“You Can’t Idealize Just Anything…”*

Andrzej Bobkowski’s Szkice piórkiem is the most outstanding Polish diary of the 20th century. The 26-year-old economist, a graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics, leaves for Paris with his wife in March 1939, where the outbreak of War II finds him. The preserved notes begin on May 20, 1940 and end on August 25, 1944. Together with the author, you observe Paris beginning to empty and the course of its evacuation, you participate in the bicycle journey from Carcassone to Paris, in the return to the capital, in trips to the provinces and in the liberation of Paris. Bobkowski is an insightful, sober and very witty observer, a young man who loves life, a great friend, a passionate cyclist. The reader has insight into political events, social reactions, and everyday life during World War II in the West. Bobkowski’s frankness, passion for life, assessments of political events and his own reactions to countless difficult situations touch the heart deeply. When you read about the French government’s request for help directed to America in June 1940, or about Moscow’s claim in April 1943 that the Polish government in London is fascist² , it will be easier to understand the present.

*. Bobkowski, Andrzej. Szkice piórkiem. CiS Publishing House, Warsaw – Stare Groszki, 2014, pp. 397/398.

2. Ibidiem p. 400

Beata Ciacek