Information Agency: Wydawnictwo Profit i S-ka published the book “Behind Murnau Wire. A Tale of Father and Son” by Stefan Majchrowski and Jan Majchrowski. Tomasz Zbigniew Zapert discussed this last discussion, which we present below.
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Interview: Jan Majchrowski and Tomasz Zapert
The book “Before Murnau Wire” – this supplement, to the memories of your father, Stefan Majchrowski, was added by life?
Jan Majchrowski: If this question is simply a reference, or a hint, to my journey after many years of following my father's footsteps to Murnau, then I guess you can say that. Only that the book “Behind Murnau wires“ Stefan Majchrowski is not precisely a memory. It is alternatively a very circumstantial study of the participant, who, however, preferred to go into the shadows himself, to stay anonymous. My supplement to this book in the form of “Before Murnau wires” written as a consequence of the expedition and the peculiar gathering that took place there, he brings his father out of the shadows and lets him say what he himself did not say. Not directly, anyway. Thanks to this, the “Daughter and boy Tale” was created – as the book subtitled. Completely true, in both parts of it, but at the same time 1 that leaves the reader area for his own comments and conjectures. As the song erstwhile said, “A soldier will not lie to a girl, although not everything will tell her...”.
When and under what circumstances did Captain Stefan Majchrowski find himself in Murnau?
Jan Majchrowski: My father captain Stefan Majchrowski was, before the war, a professional cavalry officer. In 1939, he served as an intelligence officer, at the staff of 1 of her brigades. He went with her the full fighting way – from a short-lived journey to Germany in East Prussia, through various skirmishes with Germany and the Red Army (the russian Socialist Union, now the Russian Federation, to the final conflict of the defensive war – under Kock. After this clash, completed only on 6 October 1939, the surrender, commanded by Gen. Franciszek Kleeberg of the “Polesie” Independent Operations Group, came the end of a run later called “September” – as you can see. Then German slavery began. According to the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1929, which Germany fundamentally (although not without violations) respected, officers were directed to the forgings and lower ranks of soldiers to the stalags. Together with many colleagues from the “Polesie” Independent Operations Group, his father went to the VII A, Bavarian Murnau, at the ft of the Alps.
The remediation of misery and monotony of existence in this camp was education?
Jan Majchrowski: Certainly. Although it was not only about "killing time", it was about real development. They wanted to be useful to Poland. Many of those officers were reservists, various in civilian specialities. There were scientists and artists. They were willing to share their cognition with others. The number of regular lectures, courses, trainings, seminars, discussions, circles of interest – surrounded by a library in which Polish prisoners managed to collect 20,000 different-language books – she impressed. My father called it “The University of Murnau”. He utilized it as much as he could. He went to the forg erstwhile he was a well educated officer from the Higher War School, and came out of it as a well educated humanist, curious in philosophy, history, literature, fluent in 3 abroad languages. This is why from a professional officer he could later turn into a professional author and live from writing books under hard conditions of the Polish People's Republic.
In the VII A, Bavarian Murnau, have there been escapes?
Jan Majchrowski: Of course, in the VII A, in Bavarian Murnau, there were escapes. It was a law and an officer's duty. The consciousness of the captives' forced inaction was worse than frequently the famine and various harassments that the father tried not to divorce so as not to fall into martyrdom. They could not participate in the war that continued, but without their participation. Escapes, so they were organized, sometimes very ingenious, but with mediocre results.
In the VII A, in Murnau, only Poles were imprisoned?
Jan Majchrowski: Oflag VII A, in Murnau, was primarily a camp for Polish officers. At a highest minute very overcrowded, due to the fact that encompassing over 5.000 POWs crowded in a tiny area. There was besides a company of Polish privates. At the end of the VII A war, in Murnau, there were besides English and Italian POWs. These, after the surrender of Marshal Pietro Badoglio, Prime Minister of the Italian Government, who replaced Benito Mussolini's fascist cabinet, separated from the rest, very mediocre and destitute. Poles fed them by throwing food through their wires.
