Zofia Posmysz

The original radio drama was adapted for an award-winning feature film, while the novel was adapted into an opera of the same name with music by Mieczysław Weinberg.

Zofia Posmysz studied at Faculty of Polish Studies at the University of Warsaw. The recorded working language is Polish. The field of work recorded is literature. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Zasłużony Działacz Kultury and Medal of the 30th Anniversary of People's Poland.

Posmysz was born in Kraków and lived there until the invasion of Poland in 1939. During the occupation she attended clandestine courses and worked at a cable factory. She was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, at age 18, charged with distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. She was kept for six weeks at the Montelupich Prison in Kraków. After prolonged interrogation she was moved under escort to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Relegated to arduous work at a penal company in Budy, she was saved twice by the camp doctor, Janusz Mąkowski. On 18 January 1945, Posmysz (prisoner number 7566) was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp and from there to the Neustadt-Glewe satellite camp, where she was liberated on 2 May 1945 by the US Army.

After World War II, she studied at the University of Warsaw, and worked for the broadcaster Polskie Radio in the culture section. In 1959, she wrote a radio drama, Pasażerka z kabiny 45 (Passenger from Cabin 45), based on her memories from the time spent in Nazi concentration camps. The play was produced in the same year by the Polish Radio featuring Aleksandra Śląska and Jan Świderski. It was adapted for television by Posmysz in 1960. The show was directed by Andrzej Munk and featured Ryszarda Hanin, Zofia Mrozowska, and Edward Dziewoński in the leading roles. The Passenger from Cabin 45 was innovative and unusual in the genre of Holocaust literature, because it depicted a loyal SS Aufseherin, Annelise Franz, in charge of Posmysz's work detail at Auschwitz, who nevertheless exhibited basic human behaviour towards prisoners. The screenplay for the film was written by both Posmysz and Munk in 1961. Munk died in a car crash soon thereafter. Posmysz did not participate in the making of the film, which was released in 1963. Instead, she focused on writing a novel derived from her autobiographical memory. The book was published in 1962 as Pasażerka. The events in the book take place on an ocean liner, 16 years after the war ended. The former SS Aufseherin, Lisa Kretschmer, travels with her husband in search of a new life. Among the many passengers, she spots Marta, her former inmate, whom she used to feed and protect from dangerous labour. While at Auschwitz, Lisa was assigned to a new post of duty, and offered Marta to take her from the camp to detention in a less dangerous place, but to no avail. In the end of the novel, she learns that Marta recognized her also. Notably, in the original radio drama, the titular 'Cabin 45' was Posmysz's compartment number on a train to Auschwitz; an ocean-travel served as literary device of story within a story. No English translation of The Passenger novel exists. When Pope Benedict XVI visited the memorial for Auschwitz in 2006, she was among the surviving inmates greeting him. In 2015, Posmysz was among 19 Auschwitz survivors reporting for a documentary by Der Spiegel titled The Last Witnesses (Die letzten Zeugen). Posmysz died in Oświęcim on 8 August 2022, at the age of 98.

A selection of works by Posmysz, published in Polish, includes: I know the executioners from Belsen... (Znam katów z Belsen…; 1945) Passenger from cabin 45 (Pasażerka z kabiny 45; 1959) Passenger (Pasażerka, novel, 1962) A stop in the forest (Przystanek w lesie; stories, 1965) The sick hawthorn (Cierpkie głogi; screenplay, 1966) Little (Mały; screenplay, 1970) Holiday on the Adriatic (Wakacje nad Adriatykiem; 1970) Microclimate (Mikroklimat; 1975) A Tree Similar to Another Tree (Drzewo do drzewa podobne; 1977) Price (Cena; 1978) The Same Doctor M (Ten sam doktor M; 1981) Widows and lovers (Wdowa i kochankowie; 1988) To freedom, to death, to life (Do wolności, do śmierci, do życia; 1996)