Warsaw, Aug 8, (dpa/GNA) – Polish author, resistance fighter and concentration camp survivor Zofia Posmysz, has died at the age of 98, the Auschwitz Memorial said on Monday.
The International Auschwitz Committee paid tribute to the writer and eyewitness. “It was always a great comfort to Auschwitz survivors that the voice of Zofia Posmysz, could be heard around the world,” said Christoph Heubner, the committee’s executive vice president.
With her literary works she was “a translator of the feelings and memories of many survivors”.
Posmysz died at a hospice in the Polish city of Oswiecim, Polish TV news channel TVN24 reported online. The writer and screenwriter was also an honorary citizen of the town.
Posmysz was arrested at the age of 18 in 1942, when she was distributing leaflets for the Polish resistance in her hometown of Krakow.
After two and a half years in Auschwitz, she was deported to Ravensbrück. She experienced the liberation of concentration camp in occupied Poland as a 21-year-old on May 2, 1945.
After her return to Poland, she worked, among other things, for Polish radio.
She became internationally known through her radio play “The Passenger,” which was also published in German.
The work is about the reunion of an Auschwitz survivor, with her former concentration camp guard during a voyage by ship. The radio play served as a model for a film and an opera.
GNA