Jerzy Borejsza

Jerzy Borejsza (; born Beniamin Goldberg; 14 July 1905 in Warsaw – 19 January 1952 in Warsaw) was a Polish communist activist and writer. During the Stalinist period of communist Poland, he was chief of a state press and publishing syndicate.

Biography

Borejsza was born as Beniamin Goldberg to a Polish Jewish family. He was an older brother of Józef Różański – later a member of the Soviet NKVD and high-ranking interrogator in the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. As a youth, Borejsza sympathized with the Zionist radical left and anarchic political factions. After he got in trouble with the Polish authorities, his father sponsored his residence in France. He served as director of the Ossolineum Institute in Lwów (Lviv) in 1939–1940.

He joined the new pro-Soviet Polish communist party, the Polish Workers' Party, He created the giant publishing house Czytelnik ('The Reader'). Maria Dąbrowska, Polish writer, wrote about him in her memoirs: "He created a large organization, an organization encompassing the publishing – newspapers-books and readers, created with an almost American flare. But the aim of this organization was a slow and deliberate Sovietization and Russification of Polish culture." Jan Kott, Polish writer, wrote about him in his memoirs: "...simply known as the Boss. ... Czytelnik was a state within a state … especially for writers. " Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner, also wrote in his memoirs about Borejsza: "Borejsza was a tireless down to earth man, who converted dreams into actions. ... Now the great Borejsza, a scrawny, dynamic Quixote, an admirer of Sancho Panza like the other Quixote, sensitive and wise, builder and dreamer, is resting for the first time" – Pablo Neruda, "Pablo Neruda Memoirs" (Original Spanish Edition: Confieso que he vivido: memorias, 1974), Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1977.