Translated by Abe Shenitzer Edited by Robert G. Burns, Irena Szymaniec and Aleksander Weron

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Vita Mathematica 19

Hugo Steinhaus Mathematician for All Seasons Recollections and Notes, Vol. 2 (1945–1968)

Vita Mathematica

Volume 19

Edited by Martin MattmullerR

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/4834 Hugo Steinhaus

Mathematician for All Seasons Recollections and Notes, Vol. 2 (1945–1968)

Translated by Abe Shenitzer Edited by Robert G. Burns, Irena Szymaniec and Aleksander Weron Author Hugo Steinhaus (1887–1972)

Translator Abe Shenitzer Brookline, MA, USA

Editors Robert G. Burns Department of Mathematics and Statistics York University Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Irena Szymaniec Wrocław, Poland

Aleksander Weron The Hugo Steinhaus Center Wrocław University of Technology Wrocław, Poland

Vita Mathematica ISBN 978-3-319-23101-3 ISBN 978-3-319-23102-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-23102-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015954183

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover credit: Photo of Hugo Steinhaus. Courtesy of Hugo Steinhaus Center Archive, Wrocław University of Technology

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.birkhauser-science.com) Introduction to the English Edition

There are two well-known romantic anecdotes concerning Hugo Steinhaus. Follow- ing a period of military service in the early part of World War I, he was given a desk job in Kraków. In the summer of 1916, he went on a “random walk” from his Kraków residence at 9 Karmelicka Street to Planty Park, where he overheard the words “Lebesgue integral” spoken by one of two young men seated on a park bench—none other than the self-taught lovers of mathematics Stefan Banach and Otto Nikodým. Later Steinhaus would create, with Banach, the famous Lwów school of mathematics, one of the two prominent Polish mathematics schools— the other was in Warsaw—flourishing in Poland between the wars. According to the second anecdote, in the 1930s Steinhaus, Banach, and others used to frequent the “Scottish Café” in Lwów, where they would engage in animated mathematical discussions, using the marble tabletops to write on.1 At some point, Banach’s wife Łucja gave them a thick exercise book, and the “The Scottish Book”2 was born, in final form a collection of mathematical problems contributed by mathematicians since become legendary, with prizes for solutions noted, and including some solutions. It was destined to have a tremendous influence on world mathematics. In addition to “discovering” Banach and collaborating with him, Steinhaus pioneered the foundations of probability theory, anticipating Kolmogorov, and of game theory, anticipating von Neumann. He is also well known for his work on

1The mathematical activity connected with “The Scottish Café” has inspired a cycle of poems by Susan H. Case, published by Slapering Hol Press, 2002. From the review by Charles Martin: “This series of poems is loosely based upon the experiences of the mathematicians of The Scottish Café, who lived and worked in Lvov [Lwów], Poland, now [in] Ukraine. There is no theme more important for poetry to address in our time, when that life is imperiled by barbarisms from within and without. By recalling with celebratory joy the vigor, the messiness, the courage of that life as it was once lived in a terrible time by the patrons of The Scottish Café in Lvov, these poems do us a great service.” 2Available in English as: R. Daniel Mauldin (ed.), The Scottish Book, Birkhäuser Boston, Boston, MA, 1981. Steinhaus contributed ten problems to The Scottish Book, including the last, dated May 31, 1941, just days before the Nazis occupied Lwów.

v vi Introduction to the English Edition trigonometric series and his result concerning the problem of “fair division”, a forerunner of the “ham sandwich theorem”. These are just a few among the many notable contributions he made to a wide variety of areas of mathematics.3 He was the “father” of several outstanding mathematicians, including, in addition to Banach, the well-known mathematicians Kac, Orlicz, and Schauder, to name but three of those he supervised. He published extensively on both pure and applied topics. He was an inspired inventor. His popularization, entitled in English Mathematical Snapshots, is still in print. There is also an English translation of his One Hundred Problems in Elementary Mathematics published by Dover. However, although his reminiscences and diary entries contain much of direct mathematical interest or interest for the history of mathematics, and the mathematical theme recurs throughout, they are of much wider interest. Steinhaus was a man of high culture: he was well versed in science, read widely in philosophy and literature, knew Latin, German, French, and English, was a great stickler for linguistic accuracy—a disciple of Karl Kraus in this—and reveled in the vital cosmopolitan culture of Lwów, where he was professor and dean between the wars. Being also of penetrating intelligence, unusual clarity of understanding, acerbic wit, given to outspokenness, and a Polish Jew, he was well equipped to pass comment on the period he lived through (1887–1972). Thus, we have here a historical document of unusual general appeal reporting on “interesting times” in an “interesting” part of the world—the inside story, recounted unemotionally, with flair and sometimes scathing humor, and featuring a cast of thousands. First, the halcyon pre-Great War days are chronicled: a rather idyllic, if not privileged, childhood centered on his hometown Jasło in the region of southern Poland known as Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a first-class education at the regional Gymnasium, and a brief period as a student at the University of Lwów before going off to Göttingen to do his Ph.D. under Hilbert. (Here, in addition to a fascinating description of that university town and its student culture, we get interesting sketches of many of the mathematical and scientific luminaries of those days.) Next we have a description of his role in the early part of World War I as a member of a gun-crew, trundling their artillery piece about the eastern theater of the war. This is followed by an elaboration of the interwar years—a period of Polish independence following well over a hundred years of foreign domination—which witnessed the above-mentioned blossoming of Polish mathematics of which he, at the University of Lwów, was a central figure, but also an intensifying nationalism and anti-Semitism. There then ensue the horrors of the two occupations. Just prior to the Soviet invasion we are given a chilling account of the chaotic situation at the Hungarian border whither many Poles—especially representatives of the Polish government— flee seeking refuge in Hungary. The indecision as to what the best course of action might be in appalling circumstances and the reigning sense of helplessness in the face of impending disaster are conveyed in vivid concrete terms without recourse