Has Melpomen and Polyhymnia besides appeared behind the wires?
Jan Majchrowski: Both Melpomena and Pilihymnia have been revealed with very good results! A theatre created by prisoners in VII A, Murnau, stood on a advanced artistic level, not only due to the game, directing, but besides due to the innovative, sometimes phase design, literary level of text translations, from abroad languages. The theatre in VIIA oflag, in Murnau was of large interest. Each play was played at least a twelve times, commented, discussed. There was besides a choir and a symphony orchestra. All organized entirely socially and with their own captives. Besides, all the musicians went to Oflag VII A, in Murnau, together with Polish officers, due to the fact that Kaliope and Klio and Talia and even Urania – thanks to the astronomer prof. Włodzimierz Zonn. I guess only Terpsychory wasn't there due to the fact that there were no women to dance with...
Is in the fall of 1944 to Oflag VII A, inMurnau, was hit by Warsaw insurgents, which resonated, after years, by movie for the “Eroika” of Andrzej Munk, screening of the prose of Jerzy Stefan Stawiński, besides a prisoner of this camp?
Jan Majchrowski: After the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, outstanding figures, although very different, like rtm, besides went to Oflag VII A, in Murnau. Witold Pilecki and Leon Schiller. The second was amazed and delighted with the theatre in Oflag VII A, in Murnau. He rapidly became active in his work. Warsaw insurgents were accepted as heroes, more than warmly. But the first enthusiasm and charm broke erstwhile it turned out that the experiences of respective years of German business besides created a fresh kind of Pole, who did not number for the old conventions and standards of the pre-war officers' staff. In late 1944, 2 different worlds encountered each another in Oflag VII A, in Murnau, creating a series of fascinations. The themes of these and another POW conflicts were included in respective post-war films, exposing the commism of various situations, which, however, by the viewer in the Polish People's Republic, could be seen as proof of the general idiocy and anachronism of the pre-war Polish officers' staff and, in general, of that “jassen” of Poland. It was not a real image, as it is not a correct reasoning, which of excess and exception tries to make a rule. Furthermore, as the father clearly points out in his book, then the conflicts were caused mostly by civilians who were smuggled after the Warsaw Uprising, claiming to be officers, while officers from Poland September 1939 and Polish August 1944 rapidly found a common language.
My father wrote his account only a 4th of a century after the war ended. He couldn't before, or he didn't want to?
Jan Majchrowski: After the liberation of the VII A, in Murnau, by the American troops my father continued to service in the Polish army, in the 2nd Corps of General Władysław Anders. He was a professional officer, and no 1 fired him. He returned to Poland only after the dissolution of the 2nd Corps, in 1947. This was no time to print books about Polish pre-war officers. The “Stalin night” (governments of communist revolutionaries marked by panic and persecution) was just begun, which was to last until 1956. Besides, this “sanctionary” rot master and erstwhile intelligence officer tried to just last at the time, due to the fact that he found himself unemployed, in terrible material conditions. There was a time erstwhile he virtually – not figuratively – died of hunger. Books, Stefan Majchrowski, began to be published in 1957. In 1970, the item “Behind Murnau Wire” was published. A tiny but crucial lesson, not only due to the fact that it became a origin material for many texts on the VII A, in Murnau and the silhouettes of individual people; colleagues he immortalized in it. The quarter-century is simply a good, kind of universal time to take any distance to past events, to cool off, which is always conducive to objectivity and at the same time not to forget. I applied the same method to “Behind Murnau” part two, about a mystical gathering in Murnau, which I experienced years later. And that taught me that nothing goes past but goes away. And that the past lives in the present, if you want to reread it.
Who is Stefan Majchrowski?
