Krzysztof Kąkolewski


Krzysztof Kąkolewski was a Polish book author, life-long scholar, investigative journalist considered the pillar of the Polish school of reportage, as well as dramatist and screenwriter. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism in the Warsaw University in 1954 and continued his studies at the University of Strasbourg in 1961. For some 40 years afterwards, he served as lecturer at his alma mater in the Faculty of Journalism and Political Science between 1964 and 2004. Kąkolewski himself, became the subject of a TV documentary produced by Telewizja Polska as well as biography written by Marta Sieciechowicz and published in 2009 by Von Borowiecky publishing house as Potwór z Saskiej Kępy,. He was the author of over 30 non-fiction books with the total circulation of 1.5 million copies, and the recipient of numerous national awards and honours.

Life

Kąkolewski was born in Suchedniów near Warsaw, nine years before invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. His father was a lawyer, killed during the Siege of Warsaw in 1939. Kąkolewski published his first novella at the age of 48, after nearly three decades of often controversial, but highly popular non-fiction works about events in Poland's postwar history. He interviewed former Nazi criminals living safely in Western Germany, e.g. Hans Fleischhacker, Heinz Reinefarth, subsequently described in his book Co u pana słychać? published in 1975, 1978, and 1981. His criminal novel based on authentic MO police records Zbrodniarz, który ukradł zbrodnię was filmed in 1969, as one of the best Polish movies of the time, starring Zygmunt Hübner and Barbara Brylska. Kąkolewski wrote an entire book about the seminal postwar novel Ashes and Diamonds written by Jerzy Andrzejewski and filmed by Andrzej Wajda. He also wrote a monograph about Stalinist terror in the Kielce region, leading to Kielce pogrom of 1946 in postwar Poland.

Books by Krzysztof Kąkolewski