Maria Kuryluk
Encyclopedia
Maria Kuryluk, 24 December 1917–1 January 2001, was a poet, writer, translator, and amateur pianist. She was first married to Teddy Gleich (1912–1946), then to Karol Kuryluk
(1910–1967). She was the mother of Ewa Kuryluk and Piotr Kuryluk (1950–2004).
, Silesia
, and died in Warsaw. She was the eldest daughter of the merchant Herman Kohany (1882–1942) who perished in the Holocaust under unknown circumstances, and Paulina Kohany, née Raaber (1882–1942), a porcelain designer in her youth, who was killed along with her younger daughter Hilde Kohany (1920–1942) in Treblinka
. Miriam’s older brother Oscar survived the war in the Soviet Union and in 1950 emigrated with his family from Poland to Israel.
, Pushkin and Thomas Mann
. After graduating from a Protestant German high school for girls in Bielsko, she held clerical jobs and was involved in the Zionist Youth Movement
. She also gave small piano concerts, participated in theatrical performances and was, not unlike her younger sister Hilde, a cinema fan. Miriam greatly admired the actress Erika Mann
and became acquainted with her when Mann’s famous anti-fascist cabaret Die Pfeffermühle toured Silesia.
in the Ukraine) with a group of young people, dispersed on the way. By the time she arrived in Lvov the city had been annexed by the Soviets. Nothing is known about the following two years of Miriam’s whereabouts under the Soviet occupation, except that she continued writing poetry. In 1942 Miriam Kohany escaped from the Lvov ghetto and survived, as did her husband Teddy Gleich, on the Aryan side with the help of Karol Kuryluk, a member of the resistance.
While in hiding from 1942 to 1944, Miriam Kohany joined the underground and worked for clandestine news and publishing services. She kept writing poetry, made notes about Heinrich von Kleist
and began a novel about her family, disguised as the family of Lena and Robert Buch. In 1944, with the Red Army closing on Lvov, she acted as liaison and ventured into the for-Germans-only parts of the city distributing leaflets calling on Wehrmacht
soldiers to desert.
became the editor-in-chief of “Odrodzenie” (“The Renaissance”), a cultural magazine first published in Lublin
, later in Cracow and Warsaw
—and Maria Kuryluk became responsible for the magazine’s correspondence, tracking down contributors all over Europe. Her job’s difficulty is evidenced by the military censorship stamp on the envelope of André Malraux
’s letter of 4 August 1945, responding to Maria Kuryluk’s request to contribute an excerpt of his novel to “Odrodzenie”.
Towards the end of the war Maria Kuryluk switched from writing in German to writing in Polish. Her first book Jędrek i Piotr, a short novel about war orphans she had taken care of in Cracow, was serialized in “Odrodzenie” and published in Warsaw in 1946. Unpublished, however, remained her principle early work, a long wartime memoirs with autobiographical elements entitled Zdzisław Bieliński (ca. 1946): the name of a Lvov doctor who saved Jews along with his wife Zofia Bielińska. Doctor Bieliński was killed in 1945 by radicals of the Polish nationalist underground. The Bieliński couple was later declared as Righteous among the Nations
of the World by Yad Vashem
, but their heroic deeds became known in detail only recently, when Ewa Kuryluk discovered and published excerpts from her mother’s memoirs in her novel Frascati (2009).
In the fall of 1946, soon after the birth of her daughter Ewa in May, the Kielce Pogrom
in July, and the sudden and still-unexplained death of Teddy Gleich in August, Maria Kuryluk fell into deep depression and developed schizophrenia. She decided to stay in hiding and to keep her war identity of Maria Grabowska, born in the town of Zbaraż, where her husband Karol Kuryluk was born. In mid-1950s, despite the challenges of raising two young children, and her poor health, she enrolled at the faculty of German at Poznań University, but did not complete her M.A. thesis on Thomas Mann
’s novels.
In the years 1956–58, when Karol Kuryluk
was minister of culture, Mia Kuryluk played a decisive role in bringing Western art and artists to Poland. She hosted Vivien Leigh
, Laurence Olivier
, Gerard Philipe
and Yves Montand
at their modest apartment on Frascati Street. In January 1959, when Karol Kuryluk was appointed Polish ambassador to Austria, she moved with her husband and children to Vienna. In Austria her health deteriorated and she was repeatedly confined to a psychiatric clinic. Yet she still pursued her literary and artistic interests, reestablished contact with Erika Mann
, befriended the writer and pacifist http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne Thomas
, and translated poetry by Erich Fried
, Ingeborg Bachmann
, Thomas Bernhard
.
After her husband’s sudden death in 1967 Mia Kuryluk supplemented her meager pension by giving private German and French lessons, working as librarian at the Austrian Institute in Warsaw, and advising Polish publishers on contemporary German and Austrian literature. She continued translating Austrian and German poetry until her death.
