She is one of the most moving figures in the history of Polish culture. She sacrificed her acting career for her beloved husband. She then endured the arduous exile to Kazakhstan with her small child. She then witnessed her husband's serious illness and suicide in 1967. She herself passed away in 1991, recalling: "Everything that matters most is connected to my husband, Aleksander"...
She was born exactly one hundred and twenty years ago, on April 26, 1903 in Warsaw to a Jewish family as Paulina Lew , the daughter of Aaron and Sara Lwów , "she had excellent conditions at home, her parents were wealthy, she was a favorite, the prettiest of all the beautiful daughters."
After graduating from high school, she began her studies at a private higher education institution, the Free Polish University . In 1922, she became an acting student, a secret from her conservative parents. But her stage career was halted forever when she met the young poet Aleksander Wat at a student ball in the spring of 1923. It soon became clear that they were destined for each other. Aleksander asked Ola to abandon her acting studies, which she did. However, their engagement lasted several years due to the opposition of her wealthy family, who did not consider the avant-garde but impoverished poet a good husband for Ola.
She was considered one of the most beautiful women in Warsaw. We have written testimonies of her phenomenal beauty from poet Jan Lechoń and writer Janina Broniewska . Apparently, the Russian avant-garde poet V. Mayakovsky couldn't take his eyes off her during his visit to Warsaw...
| Ola Wat (1924), photo by Wojciech Karpiński
Ola and Aleksander Wat had a traditional Jewish wedding on January 24, 1927. As a gift from her husband, she received a volume of his poems, tellingly titled "Unemployed Lucifer ." The wedding was lavishly attended by the Polish artistic avant-garde, led by poet Julian Tuwim, who was delighted with the picturesque ceremony . As punishment for her choice of husband, her parents refused her any dowry.
Ola's fidelity and devotion to her husband were never questioned. Against the backdrop of the liberal, artistic Warsaw of the interwar period, where extramarital affairs were tacitly permitted, she was a rare exception.
Ola stuck by her husband despite poverty and hardship. The poet Czesław Miłosz wrote: love for Ola was the "axis of life" of Aleksander Wat – the outstanding poet, essayist, author of the famous "My Century." Storms, wars, and totalitarianisms rolled over them, yet they clung to each other despite everything: exile to Siberia, imprisonment, a terrible illness . Especially since Wat himself complained: " I was everything I should be, just not at the right time. I was a politician when I should have been a poet, and I was a poet when I should have been a politician. I was a communist when decent people were anti-communists, I became an anti-communist when sensible people were turning to communism ."
| Ola and Aleksander Wat (1946), photo by Wojciech Karpiński
Aleksander Wat was born on International Labor Day, May 1, 1900, making him three years older than Ola. His real surname was Chwat. On his father's side, he came from a Jewish family that had made significant contributions to European Jewish culture; one of his ancestors, a medieval French rabbi nicknamed Rashi, wrote highly regarded commentaries on the Talmud, while another, Isaac Luria , was a Renaissance Kabbalist. Wat's relatives supplied weapons and fought in the January Uprising. On his mother's side, his great-great-grandfather was the Grand Rabbi of Kutno.
The poet's father, Mendel Michał Chwat , was highly educated, well-versed in both Kabbalah and contemporary European philosophy. His mother was Rozalia, née Kronsilber . Wat had seven siblings. As he himself recalled, they all read extensively from the family library. Three brothers were left-wing, two of whom perished in the Holocaust. His 13-year-old sister became a renowned Polish actress. Under the stage name Seweryna Broniszówna, she played many outstanding roles in the theater. Early in her career, she acted in Krakow, then Arnold Szyfman hired her for his Polish Theater in Warsaw . There, she played major dramatic roles: Jokasta, Judith, Rachel in "The Wedding," and Salome. She appeared in pre-war films and successfully taught acting. She died in Warsaw in 1982.
Aleksander Wat befriended his classmate, Anatol Stern . At the time, he was also a Buddhist and fascinated by mathematics. In 1918, he persuaded some of his middle school friends to flee with him to Lublin. They planned to join the Soviet revolution there. Fortunately, the Austrian police quickly returned the rebellious teenagers to their family home. In 1918, Aleksander began his studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw, where his mentor was none other than Professor Tadeusz Kotarbiński , whom he reportedly impressed with his excellent knowledge of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Kant.
| Alexander Wat
Wat volunteered for the army during the Polish-Soviet War but did not see combat. He was Poland's leading Futurist poet. His poems from this period, published in 1919 in the volumes " I on the One Side" and "I on the Other Side of My Pug-Iron Stove," were "freed" from punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors. As early as 1918, he and Anatol Stern founded an eccentric Futurist group, editing one-off magazines and organizing literary evenings that shocked the public. During this time, he wrote a dozen Futurist poems published in newspapers.
