POLISH WRITERS HESITANT ABOUT CHOOSING FREEDOM

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06530244
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2022
• Case Number: F-2020-02080
• Publication Date: August 11, 1964

pproved for Release: 2022/08/03 006530244
This material contains information affecting the National Defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws. Title
18. U.S.C. Secs. 993 and 794. the transmission or revelation of whi any manner to an unauthorized person Is prohibited by law.
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NO FOREIGN DISSEM
DATE OF
INFO.
Polish Writers Hesitant about
Choosing Freedom
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION. SOURCE GRADINGS ARE DEFINITIVE. APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.
n
Radio Free Europe official who is a member.of the Polish broadcasting
department (C). He received the information through a Polish journalist
who has been living abroad for more than one year, but who still fears
to "choose freedom". Appraisal of Contentf The dilemma of dramatic
proportions facing Polish writers who hesitate to remain abroad is
understandable.
There follows a report of the problem facing Polish intellectuals re-
siding abroad. Two journalists who grapple with this problem now are
Jerzy Hordynski, a journalist and essayist and Slawomir Mrozek, a
playwright and satirist of some renown.
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Approved for Release: 2022/08/03 006530244
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CS-311/01954-64
1. Polish writers spending some time in the West (in this case, two
temporarily in Italy) try to delay their return to Poland as much
as possible without going as far as Artur Marya Swinarski, believing
that a writer separated from his homeland cannot develop fully.
2. Fears of returning are double -- first, difficulties in making a
living, ostracism by newspapers and publishers, and also the im-
possibility of ever leaving the country again. The second fear
is more physical in character as for example a young writer named
Adolf Sowinski arrived in Vienna, where he met a rich Austrian
woman, a widow and owner of a furniture factory and was kept by
her. But he wearied of the easy life, started drinking, and,
finally, on advice of regime agents, returned to Poland, where he
soon died-- according to the official version--of delirium tremens.
His friends maintain, however, that the security police had a hand
in his demise, since, when drunk, he would attack the regime un-
mercifully. Another example concerns Witold Lisowski in the
Polisn delegation to the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna. The
regime authorities suspected him of wanting to remain abroad. He
was not,given orders to return, however, since he might have
balked. tHe was lured to Zakopane by a woman and died soon after
his return under unspecified circumstanpes. The International
Atomic Energy Commission paid his family a compensation, as if he
had died in the course of service.
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
pproved for Release: 2022/08/03 C06530244