Mia Kuryluk is buried with her husband Karol and her son Piotr at the Warsaw Powązki Cemetery
in a tomb designed by Ewa Kuryluk.
Ewa Kuryluk has commemorated her mother in her autobiographical novels Goldi (2004) and Frascati (2009), and in her textile installations Yellow Birds Fly (2001), Taboo (2005) and Triptych on Yellow Background (2010).
Karol Kuryluk
Karol Kuryluk was a Polish journalist, editor, activist, politician and diplomat. In 2002 he was honored by Yad Vashem for saving Jews in the Holocaust.- Biography :...
(1910–1967). She was the mother of Ewa Kuryluk and Piotr Kuryluk (1950–2004).
Biography
Maria Kuryluk, called Mia by her family and friends, was born Miriam Kohany in an assimilated Jewish family in Bielsko-BiałaBielsko-Biała
-Economy and Industry:Nowadays Bielsko-Biała is one of the best-developed parts of Poland. It was ranked 2nd best city for business in that country by Forbes. About 5% of people are unemployed . Bielsko-Biała is famous for its textile, machine-building, and especially automotive industry...
, Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
, and died in Warsaw. She was the eldest daughter of the merchant Herman Kohany (1882–1942) who perished in the Holocaust under unknown circumstances, and Paulina Kohany, née Raaber (1882–1942), a porcelain designer in her youth, who was killed along with her younger daughter Hilde Kohany (1920–1942) in Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
. Miriam’s older brother Oscar survived the war in the Soviet Union and in 1950 emigrated with his family from Poland to Israel.
Before World War II
All members of the Kohany family were bilingual, fluent in German and Polish, and both parents and their daughters played piano. Miriam Kohany also had a good command of French and Russian, and was an avid reader of poems and novels. Her favorite authors were Goethe, Hölderlin, KleistKleist
Kleist, or von Kleist, is a surname.von Kleist:*Ewald Jürgen Georg von Kleist , co-inventor of the Leyden jar*Ewald Christian von Kleist , German poet and soldier*Franz Kasimir von Kleist Prussian General...
, Pushkin and Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
. After graduating from a Protestant German high school for girls in Bielsko, she held clerical jobs and was involved in the Zionist Youth Movement
Zionist youth movement
A Zionist youth movement is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideological development, including a belief in Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel...
. She also gave small piano concerts, participated in theatrical performances and was, not unlike her younger sister Hilde, a cinema fan. Miriam greatly admired the actress Erika Mann
Erika Mann
Erika Julia Hedwig Mann was a German actress and writer, the eldest daughter of novelist Thomas Mann and Katia Mann.-Life:...
and became acquainted with her when Mann’s famous anti-fascist cabaret Die Pfeffermühle toured Silesia.
World War II
Shortly after World War II started in September 1939, Miriam Kohany fled with her husband and elder brother from Bielsko-Biała to Lvov (today LvivLviv
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 the Ukraine) with a group of young people, dispersed on the way. By the time she arrived in Lvov the city had been annexed by the Soviets. Nothing is known about the following two years of Miriam’s whereabouts under the Soviet occupation, except that she continued writing poetry. In 1942 Miriam Kohany escaped from the Lvov ghetto and survived, as did her husband Teddy Gleich, on the Aryan side with the help of Karol Kuryluk, a member of the resistance.
While in hiding from 1942 to 1944, Miriam Kohany joined the underground and worked for clandestine news and publishing services. She kept writing poetry, made notes about Heinrich von Kleist
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.- Life :...
and began a novel about her family, disguised as the family of Lena and Robert Buch. In 1944, with the Red Army closing on Lvov, she acted as liaison and ventured into the for-Germans-only parts of the city distributing leaflets calling on Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
soldiers to desert.
After World War II
In August 1944 Karol KurylukKarol Kuryluk
Karol Kuryluk was a Polish journalist, editor, activist, politician and diplomat. In 2002 he was honored by Yad Vashem for saving Jews in the Holocaust.- Biography :...
became the editor-in-chief of “Odrodzenie” (“The Renaissance”), a cultural magazine first published in Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
, later in Cracow and Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
—and Maria Kuryluk became responsible for the magazine’s correspondence, tracking down contributors all over Europe. Her job’s difficulty is evidenced by the military censorship stamp on the envelope of André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
’s letter of 4 August 1945, responding to Maria Kuryluk’s request to contribute an excerpt of his novel to “Odrodzenie”.
Towards the end of the war Maria Kuryluk switched from writing in German to writing in Polish. Her first book Jędrek i Piotr, a short novel about war orphans she had taken care of in Cracow, was serialized in “Odrodzenie” and published in Warsaw in 1946. Unpublished, however, remained her principle early work, a long wartime memoirs with autobiographical elements entitled Zdzisław Bieliński (ca. 1946): the name of a Lvov doctor who saved Jews along with his wife Zofia Bielińska. Doctor Bieliński was killed in 1945 by radicals of the Polish nationalist underground. The Bieliński couple was later declared as Righteous among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
of the World by Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, but their heroic deeds became known in detail only recently, when Ewa Kuryluk discovered and published excerpts from her mother’s memoirs in her novel Frascati (2009).
