Anatol Stern was a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 poet, writer and art critic. Born October 24, 1899 to an assimilated family of Jewish ancestry, Stern studied at the Polish Studies

Polish studies

Polish studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates Polish language and literature in both its historic and present-day forms...

 Faculty of the University of Wilno but did not graduate. Prominent among Polish futurist

Futurism (art)

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...

 poets, between 1921 and 1923 he co-authored (together with Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz) the "Nowa Sztuka" (New Art) monthly. He also collaborated with other notable art magazines of the time, including the Skamander

Skamander

Skamander was a Polish group of experimental poets founded in 1918 by Julian Tuwim, Antoni Słonimski, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Kazimierz Wierzyński and Jan Lechoń....

, Tadeusz Peiper

Tadeusz Peiper

Tadeusz Peiper was a Polish poet, art critic, theoretician of literature and one of the precursors of the avant-garde movement in Polish poetry. Born to a Jewish family, Peiper converted to Catholicism as a young man and spent several years in Spain...

's Zwrotnica and Wiadomości literackie.

With time he drifted away from avant-garde poetry and became a notable screenwriter. Prior to the outbreak of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he authored more than 30 screenplays for both Polish and foreign films. After the Polish Defensive War

Invasion of Poland (1939)

The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...

 he moved to Soviet-held Lwów, where he was arrested by the NKVD

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

 and sent to Soviet Gulag

Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...

. Released after the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement

Sikorski-Mayski Agreement

The Sikorski–Mayski Agreement was a treaty between the Soviet Union and Poland signed in London on 30 July 1941. Its name was coined after the two most notable signatories: Polish Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski and Soviet Ambassador to the United Kingdom Ivan Mayski.- Details :After signing...

, he joined the Polish Army and with it reached Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

. There he made his living translating some of his pre-war works to Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

. In 1948 he returned to his home town, where he died October 19, 1968.