Ryszard Moszkowski: o nieobecności

Abstract

Ryszard Moszkowski: about absence

This text by Ewa Toniak is the first attempt to reconstruct the biography of a contemporary Polish sculptor and architect from an assimilated Jewish family – Ryszard Moszkowski (1906–1945). The author primarily follows the fate of the artist during the German occupation, residing until January 1945 in Żoliborz until, just a few days before the German army left Warsaw, he was executed along with his wife, Róża Etkin-Moszkowska – a pianist and laureate who won Third Prize at the First International Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1927. From initial diagnoses, Ryszard Moszkowski was an active member of the Jewish Relief Council to Aid Jews, Żegota, and was responsible for supplying financial assistance to those in hiding. From the memory of the Holocaust survivor Barbara Temkin-Bermanowa, we learn that during the occupation, the sculptor was involved in the left-wing milieu of the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia, and maintained contacts with his parents – Kazimierz Moszkowski and Balina (Balbina) Moszkowska, née Welt. Both parents, together with their daughter Hanna survived. Richard, his wife and sister Ursula were murdered.