In the fall of 1946, soon after the birth of her daughter Ewa in May, the Kielce Pogrom
Kielce pogrom
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence against the Jewish community in the city of Kielce, Poland on July 4, 1946, perpetrated by a mob of local townsfolk and members of the official government forces of the People's Republic of Poland...
in July, and the sudden and still-unexplained death of Teddy Gleich in August, Maria Kuryluk fell into deep depression and developed schizophrenia. She decided to stay in hiding and to keep her war identity of Maria Grabowska, born in the town of Zbaraż, where her husband Karol Kuryluk was born. In mid-1950s, despite the challenges of raising two young children, and her poor health, she enrolled at the faculty of German at Poznań University, but did not complete her M.A. thesis on Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
’s novels.
In the years 1956–58, when Karol Kuryluk
Karol Kuryluk
Karol Kuryluk was a Polish journalist, editor, activist, politician and diplomat. In 2002 he was honored by Yad Vashem for saving Jews in the Holocaust.- Biography :...
was minister of culture, Mia Kuryluk played a decisive role in bringing Western art and artists to Poland. She hosted Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
, Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, Gerard Philipe
Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe was a prominent French actor, who had appeared in 34 films between 1944 and 1959.-Career:...
and Yves Montand
Yves Montand
-Early life:Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, the son of poor peasants Giuseppina and Giovanni Livi, a broommaker. Montand's mother was a devout Catholic, while his father held strong Communist beliefs. Because of the Fascist regime in Italy, Montand's family left for France in...
at their modest apartment on Frascati Street. In January 1959, when Karol Kuryluk was appointed Polish ambassador to Austria, she moved with her husband and children to Vienna. In Austria her health deteriorated and she was repeatedly confined to a psychiatric clinic. Yet she still pursued her literary and artistic interests, reestablished contact with Erika Mann
Erika Mann
Erika Julia Hedwig Mann was a German actress and writer, the eldest daughter of novelist Thomas Mann and Katia Mann.-Life:...
, befriended the writer and pacifist http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne Thomas
Adrienne Thomas
Adrienne Thomas is Deputy Archivist of the United States and former acting Archivist of the United States. She assumed the position of Acting Archivist when the ninth Archivist, Allen Weinstein, announced his resignation on December 7, 2008, effective December 19. Weinstein explained that he was...
, and translated poetry by Erich Fried
Erich Fried
Erich Fried , an Austrian poet who settled in England, was known for his political-minded poetry. He was also a broadcaster, translator and essayist....
, Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
, Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
.
After her husband’s sudden death in 1967 Mia Kuryluk supplemented her meager pension by giving private German and French lessons, working as librarian at the Austrian Institute in Warsaw, and advising Polish publishers on contemporary German and Austrian literature. She continued translating Austrian and German poetry until her death.
Mia Kuryluk is buried with her husband Karol and her son Piotr at the Warsaw Powązki Cemetery
Powazki Cemetery
Powązki Cemetery , also known as the Stare Powązki is a historic cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. It is the most famous cemetery in the city, and one of the oldest...
in a tomb designed by Ewa Kuryluk.
Literary work
Maria Kuryluk’s short stories, journalism and translations in to Polish were published in the magazines “Odrodzenie”, “Nowa Kultura” and “Zeszyty Literackie”. Miriam Kohany’s writings in German, an impressive amount of prose fragments and over one hundred poems written before and during World War II, constitute a tragic testimony of a hidden life. This body of work was only recently rediscovered by Ewa Kuryluk, and still remains to be published. Miriam Kohany’s earliest poems go back to 1936. Some deal with love and the beauty of nature. Most address, however, philosophical and political themes, and their mood is dark. Hitler, the Führer, is called the terrible Verführer (seducer) of the German people, and the future is foreboding.Ewa Kuryluk has commemorated her mother in her autobiographical novels Goldi (2004) and Frascati (2009), and in her textile installations Yellow Birds Fly (2001), Taboo (2005) and Triptych on Yellow Background (2010).
External links
- Yad Vashem’s web site
- Ewa Kuryluk’s web site
- Ewa Kuryluk, Goldi, Warsaw, 2004
- Kuryluk Ewa Kuryluk
- an article about Ewa Kuryluk by Małgorzata Kitowska-Łysiak
- Historical article about Karol Kuryluk by his daughter Ewa.
- A Wikipedia page about LvovLvivLviv 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...
- The Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw
- An interview with Ewa Kuryluk about her parents and family.
- The Museum of the History of Polish Jews’ web page with English translations of Maria Kuryluk’s memoirs about the Bielinski family rescuing Jews during the German occupation of Lvov.