3See: Hugo Steinhaus, Selected Papers, PWN, Warsaw 1985. Introduction to the English Edition vii to emotional props. After assessing the situation insofar as that were possible, the Steinhauses decide to return to Lwów, where they are greeted by the sight of Red Army soldiers already in the streets. This first, Soviet, occupation, from September 1939 to June 1941, is characterized by summary arrests and mass deportations, hallmarks of Stalinist repression, hidden behind a thin veneer of normalcy. The second occupation, this time by the Nazis, lasting from June 1941 to early 1945, is marked by a more blatant, racially motivated brutality. Following a terrifying period of evading arrest by moving from one friend’s residence to another, the Steinhauses manage to find a provisional hiding-place in the countryside. (This makes for especially gripping, though harrowing, reading.) At the end of the war, following on the westward flight of the German army (and their spiteful razing of his beloved Jasło), the Steinhauses are able to emerge from their second hiding place. But then Poland is translated westwards by some hundreds of kilometers, so that Lwów becomes L0viv, a Ukrainian city, and in the west, Breslau on the Oder (completely destroyed by the war), formerly German, becomes Wrocław,4 capital of Lower Silesia, later to become a great industrial and agricultural region of Poland. It is to this ruined city that Steinhaus eventually goes to assist in re-establishing the university and polytechnic. He helps to realize the goal of reconstituting in Wrocław what had been lost in Lwów by founding a mathematics school in Wrocław, this time of applied mathematics, and renewing the tradition of “The Scottish Book” with “The New Scottish Book”.5 There now follows, in the form of diary entries, a long semi-tirade, laced with irony and interspersed with assessments of local and international developments, concerning the frustrations of living in a communist vassal state where distorted ideology trumps basic common sense—a Poland subjugated to and exploited by the Soviet behemoth. (Thus we have here a sort of potted history of postwar Europe and America as viewed from inside Poland.) In the words of his former student Mark Kac, “[Hugo Steinhaus] was one of the architects of the school of mathematics which flowered miraculously in Poland between the two wars and it was he who, perhaps more than any other individual, helped to raise Polish mathematics from the ashes to which it had been reduced by the Second World War to the position of new strength and respect which it now occupies. He was a man of great culture and in the best sense of the word a product of Western Civilization.” The overall impression of Steinhaus’s Recollections and Notes is of the com- pelling record of a man of intelligence and steadfast intellectual honesty, good sense and natural dignity pursuing a life of integrity and demanding scientific and

4See: N. Davies and R. Moorhouse, Microcosm. Portrait of a Central European City, Jonathan Cape, 2002. 5In fact, he was the chief organizer and first dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, when, at this initial stage, the university and polytechnic in Wrocław were not yet separate institutions. viii Introduction to the English Edition intellectual enquiry in the face of encroaching calamity and chaos brought about chiefly by human ignorance and evil. In Wrocław, Steinhaus remains a well-known and very popular figure. In 1990, a Hugo Steinhaus Center was established, affiliated with the Wrocław Polytechnic. A “Café and Restaurant Steinhaus” was opened in 2012, and in 2013 his bust was put on display in the Wrocław Pantheon, located in the famous Wrocław City Hall. *** Publication History and Acknowledgments When Steinhaus’s diary ends in 1968, he is 81 years old, and the USSR seems to be a fixture of the world’s political scene. That is the year of the “Prague Spring” and widespread Polish student protests, and their brutal suppression, in the first case by Soviet tanks and in the second by police batons. Although some early portions of Steinhaus’s Recollections were published in the Polish magazine Znak in 1970, full publication was at that time out of the question for reasons which a perusal of the later pages of the diary makes clear. The first complete Polish edition was brought out by the London firm Aneks in 1992, while second and third editions were published by the publishing house “Atut” in 2002 and 2010, under the auspices of the Hugo Steinhaus Center. A German translation was published in 2010.6 The present English translation by Abe Shenitzer was edited first by Robert G. Burns, who also added footnotes considered necessary for an Anglophone reader, and chapter headings to facilitate cross-referencing among the footnotes. Since a great many inaccuracies had inevitably crept in, it was judged essential that a Polish expert edit the English text a second time, a task fulfilled to the letter by Irena Szymaniec, who also corrected and rationalized the footnotes. Aleksander Weron, the Director of the Hugo Steinhaus Center, oversaw the whole process, providing encouragement and final authority and expertise. We wish to thank all others who helped with the editorial process, in particular Edwin Beschler, Aleksander Garlicki, Ina Mette, Martin Muldoon, Patrick O’Keefe, Jim Tattersall, and Wojbor A. Woyczynski.´ Special thanks are due to Martin Mattmüller for many corrections and improvements, to Dorothy Mazlum for her great rapport in connection with the production process, and to Carolyn King, cartographer in the Geography Department of York University, for her superlative work making five of the maps. We wish the reader of these Recollections and Notes much pleasure from them.

Robert G. Burns Abe Shenitzer Irena Szymaniec Aleksander Weron

6Hugo Steinhaus, Erinnerungen und Aufzeichnungen, Neisse-Verlag, 2010. Introduction to the English Edition ix

Editors’ Note on Polish Feminine Endings of Personal Names In the original work the Polish feminine endings -owa, indicating a woman’s married name, and -ówna, indicating her maiden name, are frequently used. These have been preserved in the present translation, including the index. Thus the index entry Steinhausówna (Kottowa), Lidia (Lidka), the author’s daughter refers to a female whose maiden name is Steinhaus, married name Kott, and ﬁrst name Lidia, of which Lidka is an affectionate or diminutive version. The use of these endings was not uniform in the original, nor is it in the present translation. Thus, e.g., we have Mrs. Kossak instead of Kossakowa, and occasionally there occur hybrid forms where a married woman uses her maiden name.

Contents

1 Between Kraków and Wrocław ...... 1 2Wrocław...... 15 3 A Taste of America...... 67 4 Wrocław Again ...... 85 5 America Again ...... 285 6 Home Again...... 293

Index of Names ...... 379

xi Chapter 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław

OCTOBER 16, 1945. I am now resuming the diary interrupted on August 28. I have gradually been getting used to being myself again. I had a very unpleasant row with Knaster: made fearful by the heated anti-Semitic atmosphere, not only did he register me as a Roman Catholic—given the fact of my absence at the time this could easily have been rectiﬁed in the registration ofﬁce— but also emphasized my putative “catholicism” in recommending me to Sierpinski´ for membership in PAU, and since this occurred before my election to the Academy, I was placed in an awkward position. Although he doubtless meant well enough, I resent having been made to look both foolish and devious through someone else’s actions. In addition to those I met soon after arriving in Kraków, I have now also renewed acquaintance with Lila,1 Lola Makarewicz, Altendorf, Wanda,2 and Polda.3 Lola has had word from her husband; he’s in Germany. The apartment turns out to be excellent. The radiators and gas outlets function, and the bathroom is positively luxurious. Food is expensive, and in the canteen at the university, whither I repaired to see whom I might bump into, the meals are of poor quality. There I did indeed see some familiar faces: Joszt, Sucharda,4 the Szarskis, Ingarden, Zawirski, Nikodým, Miss Turnau, and several others. I also met a Dr. Lehm, formerly of Lwów, whose son had been living in Motyka’s house in Lwów in 1941. I was surprised to come across Stark, whom I had imagined long gone. It turns out he’s unable to travel because of a series of small heart attacks he’s

1Lila Holzer; see, e.g., Chapter 12 of Volume 1. 2This might be Wanda Garlicka (see Chapter 12 of Volume 1) or Wanda Zukoty˙ nska´ (see Chapter13ofVolume1). 3Altendorf and Polda were acquaintances of Steinhaus about whom nothing further is known. 4Edward Sucharda (1891–1947), renowned Polish chemist and engineer. Rector of Lwów Poly- technic 1938–1939. From 1945 vice-Rector, under Stanisław Kulczynski´ as Rector, of Wrocław University and Polytechnic.