Stefan Majchrowski – literary pseudonym “Stefan Kos”, “Tomasz Grabić” (1908-988) – writer, captain of the Polish Army II of the Republic of Poland. In 1927, he became a subordinate to the Officers' Cavalry School in Grudziądz. On 15 August 1929 the president of the Republic of Poland appointed him lieutenant. The Minister of Military Affairs included him in the 7th Lublin Ulan Regiment in Minsk Mazowiecki. He was promoted to lieutenant on December 17, 1931. From 1938 to 1939 he was a listener of the 19th War School in Warsaw. He was appointed as captain in 1939 with seniority.
Where did Stefan Majchrowski fight?
Stefan Majchrowski, in the September 1939 campaign, fought as an information officer in the office of the Podlaskie Cavalry Brigade. He took part in the conflict of Kock. After his surrender in German captivity, which he spent in Oflag VII A, in Murnau, Bavaria. He performed there in self-educational and artistic activities (e.g. translating from the English play G.B. Shaw for the camp theatre). He later wrote a book on life in the camp “Behind Murnau wiresIt’s okay. ”
What was Stefan Majchrowski doing after he was released from the POW camp?
Stefan Majchrowski, after the liberation of prisoners from Oflag VII A in Murnau, served in the 2nd Polish Corps by American troops in 1945. Further military education in Macerata, Italy 1945. At the same time, he conducted publishing activities, as part of Rodło publishing house. In 1946, in Italy, under the pseudonym “Stefan Kos”, he published a book “Poland RoadIt’s okay. ” In the same year, together with the 2nd Polish Corps, he was transferred to Scotland, the United Kingdom of large Britain and Northern Ireland.
What was Stefan Majchrowski doing erstwhile he returned to Poland?
In 1947 Stefan Majchrowski returned to Poland. He was a translator from English, French and German at the API publishing agency. He besides collaborated with the magazine “The Tygodnik Powszechny”, publishing a number of articles on Gilbert K. Chesterton, G.B. Shaw and Thomas More. Shortly thereafter, he was released from his work with the API agency, receiving a alleged "ville ticket" (secret ban on communist employment authorities). He was besides under surveillance by the Homeland Security. In the late 1940s, he began writing music and broadcasts for Polish Radio, mainly for children and youth and articles about old Warsaw to the weekly "Stolica". After the “rehydration” (after the death in 1953 of Józef Stalin – the communist dictator of the Union of russian Socialist Republics, now the Russian Federation and in 1956, Bolesław Bierut – the communist dictator of the Polish People's Republic) began to compose regularly books that have been published since 1957. He became a associate of the Association of Polish Literaries and the Association of Authors and Composers ZAiKS. He wasn't part of the political party.
Who is prof. Jan Majchrowski?
Professor Jan Majchrowski – lawyer, political scientist, academic teacher, habilitated doctor of legal science, first voivode of Lubuski (son of Stefan Majchrowski). In 2018, Andrzej Duda – president of the Posippolita Polska appointed him to service as justice of the ultimate Court.
What education does Jan Majchrowski have?
Jan Majchrowski graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw in 1990. In 1993 he graduated from the Faculty of Journalism and Political Sciences at the University of Warsaw. In 1997 he obtained a doctorate in legal sciences, and in 2012 a doctor of habilitated sciences. He was besides educated as part of internships, postgraduate studies and scholarships in Centro Incontri e Studi Europei in Rome (1988), European Parliament (1991), Grenoble University II (1994–1995), La Sapienza University in Rome (1997), National Defence Academy (1999), Vienna Public Administration Academy (2000). Since 1990, he has been employed at the Institute of Sciences about the State and almost at the Faculty of Law and Administration of Warsaw University, since 2015 as an extraordinary professor. In 2013, he became an associate prof. of the Higher School of Public Administration in Ostrołęka and a associate of the legislature of this university. He was besides a lecturer at the Catholic University of Lublin. He deals with state discipline and law enforcement, specializes in issues of state explanation and constitutional law.
What books did Jan Majchrowski publish?
Jan Majchrowski has published a number of books, specified as "Against Armed illiterates", "Poliprints. Food from books and people", co-author, “Behind Murnau Wire. A Tale of Father and Son.”
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AI, interviews /dec/ 24 July 2025