But in the mid-1920s, left-wing politics replaced avant-garde art in Aleksander Wat's life. Wat, like many Polish artists of the time, was fascinated by communism. He eagerly attended meetings of the Polish Communist Party and was one of the founders of its press organ, the "Literary Monthly." He began an artistic collaboration with Andrzej Stawar . They were contemporaries, both born in 1900. Stawar was a leading Polish pre-war Marxist. Under his influence, Wat became a communist. During this period, they jointly published the "Literary Monthly." They were joined by Władysław Broniewski and Bruno Jasiński . The magazine was a major influence in left-wing Polish circles. Wat himself recalled that it cost 1,50 złoty, a considerable sum for the interwar period. Ten or twenty people would usually gather to buy a single copy.
Although Wat never joined the Communist Party, he described himself years later as "a very fanatical sectarian." On the other hand, his good friend was Witkacy , a well-known opponent of communism. Wat often visited the Soviet embassy in Warsaw, recalling "a long report on the struggle in the countryside, with caviar and champagne on the table." Ola was a secretary at her husband's newspaper. Toward the end of the paper's existence, fearing censorship, its production process was highly complicated; "I wrote the issue in Warsaw, the editor-in-chief was in Lviv, and I printed it in Poznań," Wat's husband recounted.
| Portrait of Aleksander Wat by Czapski (1967)
On July 23, 1931, Ola gave birth to their only child, a son named Andrzej. While she was recovering from a difficult childbirth—she spent a month in hospital—the magazine was closed after two years of existence, and Wat himself was imprisoned for three months. During this time, Ola and the child were supported by her wealthy parents. They also paid bail so her son-in-law could be released. Wat then took a job as a literary director at the prestigious publishing house Gebethner and Wolff . When their son started his first school at the age of six, he became the victim of an anti-Semitic attack.
The outbreak of World War II prompted the Wat couple to quickly flee eastward, on the sixth day of the war. They were traveling in two different cars. Fortunately, Alexander found his wife and son in Lutsk. They settled in Lviv. Years later, the writer recalled: three months in Lviv, three months difficult to remember, three months of pretense, fear, and awkward lies. I knew, after all, that everyone associated with the "Literary Monthly" had perished, so there was no doubt in my mind that I, too, would perish . In October 1939, Wat began working at the infamous "Czerwony Sztandar ." There, he wrote court reports and proofread at night. Along with Broniewski , Boy-Żeleński , and Wasilewska, they joined the leadership of the Lviv Writers' Organizational Committee , which on November 19, 1939, issued a shameful statement by Polish writers approving the annexation of western Ukraine to Soviet Russia. Aleksander Dan became Wat's political guardian. But he wasn't too burdensome; "he was very friendly towards me, he was in love with Ola."
In January 1940, a "demonic arrest" took place, a provocation by the NKVD. The venue was an elegant club run by the owner of a pre-war Warsaw English clothing store. Poles gathered there, and the Petersburski and Gold orchestra played, "a sort of quid pro quo on a lower level. Vodka. They drank a lot of vodka." Set designer Władysław Daszewski, a longtime friend of Wat, invited him to the party. As a result, he and Broniewski, among others, were arrested. Ola was left alone with her child.
| Aleksander Wat's Manuscripts (Polona)
On the night of April 13th, she was arrested with her 9-year-old son and exiled to Kazakhstan. They traveled there for three weeks in a cattle car. Watowa was settled in Ivanivka , near the town of Żarmy . She performed heavy physical labor, including processing manure into fuel cubes and baking bricks. In 1941, after the "amnesty" for Poles, she settled on the Antonovka collective farm near Chimkent.
And then suddenly, as her husband recalled, she revealed the steely strength of her character. He recalled: "I was used to Ola being so orchid-like, incredibly delicate, neurotic. Besides, before the war, she had been going through very difficult metaphysical states—what was the point of living? She had tormented herself before the war. Kazakhstan cured her of this. In the moment of trial, she proved very strong and brave. In the worst conditions, she was able to protect Andrzej and herself ." In 1942, miraculously, she and her husband were reunited in Kazakhstan. He recalled: " She looked like a 60-year-old woman, completely worn out and dressed like a rag." I can't forget her skirt, like a sieve; you could see her shirt underneath . Their son was also in trouble; he looked like a child from the Warsaw ghetto. He already had the beginnings of tuberculosis, a death's head . Fortunately, they both quickly recovered."
