Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski

Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (May 20, 1919 Kielce, Poland - July 4, 2000 Naples, Italy) was one of the greatest Polish essayists and thinkers. He is best known for writing a personal account of life in the Soviet gulag - A World Apart. He was born in Kielce into a Jewish family. His studies of Polish literature at Warsaw University were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. During the Fall of 1939 he co-founded an underground resistance organization "Polska Ludowa Akcja Niepodległościowa, PLAN". As the organization’s courier he traveled to then Soviet occupied Lvov, but was arrested in March 1940 by the NKVD and sentenced on fabricated espionage charges. Imprisoned in Vitsebsk and a gulag in Arkhangelsk region for 2 years, he was released in 1942 under the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement. He joined Gen. Wladyslaw Anders' Army (Polish II Corps) and later fought in Italy at Monte Cassino. For his valor in combat he has been decorated with the  Virtuti Militari cross, Poland's highest military decoration.
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