SWEDEN 0 50100 150 km B a l t i c S e a 0 50 100 mi.

Bornholm (DENMARK) U.S.S.R.

Gdynia Gda sk Ko obrzeg

Szczecin

EAST GERMANY Bia ystok

Pozna WARSAW Brest

Lublin Jelenia Wroc aw Kielce Wa brzych Opole Cz stochowa Gliwice N Katowice

O wi cim Jas o Krynica Zakopane (formerly CZECHOSLOVAKIA TATRA MTS. U.S.S.R.

Fig. 1.1 Poland after World War II. Note, in particular, the resort towns Krynica and Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains, often visited by the Steinhauses. (The Tatras are the highest range of the Carpathian Mountains, forming a natural border between Poland and Slovakia—before 1993 Czechoslovakia) (Map courtesy of Carolyn King, Department of Geography, York University, Toronto) been having. He’s earning a good living giving English lessons, making some tens of thousands of złotys a month, he says. His chief student is a rich Jew who returned from the USSR last Spring on his uppers, but has since then already made several millions from financial dealings, among other enterprises, including winemaking. Stark said he uses Soviet trucks to transport the grapes he trades in. The political atmosphere is murky. Metropolitan Sapieha’s weekly Tygodnik Powszechny is extremely well edited and very popular. On the other hand, the newspaper Odrodzenie, which initially put out a kind of low-class, “yellow” journalism, not eschewing attacks ad hominem, in particular—no doubt because 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław 3 it was supported by the PPR and so had no need to make any special effort—has begun to raise its level in order to avoid being considered ridiculous. This is but one example showing that propagandistic “freedoms” may sometimes lead to actual freedoms. Thus Mikołajczyk has formed his own separate “Polish People’s Party” (PSL),5 with its own newspaper Piast, and there’s nothing the others can do about it without blatantly contradicting their own propaganda—not even prevent him from getting paper for his party organ. I met Antoni Słonimski6 and he invited me to the restaurant of the Hôtel Français, so-called, for dinner with Nałkowska and his nephew Piotr. The nephew had just been released from a few weeks’ detention “for security reasons.” Słonimski is here in some official capacity, and as such had enough clout to secure his nephew’s release. Thus do we see that indeed les invitations tirent des conséquences.7 He is about to return to England, where he is editor of a certain “democratic” newspaper. He thinks—or rather hopes—that Poland might acquire a political status analogous to that of Finland, which also lost territory to the USSR, but will retain its independence, apparently. Speaking of “democracy”, I am led on to say that in Poland this is a political concept whose mention elicits only laughter. The PPR and the government understand a democrat to be someone they decree to be such. Thus the élite of these two groupings are all democrats by fiat, never mind that they are for censorship, and against free elections and openness. As an example of the secrecy surrounding the government’s lucubrations at the top, consider the price the USSR pays for our coal, so scandalously low that the secret was leaked: 7 złotys a ton for coal transported through Szczecin, whereas the market price locally is 700 złotys a ton—and this despite the fact that the coal mines have already accumulated a deficit of over a billion złotys. There is also the matter of Polish banknotes being printed in Moscow on behalf of the Polish National Bank, naturally generating suspicions that some of them are being held back by the Soviets for subsequent purchase of Polish goods. I asked Stas´ Adamski about this—he is now back from Kazakhstan and a big shot in the Treasury—but he professed ignorance. Adamski’s daughter Krysia was sentenced to ten years’ exile somewhere in the USSR for having been a member of a military council during the first part of the war, when Anders8 was fighting a rearguard action against the Germans.

5The Polish People’s Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe or PSL) was originally founded after World War I as a centrist, agrarian party. Following World War II, Stanisław Mikołajczyk attempted to resuscitate the party, but was outmanoeuvered by the communist government and forced to ﬂee into political exile. 6Słonimski spent World War II in France and England. On returning permanently to Poland in 1951 he became an outspoken anti-Stalinist and promoter of political and intellectual liberalization. 7“Invitations [may] have consequences.” 8After the war Anders remained in Britain, working in the Polish Government-in-Exile. He was considered persona non grata in Poland since opposed to a Soviet-controlled Poland. 4 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław

Following the dinner with Słonimski, Lidka Modzelewska and a friend came to our apartment and ended up spending the night. The friend told us how she had lost father, brother, and sister in Warsaw, and how she with her little son and two of her sister’s children had been put on a rail transport for Hamburg which took two weeks to get there, during which time they were fed just five times. At some point she managed to get to the engine driver’s cabin to see if she could get warm water for her son, stiff with cold as well as famished, but the driver called an SS man and together they gave her a beating for her trouble. Knaster has gone to Warsaw to collect his father. In the meantime I went— see below—on an excursion to Wrocław with a group of professors from the Kraków Polytechnic. Or is it the Silesian Polytechnic or perhaps even the Lwów Polytechnic? One day those appointed to what they thought was to be the Kraków Polytechnic were suddenly ordered to go to Gliwice, in Silesia, and on the next day to liaise with people at the Mining Academy in Kraków. There is a conspicuously good example of the dictatorial type in action here, namely a certain Kuczewski,9 a dim figure who has now emerged opportunistically from obscurity, a former devout Catholic become a staunch PPR man. The Ministry of Education is proving unable to cope, in terms of finding suitable personnel, with the founding of ever new academic institutions in places such as Łód´z, Torun,´ and Gdansk,´ where, in addition to a polytechnic, there is to be a new medical academy. One day Kotarbinski´ came to our apartment with an offer of a professorship of mathematics in Łód´z, but, being already committed to Kulczynski—that´ is, to Wrocław—I had to turn him down. Refusing was very unpleasant for me because I respect Kotarbinski´ very much, and considered his visiting me to make such an offer a signal honor. When he attended Sierpinski’s´ “salon” in order to recruit for his university, Knaster and Mostowski10 also declined. I should say something about Sierpinski’s´ “salon”. In addition to envoys and professors, elderly ladies sometimes turn up who, in the loud voice characteristic of the privileged in their senile phase, blame all evil on the Jews. For example, one such was heard to say that “coal is in the hands of the Jews,” when the truth of the matter was that a single Jew had been appointed director of a single coal mine. These old dames know all the pseudonyms adopted by the Jews to conceal their origins, unlike myself and the members of my family, who are ignorant of practically all of them. I overheard another note sounded at a Sierpinski´ soirée by two apostles of Roman Catholicism: one Pozner, once an atheist, now an aggressive Catholic

