Bread for the Departed

Bogdan Wojdowski was born David Wojdowski in Warsaw. He spent his youth in the Warsaw ghetto, escaping in 1942 and living in hiding for the remainder of the war. He began writing in the 1950s as an essayist for Polish journals. Wojdowski’s writing revolved around his experiences during the war, which he depicted with unforgiving and even grotesque detail. His most famous novel, Bread for the Departed, depicts the emotional and physical traumas of survival in the Warsaw ghetto, often returning to the most basic need, bread. Wojdowski committed suicide on April 19, 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.