left Poland with her husband in 1968 after the

antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

purges, that followed the

March 1968 events A series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Polish United Workers' Party of the Polish People's Republic took place in Poland in March 1968. The crisis led to the suppression of student strikes by Służba Bezpie ...

. They initially went to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, however, after three years they decided to settle permanently in Leeds, England, where she lived until the end of her life. She married

(1925–2017). They had three daughters. In 2010 the Bauman Family established the ''Janina Bauman Prize'' to be awarded for a winning essay submitted to the Bauman Institute at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

Books

In Polish * * * In English * ''Winter in the Morning'' (1986), based on diaries she kept as a young girl during the war * ''A Dream of Belonging'' (1988). Both were republished in one volume as: * ''Beyond These Walls'' (2009) all with

Virago Press Virago is a British publisher of women's writing and books on feminist topics. Started and run by women in the 1970s and bolstered by the success of the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), Virago has been credited as one of several British femin ...

About Janina Bauman

* ''Janina Bauman, Als Mädchen im Warschauer Ghetto. Ein Überlebensbericht.'' Aus dem Englischen von Reinhard Wagner. Mit einem Nachwort von

Władysław Bartoszewski Władysław Bartoszewski (; 19 February 1922 – 24 April 2015) was a Polish politician, social activist, journalist, writer and historian. A former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, he was a World War II resistance fighter as part of th ...

. Verlag Max Hueber, Ismaning bei München 1986. * Peter Wagner : ''Between two wars: Janina and Zygmunt Bauman's analyses of the contemporary human condition '', 2003

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bauman, Janina 1926 births 2009 deaths Warsaw Ghetto inmates Polish women journalists Writers from Warsaw Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom Jewish British writers 20th-century Polish women writers 20th-century Polish writers 20th-century Polish journalists

Biography

Books

About Janina Bauman

See also

References