9Władysław Kuczewski (1887–1963), professor of engineering, metallurgist. First Rector of the Silesian Institute of Technology in 1945. Member of the Polish government 1947–1952. Member of the PPR and then the communist party. 10Andrzej Mostowski (1913–1975), Polish mathematical logician. During World War II he worked in the Underground Warsaw University, and postwar at the University of Warsaw. 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław 5 and advocate of Christian practice, and Kamienski,´ 11 an astronomer and adept of Christian mysticism. Both of them style themselves mathematicians. At one such evening I heard from Mrs. Sierpinska´ that she had by sheer coincidence met the diplomat Bader on a train, and that this man knew what had happened to the Sierpinskis’´ son Miecio. It seems he had been deported to Turkestan, and, through the offices of Stanisław Kot, managed to get to Teheran, where he worked at the Polish Legation as secretary, first to Romer and then to Bader. At some point he accompanied a deputation to Chiang Kai-shek in China. After the war and the withdrawal of recognition of the Government-in-Exile, he somehow ended up in India. We visited our old friends the Weisses and Steins, who have changed their name to “Kaminski”.´ Stein, or rather Kaminski,´ is now the director of a local branch of the vodka monopoly. He is concerned about his name change, still fearful of being denounced. Their daughter and her husband have somehow come to be living in Italy, and their son is studying at a polytechnic in Belgium. In Kraków, Janek Blumenfeld, whose surname has been changed to Noga, has become an officer cadet. Janek’s father Izydor, very ill, had given his wife’s12 friend, Barbara Wolska, money for Janek’s support, but this woman, busy with her own affairs—including shady dealings of one sort or another—frittered it away. However, Stasia’s sister-in-law Lidka, wife to her brother Adolf, did find the resources to help. We met her also here in Kraków, as she is in the habit of visiting our daughter Lidka. ThefirstpostwarissueofFundamenta Mathematicae, Volume XXXIII, is about to roll off the press. Knaster is technical editor. My paper on the cutting of three regions of space by a single plane got through the corrections stage in time and will appear in this volume. Since arriving in Kraków I have proved a theorem on the decidability of certain positional games; I gave a lecture on it to the Polish Mathematical Society on October 16 last. I was overjoyed to see Dr. Fleck13 when he came to us. His survival story is very unusual. First he and his wife were taken by the Germans from the Lwów ghetto to work in the laboratory of the former firm Laokoon manufacturing anti-typhoid vaccine, then transferred—without armbands—in a special railcar to Auschwitz, where they were again set to work producing vaccine. However, in Auschwitz Fleck took advantage of his privileged situation to produce instead what he called “cytosordinas”, non-specific leukocytes that can be used to manufacture various specific varieties. On liberation he managed to smuggle out around a hundred microphotographs from the camp. He and his wife are alone in Kraków; their son

11Michał Kamienski´ (1879–1973), Polish astronomer. Proposed using astronomical observations to date significant historical events. He speculated, for example, that the continent Atlantis had been destroyed when part of Halley’s comet fell to earth in 9546 BC. 12Stanisława (Stasia) Blumenfeld was killed by the Nazis. Perhaps Izydor, who was ill with cancer, also died. For more on the Blumenfelds, see Chapters 10 and 11 of Volume 1. 13Between the wars the author had worked with Fleck, a medical researcher and biologist, on research involving leukocytes. See Chapters 7 and 8 of Volume 1. 6 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław is doing his military service, but they don’t know where. He has been invited to do scientific work in the US, but says he doesn’t feel like going. As soon as I could after arriving in Kraków I resumed work on my introvisor.14 Courtesy of the central telephone switchboard I was able to find an X-ray expert, a Dr. Chadyk, who in turn took me to see a Dr. Glatzel in the surgical clinic of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków. After a brief interchange, he understood the idea behind the device and agreed to assemble a Type I version, which requires no outlay. However, his assistant Dr. Kowalczyk was the one who came to understand the instrument best. It was his idea to arrange an adjustable lamp or small electric bulb above the half-silvered mirror. However, after making the piece to hold the lamp—of the standard sort available in the hospital—and the levers to adjust it, we ran into the problem that although the lamp needs to be able to be rotated about a vertical axis—the axis perpendicular to mirror and base—the lead connecting the lamp to the electrical outlet prevents this rotation. In any case I really wanted to produce a working model of my Type II version, so gave up on the Type I. The Type II prototype necessitating expenses, I applied to the firm “Oremus” for funds, but more than a month has passed without response. I may already be in Wrocław before anything comes of it. I at last heard from Kulczynski´ on September 12. The letter I had written to him when still in Berdechów and entrusted to Nina Czesówna for delivery never reached him for the simple reason that she lost it. Now I have received a card from him formally assigning to me the task of organizing a department of mathematics and natural science at the University of Wrocław. At the end of September I took a three-day trip there in the bus belonging to the Silesian Polytechnic.15 Going the other way were endless convoys of open trucks transporting Soviets who had worked in Germany as forced labor back to the USSR. They sat passively, indifferent to the wind and rain, not seeming to care when or even whether they would get where they were going—perhaps to the Donbass or Kuznetsk.16 There were about twenty-five passengers in the bus, including Mrs. Osternowa, the wife of Tuszkiewicz,17 Professor Sucharda with his wife and daughter, Ewa

14The author’s device for pinpointing the position of an object hidden from view. See Chapter 7 of Vol ume 1. 15Wrocław, the main city of south-western Poland, was the historical capital of Silesia, and is now the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. 16The Kuznetsk basin (abbreviated to “Kuzbass”), in southwestern Siberia, is one of the world’s largest coal-mining areas, dating from the mid-19th century, and heavily industrialized from the 1930s. 17Possibly Alfred Roman Tuszkiewicz (1906–1967), professor of internal medicine and endocrinology at the University of Wrocław 1946–1948. 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław 7

