Leon Pasternak

Leon Pasternak (12 August 1910, Lemberg, Austro-Hungarian Empire (soon became Lwow, Poland, now Lviv, Ukraine) - 14 November 1969 Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish poet and satirist. He was Jewish and related to Boris Pasternak the famous Russian poet.

In the 1920's Leon was a young idealist and committed communist. As a result of his political activities — writing satirical verses for socialist revolutionary periodicals, and spreading communist propaganda in any possible way — Leon had to leave Lwow for Warsaw. There his works quickly became popular, but soon the “literary cabaret” which he founded in collaboration with Stanislaw Lec (referred to as the Theater of Boys by some and as the Five Kopeck Theater by others), was closed by the authorities, after only eight performances.

Imprisoned in Bereza Kartuska

In 1934, Leon then a young man of 24, was imprisoned in the Bereza Kartuska detention camp, where Polish Communist activists were jailed. His relatives traveled all the way from Lwow with parcels of warm clothing and food to help him sustain the harsh conditions of jail were many inmates died. Meanwhile across the border of the Soviet Union, Leon's relative Boris Pasternak escaped a similar fate of ideological imprisonment: Boris became disillusioned with Communist ideals, and was about to be arrested. Yet it is said that Stalin has crossed Pasternak's name off an arrest list during the purges.

After one year in prison Leon Pasternak was released. In the beginning of WW2 he fled to the USSR, were he joined the Red Army and fought in the division of the Polish army against the Nazis. After the war Leon Pasternak became the vice-chairman of the Polish Writers' Association.

"Leon Pasternak was idealistic till the end, faithful till his last breath" said Ryszard Marek Gronski the well know Polish author and poet.