They were only allowed to return to Poland four years later, reaching Warsaw in April 1946. There they learned that Ola's entire family had been murdered in Treblinka in 1942.
| Ola and Aleksander Wat in Zakopane (1947), photo by Wojciech Karpiński
Wat became editor-in-chief of the State Publishing Institute from 1946 to 1948. He wrote for the magazines "Odrodzenie , " "Kuźnica," and "Twórczość ." But after his Soviet experiences, he was not humble, and as a result, during the Stalinist period, he was fired from his job and banned from publishing. In 1953, he received a devastating medical diagnosis: a neurological disease called Wallenberg syndrome . Its primary symptoms were severe headaches. He undertook treatment in Sweden and the south of France. Despite physical suffering, he returned to writing poetry, publishing a new volume in 1957. Because he did so after a break of several decades, it was considered his second poetry debut. He won praise from both readers and Polish literary critics for his work, and received the "Nowa Kultura" award.
He published another volume of poetry while in forced exile. Six years after his diagnosis, in 1959, the Wats left Poland on a Ford Foundation scholarship . They lived in Italy, France, and the USA. In 1963, they finally lost their Polish passports. Wat published in the Paris-based "Kultura" and performed on the renowned Polish Section of Radio Free Europe . The Wats' stay in Berkeley, USA, from 1963 to 1965 was also significant, when Wat became a fellow at the Center for Slavic and East European Studies . His health temporarily improved, but he struggled to write. As part of his therapy, he began recording conversations with the writer Czesław Miłosz. Ola Watowa, who initiated the project, also participated. Reportedly, during the car ride, "Miłosz was driving, she was sitting in the back. She threw her arms around his neck, saying that if he didn't record, Wat would die." The result was the famous autobiographical book "Mój wiek" (My Age) , published in 1977. Wat later wrote his final volume of poems, "Ciemne blaskdło" (Dark Shine) , which he dedicated to his beloved wife. Based on his experiences with communism and Stalinism, he planned to write his life's work. Unfortunately, it never came to fruition.
On July 29, 1967, Wat, exhausted by his illness, deliberately overdosed on painkillers. Ola found his body with a farewell letter, a fact she described shockingly in her letter to Czesław Miłosz. Devastated by her husband's passing, and despite her poor financial situation, she compiled his literary output. In 1985, she published a volume of his poems, in the introduction of which she wrote: " Rewriting the entire legacy of Aleksander Wat, I realized from the very first moments that in these – mostly unfinished and often unfinished – texts […] his thought lives on. In them, he expresses his attitude to many phenomena and issues: literary, political, social, religious, philosophical, etc., so I should rescue this thought. That in essence, this legacy – which has been lying in the archive for eighteen years – belongs not only to me, but above all to Polish culture."
| Cover of Ola Watowa's book "Everything that matters most..."
In 1984, Ola Watowa published her well-received memoirs, "All That Matters," which were filmed after her death by director Robert Gliński . The film of the same title won the Golden Lion at the 17th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 1992. Ola Watowa died on February 9, 1991, in Paris.
The Wat family's only child, Andrzej Wat, became an art historian. He wrote about Jan Lebenstein and August Zamoyski . During his studies at the University of Warsaw, he was friends with the writer Jerzy Kosiński . Andrzej passed away on December 10, 2021, in Paris.
Agata Olenderek
| Ola Wat (1980)
For centuries, Polish Jewish women lived on the border between two worlds, yet were not fully-fledged citizens in either. Jewish traditions bound them by a series of sometimes rigorous regulations regulating all, even the most intimate, spheres of life, while simultaneously limiting access to education. The Polish community viewed them ambivalently, as evidenced by the story of King Casimir and Esterka – they were often orientalized and sexualized through the prism of their cultural distinctiveness. Yet, they served as liaisons between the Polish and Jewish worlds. They established contacts with Polish neighbors more often than men – primarily through trade or other economic activities – and demonstrated a better command of the Polish language, even during the Holocaust. They participated in various areas of social life – education, science, and the arts, contributing a significant component to Polish cultural heritage.
Twice forgotten and censored – as women and Jews, as a doubly alien element, as the ultimate Other in the imaginarium of male-dominated Polish culture.
The Warsaw Ghetto Museum wants to help remember them – to bring back from oblivion figures and stories of significant Polish Jewish women and their cultural influences. We present a new series of columns devoted to Polish Jewish women – women of art, cinema, and literature; writers, translators, actresses, and all those who co-created Polish culture.
