BOROWSKI, TADEUSZ

born Nov. 12, 1922, Zhitomir, Ukrainian S.S.R. [now Zhytomyr, Ukraine] died July 3, 1951, Warsaw, Pol. Polish fiction writer and poet. In German-occupied Warsaw, Borowski illegally published a collection of poems entitled Gdziekolwiek ziemia (1942; Wherever the Land). During 194345 he was an inmate of the German concentration camps at Auschwitz (Oswiecim) and Dachau. After the war he published in Munich a volume entitled Imiona nurtu (1945; The Names of the Undercurrent). In Poland under Communist rule, Borowski in 1948 turned to publishing prose. Two series of stories, Pozegnanie z Maria (Farewell to Maria) and Kamienny swiat (World of Stone), deal mainly with life in Nazi concentration camps and explore the depths of human depravity and degradation. He started collaborating with the new regime by joining the Communist Party and was a cofounder of the Young Intellectuals' Club; but he soon felt alienated by the police state and committed suicide.