Jan Błoński

Jan Błoński
Front cover of Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto (the Misfortunate Poles look at the Ghetto) by Jan Błoński,
Born	(1931-01-15)15 January 1931 Warsaw, Poland
Died	10 February 2009(2009-02-10) (aged 78) Kraków
Occupation	Writer, academic
Nationality	Polish
Citizenship	Polish

Jan Błoński (January 15, 1931 – February 10, 2009) was a Polish historian, literary critic, publicist and translator. He was a leading representative of the Kraków school of literary criticism, regarded as one of the most influential critics of postwar Poland.

Professor of the Jagiellonian University, Błoński was habilitated there for the work entitled Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński and the beginnings of the Polish Baroque. He was the literary editor for the publication of Witold Gombrowicz's collected works in 1986–88 through Wydawnictwo Literackie. He was also the Fellow of Collegium Invisibile. In 1996–2001 he served as juror for the Nike Literary Award. In November 1995 he was awarded the Kraków Book of the Month Award for the collected works of Sławomir Mrożek, his long-time friend from the Stalinist period.

Jan Błoński was born in Warsaw in 1931. During the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany, he witnessed the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 when some 300,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka and exterminated in a single classified operation. Błoński later wrote that a Jewish boy who escaped, run into him on the street but he didn't help, which many years later brought about a deep feeling of guilt, and inspired his best-known piece of writing published by Tygodnik Powszechny in 1987 under the Polish title "Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto" (the Poor Poles look at the Ghetto) invariably undermining the historical significance of the rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust.