Janina Bauman (née Lewinson; 18 August 1926, in Warsaw – 29 December 2009, in Leeds) was a Polish journalist and writer of Jewish origin.[1]

Janina Bauman
BornJanina Lewinson
1926
Warsaw, Poland
Died2009
Leeds, United Kingdom
OccupationWriter
NationalityPolish
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
Period1986–2009
GenreMémoir, biography, history
SubjectPoland, World War II, Holocaust
SpouseZygmunt Bauman

Biography

edit

She was the daughter of Szymon Lewinson (1896–1940), a urologist and Polish Army officer murdered in the Katyn massacre, and of Alina, née Fryszman (1900–1980). She had one sister, Zofia (1930–1971). On her mother's side she was the granddaughter of the physician Aleksander Fryszman (1874–1939) and the niece of Jerzy Fryszman (1904–1976) and of Leon Płockier (1895–1965).

During World War II she was a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto with her mother and sister. They managed to escape and were sheltered by a peasant family in the countryside. After the war she studied journalism at the Warsaw Academy of Political and Social Science, where she met her future husband, Zygmunt Bauman. She subsequently worked in the film industry as a translator, researcher and script editor. She left Poland with her husband in 1968 after the antisemitic purges, that followed the March 1968 events. They initially went to Israel, however, after three years they decided to settle permanently in Leeds, England, where she lived until the end of her life.[2]

She married Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017). They had three daughters.

In 2010 the Bauman Family established the Janina Bauman Prize to be awarded for a winning essay submitted to the Bauman Institute at the University of Leeds.[3]

Books

edit

In Polish

  • Bauman, Janina (2009). Zima o poranku. Opowieść dziewczynki z warszawskiego getta. Kraków: Znak. p. 312. ISBN 978-83-240-1126-1.
  • Bauman, Janina (2000). Nigdzie na ziemi. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego. p. 258. ISBN 83-85888-32-2.
  • Bauman, Janina (1995). Powroty. Opowieść w czterech odsłonach. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Zysk i S-ka. p. 111. ISBN 83-7150-058-0.

In English

  • Winter in the Morning (1986), based on diaries she kept as a young girl during the war
  • A Dream of Belonging (1988). Both were republished in one volume as:
  • Beyond These Walls (2009) all with Virago Press

About Janina Bauman

edit
  • Janina Bauman, Als Mädchen im Warschauer Ghetto. Ein Überlebensbericht. Aus dem Englischen von Reinhard Wagner. Mit einem Nachwort von Władysław Bartoszewski. Verlag Max Hueber, Ismaning bei München 1986. ISBN 3-19-005510-6
  • Peter Wagner : Between two wars: Janina and Zygmunt Bauman's analyses of the contemporary human condition , 2003

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ "Janina Bauman nie żyje" (in Polish). wyborcza.pl. 29 December 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  2. ^ Bauman, Lydia (26 January 2010). "Janina Bauman Obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  3. ^ "Janina Bauman Prize : The Bauman Institute".