Rawicz, Piotr

Ukrainian Piotr Rawicz (1919-1982), despite successfully hiding his Jewish identity, was seized by the Gestapo in 1942 and imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau. At the end of the Second World War he emigrated to France and wrote his only novel, Blood from the Sky, published in 1961. Called by John Felstiner "the Ulysses of its kind," Rawicz's novel won the distinguished French literary award the Prix Rivarol. The author led a bohemian and nomadic existence for the rest of his life, frequently championing the work of his friend Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Rawicz committed suicide in 1982 after the deat...