Pilatowa,18 a chemistry docent, Professor Kaszewski, Professor Por˛ebski, and Professor Plamitzer, an adjunct in the department of agriculture. The old city of Wrocław is gone completely, leaving a large bare area featuring only an airfield. However, many of the suburban houses survived, and between these there now run broad thoroughfares lined with gardens. The canals off the Oder are framed by boulevards. There are patches of young birch woods whose scent reminded me of Göttingen in the autumn. There is also the acrid smell of asphalt. The overall impression is foreign, totally different from the impressions of the city that remained with me from a visit made in my youth. The Germans here rush to oblige, eager to please, to show the way, provide information, respond to every request. I stayed, and had most of my meals, at the hotel Mirus, a small but elegant inn at 3 Birkenwäldchen Street, assigned to the department of medicine as a residence chiefly for its professors. Slebodzi´ nski´ 19 and Łos´20 were there with their families. The plumbing was out of order, but the windows were glazed and the beds and bedding were acceptably clean and comfortable. The German staff, consisting of an elderly lady and her daughter, who had a little son, were, of course, eager to be of assistance: it was as if the mother and daughter were trying to outdo each other—the more so since every morning I gave the little boy some bread and bacon. I related to them what Jasło looked like after its sack by the Germans, and this, together with my politeness and consideration, seemed to cause them great consternation. However, in Wrocław the German problem is huge. Although there must surely be members of the local militia who were forced to work on the construction of the airfield at the heart of old Wrocław under the threat of the jackboot and worse, I neither saw nor heard of enmity being shown to any German while we were there— no jostling, let alone beating. Szpilrajn-Marczewski, who had been a forced laborer under the Germans, was not in when I called, but I later met Mrs. Marczewska, née Bursche, through the Slebodzi´ nskis.´ Yes, the German problem is one of vast proportions: there are around 200,000 Germans in Wrocław to something like 10,000 Poles, and the preponderance of the former is evident even in the detritus they left and leave about: thus in the houses and flats—and even lying about in the gardens—one finds quantities of volumes

18Ewa Pilat (1903–1945), Polish chemist. During the war years 1941–1944 she worked in the pharmaceutical factory Laokoon in Lwów, returning to the Lwów Polytechnic in 1944. After the war she became assistant professor at the Silesian Institute of Technology, and then at Wrocław University. Her husband, Stanisław Pilat, had been murdered by the Nazis in the “massacre of Lwów professors” of July 1941. 19Later co-founder with Knaster, Marczewski, and Steinhaus of the journal Colloquium Mathe- maticum. 20Jerzy Łos´ (1920–1998), Polish mathematician, logician, economist, and philosopher. After the war held positions at the universities of Wrocław and Torun.´ 8 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław put out by Insel-Verlag.21 Works by Hölderlin,22 Goethe, Schopenhauer, etc. remain in abundance to testify to the former genius loci23 in apartments where the very wallpaper has been torn from the walls and the upholstery ripped from the sofas. Mrs. Loria24 helped me look for a house in Bischofswald.25 There is a streetcar line through there which would make travel to and from the university convenient. We saw houses with intact roofs, but most of these are missing all their window panes and sometimes doors, or if there are doors, then they lack doorknobs. Most also have smashed plumbing and clogged drains, and their electrical wiring has been torn out. We are told that in a mere six weeks a house can be fully repaired at a cost of ten to fifteen thousand złotys. This was done by the Kulczynskis,´ and indeed their renovated dwelling is both comfortable and aesthetically appealing. Both Lorias received me very cordially. They told me that during the war their daughter Jadwisia had been beguiled into working with the AK by her husband Raczynski,´ who turned out to be a swindler and extortionist, and they have had no word of her. There is likewise no information whatsoever as to the fate of Wanda Słomnicka26 beyond the fact of her arrest four years ago. On the other hand, Myszka, who ran into trouble with the Nazis on account of her origins and for helping fellow Jews escape, managed to survive, is now working as a streetcar driver in Vienna, and has no desire to return to Poland. Mrs. Loria, primo voto Słomnicka, told me—very forthrightly, I would say—that she and her husband “spit in each other’s face.” “I spit in his face,” she explained, “for yielding to the extent of getting himself baptised a Christian, and he in mine because I am a Catholic Pole of noble descent, was once an Endek,27 andinother ways have behaved with great foolishness throughout my life.” What most inclined them to such reflections on their attitude to each other was what they had willy- nilly heard from the mouths of the proprietors and others in the various dwellings they had stayed at as Mr. and Mrs. Słomnicki during the war. By way of example, Loria related how once when he spent a night at the house of a certain Mr. and Mrs. S. on Michałowski Street in Kraków, he had to share a room and had conversed in the dark with a chance roommate, who told him that “Hitler deserves a medal for murdering the Jews”, that he knew the Steinhaus family, and that “Professor Steinhaus of Lwów was a communist during the first Soviet occupation, but he now pretends to be a Pole, and he survived the German occupation by adopting the name

21Major publisher of German literature founded in 1901. 22Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), German lyric poet associated with the Romantic movement. Important in connection with the development of German idealism. 23Latin expression for the pervading spirit of a place. 24Wife of Stanisław Loria, Polish physicist. See Chapter 13 of Volume 1. 25A suburb on the outskirts of Wrocław, now renamed “Biskupin”. 26Mrs. Loria’s sister. 27The abbreviated name for a member of the National Democratic Party, formed from the initials ND. A Polish political party founded at the end of the 19th century, which between the wars developed anti-Semitic tendencies in addition to its strident nationalistic ones. 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław 9

Zamojski or Załucki.” This confidant turned out to be none other than Dr. Józef Zelazny˙ of Jasło! In Wrocław I also made a point of looking up Dr. Fleck, who had gone there after our meeting in Kraków. Hirszfeld28 had agreed to hold Fleck’s Habilitation in Wrocław, but since he didn’t want “two suns” in Wrocław—that is, didn’t want to share the limelight—was recommending him for a position in Lublin. In fact, Fleck had already been accepted there at the rank of extraordinariat.29 Kulczynski,´ Loria, and I held several discussions, one together with the professors at the polytechnic. The upshot was that there would be a single “Main Silesian Institute”, subtitled “The Wrocław University and Polytechnic”. The Department of Mathematical and Physical Science and Chemistry would straddle university and polytechnic. The first professors of mathematics would be Slebodzi´ nski,´ Szpilrajn- Marczewski, Orlicz, Mazur, Zygmund,30 and myself, with Nikliborc as professor of mechanics. The main initial difficulty is the lack of habitable apartments for faculty members. Thus although Knaster has had offers from Wrocław, Łód´z, Torun,´ and Lublin, he’s not inclined to move from Kraków, where he’s comfortably ensconced for the time being—especially now that he has his father, a physician, living with him. However, he says he’ll come to Wrocław in the near future to see how the land lies as far as accommodation goes. We sent our assistant Hartman31 on a reconnaissance, to scout out likely candidates, but on the train Soviet soldiers relieved him of all his belongings. While in Wrocław I got to know Hirszfeld better. He looks—and behaves— somewhat like a virtuoso pianist or veteran actor. I also saw Baranowski32 there. When Sucharda saw how warmly I was greeted by Kulczynski,´ Baranowski, and Trzebiatowski,33 he was surprised, he said, but I assuaged his puzzlement by telling

28Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884–1954), outstanding Polish microbiologist and serologist. Co-discoverer in 1910 of the heritability of blood groups, paving the way to the development of correct procedures for blood transfusion. Established serological paternity exclusion. Escaped from the Warsaw ghetto with his family in 1943, and spent the remainder of the war hiding in various places under assumed names. In 1944 collaborated in the establishment of the University of Lublin, and in 1945 was appointed director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology and dean of the medical faculty in Wrocław. 29Associate professor. 30In fact Orlicz returned to Poznan,´ Mazur went instead to Łód´z, and Zygmund decided not to return to Poland. On the other hand, Knaster ultimately chose Wrocław. Thus the “four great pioneers” of Wrocław mathematics were Slebodzi´ nski,´ Marczewski, Steinhaus, and Knaster. Note added by Roman Duda, editor of the second Polish edition 31Stanisław Hartman (1914–1992) was later promoted to a professorship at Wrocław University. Note added by Roman Duda, editor of the second Polish edition 32Tadeusz Baranowski (1910–1993), Polish biochemist. Appointed head of the Department of Physiological Chemistry in the Faculty of Medicine of Wrocław University in 1945 as one of a group mandated to re-establish the university there. 33Włodzimierz Trzebiatowski (1906–1982), Polish chemist. The Włodzimierz Trzebiatowski Institute of Low Temperature and Structural Research functions in Wrocław to this day. 10 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław him that they were simply pleased to have the adage borne out that “he who is fated to hang won’t drown.” On returning to Kraków I learned that Mrs. Modzelewska34 had been struck by a Soviet vehicle in Łowicz, and that our Lidka was ill with angina. She is being cared for by Dr. Knaster Sr. It seems she is not intending to join her husband Jan Kott in Łód´z. I was greeted also by the good news that Laska, the former commandant of police in Bobowa, has indeed at long last returned. He has been made head of security for the factories producing mining equipment in Silesia, and is highly satisﬁed with the job. Dolek obtained the position for him as a token of his gratitude. Laska said that in Russia, where he had spent the best part of a year, the people have forgotten how to smile, their lives being so wretched, with inadequate food and lodging and malnourished children. He said that for instance a kilogram of bacon costs 700 rubles, whereas the average worker is paid between 180 and 200 rubles a month. Soviet citizens who were forced laborers or prisoners of war in Germany, and even demobilized Red Army soldiers who spent part of the war in Germany, are sent to the Siberian Gulag on suspicion of contamination. There is widespread dissatisfaction and a voiceless ferment there, held in check by brutal repression. Some say it is dangerous to walk around Moscow at night for fear of assault. The astronomer Kamienski´ asked me some time ago if I would help him make an accurate computation of the period of Halley’s comet using harmonic analysis. He is interested in using the dates of the appearances of the comet to explain the disappearance of the mythical continent Atlantis. He would even like to organize an “Atlantis Institute” in Poland. He has an even stranger theory about the great pyramid of Giza, according to which one face symbolizes the Old Testament, another the New Testament, a third the choirs of angels, and so on. When I asked him why the ancient Egyptians would bother building symbols of alien religions into their pyramid, he didn’t blink an eye: as an Egyptian priest of rank two with two rays, he averred, Moses oversaw the building of the great pyramid of Giza. As he said this Kamienski´ stuck his index ﬁngers up above his noggin like goat’s horns to show how rays of divine light must have emanated from Moses’ head. On October 19, 1945, I received an airmail letter from Feller. He is at present a colleague of Marek Kac at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He writes that he and Kac were certain I had perished during the war, but that they are relieved to hear that I survived, and will withdraw the obituary they had composed at its second proof-reading. He invites me to pay a visit. A couple of weeks ago we heard from Olga Pamm in Geneva that Anita Dittersdorf35 is now living in Grenoble in the house of a Mme Dumas at 7 Rue de la Lycée. The Dittersdorf parents are déportés sans nouvelles.36 We wrote a letter to Anita, in which, apart from our news, we said we would love to have her with us.

34Lidia Modzelewska, an acquaintance of the author. 35Daughter of Helena, sister of the author’s wife. 36“deported without news [of their fate]” 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław 11

The Zagórskis have agreed to take this letter when they travel to the American zone in Germany and post it there. They are supposed to be going to Murnau. My wife and I visited Mrs. Kołodziejska, whom I met in my Göttingen days. Her son, a pleasant and intelligent person, has a position as assistant to Weyssenhoff.37 Her husband Henryk is now in Warsaw. Kulczynski´ is at present in Kraków, and came to see me on Sunday (October 21, 1945). He told me some interesting news. Apparently there is a group of lawyers who have taken on the brief of defending the rights of Polish prisoners of war and former Polish survivors of the camps before the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs— in particular their right to repatriation. These one may characterize as “democrats of the Western type”, as opposed to those of the “Eastern type”, who have what one may perhaps call an Aryan bias, insisting on determining the religion of an applicant and his or her parents as the first step of the vetting process. A band of democrats of the furthest “Eastern type” recently went to the stationmaster in Sucha38 with the demand that he put a locomotive at their disposal, and, meeting with rejection, shot him and his deputy, raped the women on duty there, and plundered the station building. A squadron of Polish soldiers was sent to do battle with them, killing about a dozen. Such skirmishes are common, says Kulczynski,´ in particular in Wrocław. Another fact of interest: the publishing cooperative Czytelnik, operating under government auspices with a monopoly on the placing of newspaper advertisements, was demanding half a million złotys for a one-column ad run in five newspapers concurrently, but then halved their price to a quarter of a million, which works out at around a thousand złotys per ten words. Kulczynski´ also told me that the budget of the Ministry of Education is fourth in size amongst ministerial budgets. Those of the Ministries of Security and of Information and Propaganda, in particular, are higher. Then Knaster dropped in and he and Kulczynski´ began discussing the situation as far as publishing journals is concerned. It seems that Mr. Zaborski, chief executive in the department of the Minister of Information and Propaganda, has essentially dictatorial powers over the supply of paper. This is the same Zaborski whom I have mentioned earlier in this diary in a less than flattering light. I have just signed a contract for a new edition of my monograph Theorie der Orthogonalreihen.39 I am to be paid 20,000 złotys in advance. This morning, Wednesday, October 24, Orlicz called in. He wants to renew publication of Studia Mathematica.40 Later Stefa arrived back from a four-day trip to Katowice.

37Jan Weyssenhoff (1889–1972), professor of theoretical physics at Stefan Batory University in Wilno and then at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. 38Now called Sucha Beskidzka. A town in the Beskid Zywiecki˙ mountain range in southern Poland. 39Theory of Orthogonal Series, written jointly with Stefan Kaczmarz and originally published in the series Monograﬁe Matematyczne as No. 6, in 1935. 40Studia Mathematica resumed publication in Wrocław in 1948. Note added by Roman Duda, editor of the second Polish edition 12 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław

OCTOBER 28, 1945. Last Friday morning Stefa left with Knaster for Wrocław, taking with her drafts of two variant proposals for the organization of the mathematical-physical-chemical department there. Yesterday I went to visit Lila Holzer, who is now back in her old apartment, but found her out. However, her daughter Ada, “a fifteen-year-old Venetian half-devil” as I have heard her called, was at home. I found her to be a very shrewd young lady, of obvious high intelligence. She must surely be a good student. This morning Lola Makarewicz’s son came by bicycle to tell me that his father Edzio has returned home. Deported from Warsaw by the Germans, he was last heard of as being in the British zone. Stark also dropped in and slotted me in for two English lessons at 100 złotys an hour. In between these visits I managed to write letters to Feller and Kac, and send them off by airmail, which cost me 130 złotys. I read in the paper that Janek Kott is going to London. I had dinner at Lidka’s and was introduced there to the painter Rzepinski,´ 41 who was proposing that she spend two weeks at the “House of Artists” in Łuczanowice.42 Sierpinski´ showed me a letter he has received from Montel elicited by Sier- pinski’s´ summary of the losses to Polish mathematics occasioned by the war. Montel has brought the list to the attention of the French Académie des Sciences,anda decision has been taken to publish the list in their proceedings. A few days ago I talked to Banachiewicz about my introvisor, and today he phoned me to tell me that a lady cousin of his had agreed to finance the construction of a Type II prototype. He hinted that I would be better off staying in Kraków, but even though he belongs to a government commission on mathematics, he said he is unaware of what plans there may be to fill the position at the Jagiellonian University of Kraków rendered vacant by the death of Wilkosz. Our situation these days is as follows. We have heard that the US has ceased its aid to the Soviet Union and the countries of the bloc it occupies. British foreign correspondents stationed in Poland send negative dispatches back to their newspapers about the situation with our currency, the wretchedness of our housing, the lack of personal safety, etc., and the Provisional Government of National Unity, as it expresses itself through the press, considers this an abuse of hospitality, places petty obstructions in their way and makes empty threats against them. Naturally, this gives rise to silly jokes at the expense of the government for pretending ignorance of the fact that excluding the foreign journalists would reflect on it more negatively than the most negative of the reports. It is remarkable how quickly after the occupation the climate of the East, that is, of the USSR, comes to prevail here. At night one hears sporadic shooting, living space has become unavailable, one cannot buy cloth, clothing is inferior and in short supply, freedom is “commanded” and celebrated but in fact not given, there is gross inflation of the number of institutions of higher learning—whence the boast U nas

41Czesław Rzepinski´ (1905–1995), Polish artist. 42Then a village on the outskirts of Kraków, now a suburb of that city. 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław 13 mnogo universitetov!43—“culture” of a restricted kind is supported, the workers earn pennies, goods are pilfered left, right, and center, bribery is endemic, Jews at the top are hated by those at the bottom, etc.—in a word tout comme chez eux.44 But in addition to all that we suffer from a lack of forward momentum; in particular, we lack a serious Polish army. In this as in much else we are living at the pleasure of our Soviet masters. The British and Americans are making a mistake: exasperated by a victory which seems to be leading to even greater difficulties, they are attempting to intimidate the Soviets with a policy of reconciliation with the Germans.45 What the USSR is really frightened of is the atomic bomb, and their boast that they already have one is bluster.46 I recently saw a naive article reprinted from an American newspaper asserting that “in some areas” Soviet science is ahead of that of Britain and America. Wafting through my window comes the same refrain I heard back in the years 1940–1941, sung by just such a company of Soviet soldiers marching by. A few days ago I struck up conversation with a young woman who told me how, after the Nazi peril had passed, she had gone to collect her sister’s little daughter from the peasant family that had taken her in and looked after her well, better even than her own family. But when the peasants heard that they had been sheltering a Jewish child, they changed abruptly, and demanded 15,000 złotys from her for the “moral sacrifice” they had made. This reminds me for some reason of a scene from Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers where, if I remember it correctly, a certain character says something like: “Asking for money, I thereby cease to be a gentleman. That’ll be five pounds, if you please.” A week ago I received an offer of a position in Lublin, which of course I had to turn down. I wrote on October 25 to inform them I couldn’t accept. NOVEMBER 3, 1945. On October 30 I received a letter from the Wards47 informing me that he has a position as lecturer at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which he is a graduate. He was rejected by the army because he is shortsighted. The letter was written by Mrs. Ward, and in it she asks how much freedom we have now, to which I thought of the following reply: I can only tell you about half of the freedom we have, since we are not free to talk of the other half. Today I had a letter from Stechert.48 It was he who told Feller that I had survived the war; in fact he took it on himself to notify the editors of all US mathematics journals of my survival.

43“We have many universities!” (Russian). 44“Everything just as it is with them” 45Perhaps this was merely an incidental consequence of an attempt by the US to restore Germany to prosperity in order to ease the pressures of ﬁnancing the occupation of Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet behemoth or to avoid a repetition of the mistakes made at Versailles following World War I. 46The USSR exploded its ﬁrst atomic bomb in September 1949. 47A young couple from Cambridge who had visited the author in Lwów in the 1930s. 48This is probably the American publisher G. E. Stechert. 14 1 Between Kraków and Wrocław

One of Churchill’s daughters was recently in Wrocław, and was heard to express pity for the Germans being evicted from houses and apartments there! The UNRRA49 has announced that countries not admitting American correspondents will be excluded from receiving relief from that organization. I have also had a letter from Muta50 informing me that Parnas had been asking her for my address, and a nice letter from Kazio Rzaca ˛ in Stró˙ze telling me that he is now in Grade IV. NOVEMBER 11, 1945. Two days ago an engineer from Białystok by the name of Rabinowicz, whom I met in Lwów five years ago, came to see me. He asked my advice on whether or not he should go to Munich. I reminded him of our conversation five years ago when he had so much to say in favor of the Soviets. It seems that at last he has understood that life under a Soviet-style regime has nothing whatever to do with the condition of the export or import market, the number of tractors produced, the wheat yield, or the number of hospitals. If one supports the Soviet system, then one may be asked “For whose sake?” Certainly not for oneself. So I advised him to go to Munich. This man had belonged to the Soviet underground spy system in Lwów since 1942, and had by his own hand killed three Gestapo men and two German officers, variously with a meataxe and a revolver. The Germans in question had been lured by female agents to Stryjski Park or to Wólka51 or to the Plac Powystawowy.52 He had been caught, but had been spared the worst, he said, by pretending to be a British spy, and had been freed in an exchange of prisoners. He told me that the Soviets take advantage of the clandestine exodus of Jews to Palestine by supplying them unofficially with arms to be used ultimately by partisans against the British in Palestine. On November 9, while visiting Mr. Hubert, I read out sections of this diary (those relating to the Fall and Winter of 1939) to several people, including Piotr Borkowski, Broszkiewicz,53 the artist Wojciechowski,54 the Rostworowskis, Mycielski,55 and Paustowski,56 among others. It was as if I myself were reading it for the first time. The general reaction was positive. Yesterday Stefa and Knaster returned from Wrocław. Stefa has found an apartment for us there, and I must hasten to secure it.

