New Book: "Stygmat" by Katarzyna Kwiatkowska‑Moskalewicz
About the event
New Book: "Stygmat" by Katarzyna Kwiatkowska‑Moskalewicz
📅 March 3, 2026, 19:00
📍 Foyer of the New Theatre / Nowa Księgarnia
🎟️ Free admission
New book: “Stygmat. Helena Wolińska and Włodzimierz Brus. A Biography” by Katarzyna Kwiatkowska‑Moskalewicz, Agora Publishing
A prosecutor who became a symbol of Stalinist crimes and inspired one of the characters in the Oscar‑winning film Ida, and a brilliant economist condemned by Gomułka in March 1968 together with Kołakowski and Bauman. Between them a great love, dramas and a history that repeatedly separated and reunited them.
This book tells the story, corrects falsehoods and exposes truths. It tells the harrowing story of two people who lost everyone and everything in the Holocaust. They survived, and then on the ruins of the old world sought hope for a just order in communism and the People’s Republic of Poland. (That hope was eventually taken from them too). It corrects the black legend created for the sake of the struggle for power over the past, and not only the past, in the Third Republic about both of them — from half‑truths, prejudices, manipulation and ill will. It exposes the dark side of a society where anti‑communism and antisemitism intertwine, blocking access to knowledge about people and the era, becoming a cognitive and moral disaster. Katarzyna Kwiatkowska‑Moskalewicz admirably fulfills the biographer’s mission. While preserving empathy, she confronts the darker episodes, primarily from Wolińska’s life. She presents in a reliable way the circumstances in which choices were made and the characters of the protagonists were shaped. Above all — she restores a fair perspective on their decisions, entanglements and times.
– Artur Domosławski
The author insightfully reconstructs the life story of two people in a turbulent era. People united by love and a fascination with communism understood as a path to equality, and after 1945 to participation in the ruling group. We learn their motivations, fates, and entanglements with the regime, which became the cause of dramas they faced until the end of their lives.
– prof. Andrzej Friszke
An extraordinary historical study, rich in detail, perceptive, measured. And surprising! Very readable. Highly recommended!
– prof. Irena Grudzińska‑Gross
Wolińska and Brus were one of the symbols of the “żydokomuna”, villains of PRL history. In a well‑written double biography the author shows the complexity and ambiguity of their fates marked by antisemitism and communism — two great ideologies of the 20th century. She does not absolve, but tries to understand. A great book!
– prof. Adam Leszczyński
About the author:
Katarzyna Kwiatkowska‑Moskalewicz – a historian and reporter specializing in Eastern European issues. She works at the Gabriel Narutowicz Institute of Political Thought and the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Bekker NAWA fellow at the Chair of the History of Eastern Europe at the University of Heidelberg (2023–2024) and Wayne Vucinich Fellowship at Stanford University (2026). Recipient of, among others, a National Science Centre grant and the Amnesty International Pen of Hope award. Translator from Belarusian and Russian. Author of, among others, the book "To Kill the Dragon. Ukrainian Revolutions" (2016).
The meeting will be led by Karolina Sulej – writer, journalist, reporter (Vogue, Pismo, Wysokie Obcasy, Mint Magazine), columnist for Polityka, host of the program “Mody Polskie” on TVP Kultura and the show and podcast “Ludzie w ubraniach” on Trójka. Curator of exhibitions, researcher and popularizer of fashion anthropology. Author of reportages and non‑fiction books.
Series illustration: Jarosław Danilenko
Free
