Personal life

John Guzlowski was born the son of parents who met in a slave labor camp

Nazi concentration camps

Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...

 in Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. His mother Tekla Hanczarek came from a small community west of Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

 in what was then Poland

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...

 where her father was a forest warden. His father Jan was born in a farming community north of Poznań

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

. John was born Zbigniew Guzlowski in a Displaced Persons camp in Vienenburg, Germany in 1948, and changed his name to John when he was naturalized as an American citizen.

His parents, his sister Donna, and he came to the US as DPs in 1951. After working on farms in western New York State to pay off their passage to America, they eventually settled in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in the city's old Polish Downtown in the vicinity of St. Fidelis Parish in Humboldt Park

Humboldt Park, Chicago

Humboldt Park is one of 77 officially designated community areas located on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois. The Humboldt Park neighborhood is widely known for its large Puerto Rican presence...

.

Literature

Growing up in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

's immigrant and DP

DP

DP may refer to:* Dan Patrick* Dawn patrol , * Depository participant* Diet Pepsi* Displaced person* Dom Pérignon* Donkey punch* Double penetration, a variant of group sex* Dance party...

 neighborhoods, Guzlowski regularly interacted with Jewish hardware store clerks with Auschwitz tattoos on their wrists, Polish Cavalry

Polish cavalry

The Polish cavalry can trace its origins back to the days of Medieval mounted knights. Poland had always been a country of flatlands and fields and mounted forces operate well in this environment...

 officers who still mourned for their dead horses, and women who walked from Siberia to Iran to escape the Russians. Guzlowski would later write that his written work as having been composed to "try to remember them and their voices".

Guzlowski earned his PhD in English at Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

 in 1980, and is now retired from Eastern Illinois University

Eastern Illinois University

Eastern Illinois University is a state university located in Charleston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1895 as the Eastern Illinois State Normal School, a teacher's college offering a two-year degree, Eastern Illinois University gradually expanded into a comprehensive university with a...

, where he taught contemporary American literature and poetry writing. His poems deal with his parents' experiences as slave laborers in Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. He has authored two books: Lightning and Ashes and Third Winter of War: Buchenwald (Finishing Line Press). These books continue the story of his parents that began in his chapbook Language of Mules which was republished as Język Mułów i Inne Wiersze, a Polish-English edition of this chapbook and other poems, and published by Biblioteka Śląska in Katowice, Poland. His poem “What My Father Believed” was read by Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor

Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio personality. He is known as host of the Minnesota Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (born August 7, 1942) is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio...

 on the Writers Almanac program. Other poems have appeared in a number of periodicals in the US, Poland, and Hungary, including Margie, Nimrod, Altlanta Review, Crab Orchard Review, Chattahoochee Review, Slask, and Ackent.

His essays on contemporary American and Polish authors can be found in such journals as Modern Fiction Studies

Modern Fiction Studies

Modern Fiction Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1955 at Purdue University's Department of English, where it is still edited. It publishes general and themed issues on the topic of modernist and contemporary fiction using original research from literary scholars. It seeks...

, Shofar, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, Studies in Jewish American Literature, and Polish Review

The Polish Review

The Polish Review is an English-language scholarly journal published quarterly in New York City by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America.The Polish Review has been appearing since 1956.-Editors in Chief:*Stanisław Skrzypek...

.

John Guzlowski was the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council

Illinois Arts Council

The Illinois Arts Council is a government agency of the state of Illinois formed to encourage development of the arts throughout Illinois. Founded in 1965 by the Illinois General Assembly, the Illinois Arts Council provides financial and technical assistance to artists, arts organizations, and...

Award in 2001.

External links

• Article about Lightning and Ashes http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/pas/65.1/napierkowski.html
• Guzlowski's personal blog about his parents and their experiences http://lightning-and-ashes.blogspot.com/