49The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, an international relief agency representing 44 nations, founded in 1943, and becoming part of the United Nations in 1945. It was proposed by Roosevelt in June 1943, with the aim of providing relief to areas liberated from occupation by the Axis powers at the end of World War II. 50Muta Müller, the author’s niece. 51A suburb of Lwów. 52Exhibition Square in Stryjski Park. 53Jerzy Broszkiewicz (1922–1993), Polish novelist, playwright, and journalist. 54Possibly Tadeusz Wojciechowski (1902–1982), Polish painter and architect. 55Possibly Count Jan Mycielski, painter. 56Possibly Konstantin Grigorievich Paustovsky (1892–1968), Russian/Soviet writer. His mother was from the family of a Polish intellectual. Chapter 2 Wrocław

NOVEMBER 18, 1945. I left by bus for Wrocław on the morning of November 14. A Jewish woman with a stentorian voice—typical of a certain type of former Lwów, now Warsaw, Jewess—talked the whole time, that is, from 8 am to 6 pm, without interruption except to alternate her verbal onslaught with singing. The bus was packed so I had to sit on my suitcase the whole way. It was a great relief when the bus made a rest stop in Opole, and I could have a glass of tea. I learned later that while I was drinking tea in the restaurant, its owner’s apartment was being stripped bare by thieves. Apparently this sort of thing is endemic. Professor Konopinski´ 1 later claimed that in fact the thieves are, in order of frequency, agents of the security police, the militia, genuine burglars, and, lastly, only in fourth place, Moskals.2 In darkness and rain I at last arrived at the inn Mirus. Next day I went to meet Hirszfeld, who, as dean of the medical faculty, was able to secure two rooms in the clinical administrative building for me to live in while the house Stefa had found was being renovated. I met Miss Lille—she now lives under a different name. I immediately took on the deanship of the department. Tomorrow, Monday November 19, I begin lecturing. Initially lectures will be geared to technicians only since there are as yet only one and a half genuine mathematics students—the half being without appropriate documents.

1Tadeusz Konopinski´ (1894–1965), professor of zoology at Wrocław University. Specialized in animal husbandry. 2Moscovites, or Russians more generally. See also Chapter 13 of Volume 1.

Fig. 2.1 Students clearing rubble in Ku´znicza Street, near the main building of Wrocław University, in 1946 (Courtesy of the Wrocław University Archive)

Wrocław is already beginning to look like a city again. Almost everything that could be stolen has been stolen. Our “Main Silesian Institute” is to be established against a background of secret police agents, thieves, Germans wearing white armbands, and Soviet soldiers. I went to look at the house at 15 Feenweg3 found by Stefa, and had the cost of fixing it up estimated: 20,000 złotys. Where am I to get this sort of money? There is also the problem that the house officially belongs to the military. I see some promise for my introvisor since I shall probably get support from people in the medical faculty. There will eventually be technical workshops established here suitable to my purpose, and perhaps also in Jelenia Góra.4 NOVEMBER 22, 1945. I am made dizzy by a veritable whirlpool of happenings: constant filling out of questionnaires, and meetings about budgets, allocations of resources, etc. I was at Hirszfeld’s, and in response to my query about funding for the Type II version of my introvisor, he immediately promised 10,000 złotys. Obtaining these funds will require nine copies of the appropriate application form,

3Later renamed Orłowski Street. Bronisław Knaster shared the house at 15 Orłowski Street with the Steinhauses. Note added by Roman Duda, editor of the second Polish edition 4“Deer Mountain”, a city in Lower Silesia, south-western Poland, close to the Karkonosze (in Czech, Krkonoše) mountain range, forming part of the Polish-Czech border. 2Wrocław 17

Fig. 2.2 The war-damaged main building of Wrocław University in 1945. Notice the statue of the “naked swordsman” still standing in front of the building (Courtesy of the Department of Documents of Social Life, Ossolineum, Wrocław) and there are so far no typewriters. It takes me forty-ﬁve minutes by streetcar to get from where I’m living to the university, and the same on foot. It seems an American physicist by the name of Anderson and a certain US immunologist are to come to Wrocław. One senses the population of Wrocław growing. There is much confusion because no one knows the street names: they are being given new Polish names and this has the effect of disorienting people—especially the Germans. The net result is that a lot of people’s time is being wasted. 18 2Wrocław

Fig. 2.3 Students helping to rebuild the Wrocław Polytechnic in 1946 (Courtesy of the Depart- ment of Documents of Social Life, Ossolineum, Wrocław)

I visited the Koftas,5 and was warmly received by Mrs. Kofta, politely by her husband, who seems intelligent. I told them about Zaborski6 and they promised to notify the appropriate people about investigating him. I am very curious as to whether this is the person who came to Stró˙ze when we were there. I am also hoping the Koftas will be able to wield their inﬂuence to get the house at 15 Feenweg released from ownership by the military. I am on Fleck’s Habilitation examining committee. Late last night Ewa Pilatowa committed suicide by poisoning herself. On Grunwaldzki Square7 a seething, ceaseless struggle is being carried on. On one side are ranged a variety of types: untidy fellows sporting kneeboots and equipped with rucksacks, shifty looking characters—probably conmen or thieves—, women engaged in less than modest speculation, loitering Polish and Soviet soldiers, Jews busy with all kinds of dealing, and, on the opposite side, Germans in their white armbands, some of their women in slacks pulling carts or toting bundles. There is heated argument, shouting, swindling, trafﬁcking in all wares, pushing and

5Mieczysław Kofta, director inter alia of Polish Radio in Wrocław, and his wife Maria, teacher of German at the university. 6The name of a person of dubious character encountered in Chapter 12 of Volume 1, who later (see Chapter 1 of Volume 2) had come to occupy an important post in the government. 7Plac Grunwaldzki, named after the victorious battle fought by Poland-Lithuania against the Teutonic Knights in 1410, is a large square and transit hub in Wrocław. During the siege of Breslau (Wrocław) by the Red Army in 1945 the entire surrounding residential district was razed by the Germans in order to build an airﬁeld. Soviet airstrikes killed thousands of the forced laborers working on the airstrip.