Born: January 10, 1892, Kaluzyce, Russia (presently Belarus)
Died: September 10, 1974, Warsaw, Poland
Early days. His father, Melchior, was a nobleman (coat of arms Lis) owning the Kaluzyce estate. His mother was Maria nee Szwoynicka. Melchior had three siblings. His parents died when he was three years old and he was raised by his grandmother. During 1903-1911 he attended Gimnazjum Pawla Chrzanowskiego in Warsaw, and since 1907 he participated in the underground political associations. In 1909 he started his journalistic work in in a underground periodical “Wici.” In 1911 he started studying at the Law at the Jagiellonian University at Krakow which he finished in 1923 at University of Warsaw. While at the University he belonged to several underground political organizations.
Career. During the World War I he fought in the Polish I Corps in Russia under General Jozef Dowbor-Musnicki. In 1920 he participated in Polish-Soviet war. After the war he worked as a journalist, for a time working as a chief of the press department in the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1926 he founded a publishing agency, "Rój" that was instrumental in publishing books by authored by world’s famous writers. Also in 1926 he traveled through Mexico and published the impressions from this trip. He also worked in the advertising business, coining in 1931 a popular slogan for the advertisement of sugar - "cukier krzepi" (sugar strengthens). In 1933 he made a trip to Soviet Union and was fascinated by it. He wrote three books during the interwar period, all of them gaining him increasing fame and popularity. His famous collection of reports “Na tropach Smetka”- a result of his travel trough (then German) East Prussia- appeared in 1936. In 1938 he visited USA. After the German invasion of Poland he lived for a while in Romania, where he wrote about the events of the Polish September 1939 and where he interviewed interned Polish Foreign Minister Jozef Beck and Marshall Edward Rydz-Smigly. In 1941, thanks to the British, he went to Cyprus and then in 1942 to Palestine where he got interested wiyh Jewish problems. From 1943 to 1946 he undertook what would be perhaps his most famous endeavor - he became a war correspondent for the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Later he wrote an account of the battle of Monte Cassino, his most famous book that was published in Poland only in a shortened, censored form (until the fall of communism in 1990). After residing in Italy to 1947 he moved to England where he lived till 1949 publishing few books.
From 1949 to 1958 he lived in the United States, first with his daughter and her husband and then on Long Island. In 1956 he became a USA citizen. In 1958 he returned to Poland returning to communist Poland. Several of his books have been published in communist Poland but inconvenient fragments were deleted by Polish censors. As a US citizen he could travel freely and spent one year (1961) in the USA After he cosigned the letter of 34 prominent Polish writers in 1964, protesting against the censorship, he was repressed by the government - the publication of his works was prohibited, and he was himself arrested, charged with slander of Poland and "spreading anti-Polish propaganda abroad and sentenced to three years of imprisonment. However the sentence was never executed. During the period 1971-1974 he was very active in Polish Radio and TV.
Personal. In 1916 he married Zofia Malagowska (coat of arms Nalecz). The marriage lasted till the death of Zofia in 1969, but according to some sources was not always peaceful. They had two daughters: Krystyna and Marta.
Awards. 1920 Cross of Valor; 1937 Commandor’s Cross of the Order Polonia Restituta
