Editing Czesław Miłosz (section)

===World War II===
Miłosz was in Warsaw when [[Siege of Warsaw (1939)|it was bombarded]] as part of the [[Invasion of Poland|German invasion of Poland]] in September 1939. Along with colleagues from Polish Radio, he escaped the city, making his way to [[Lviv|Lwów]]. But when he learned that Janina had remained in Warsaw with her parents, he looked for a way back. The [[Soviet invasion of Poland]] thwarted his plans, and, to avoid the incoming [[Red Army]], he fled to [[Bucharest]]. There he obtained a Lithuanian identity document and Soviet visa that allowed him to travel by train to Kyiv and then Wilno. After the Red Army invaded Lithuania, he procured fake documents that he used to enter the part of German-occupied Poland the Germans had dubbed the "[[General Government]]". It was a difficult journey, mostly on foot, that ended in summer 1940. Finally back in Warsaw, he reunited with Janina.<ref>{{Cite book|oclc=982122195|title=Milosz: A Biography|last=Franaszek, Andrzej|pages=180–190}}</ref>

Like many Poles at the time, to evade notice by German authorities, Miłosz participated in underground activities. For example, with higher education officially forbidden to Poles, he attended [[Education in Poland during World War II|underground lectures]] by [[Władysław Tatarkiewicz]], the Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Memoirs|last=Tatarkiewicz|first=Wladyslaw|publisher=Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy|year=1979|isbn=978-83-06-00102-0|location=Warsaw|pages=171}}</ref> He translated [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare's]] ''[[As You Like It]]'' and [[T. S. Eliot]]'s ''[[The Waste Land]]'' into Polish. Along with his friend the novelist [[Jerzy Andrzejewski]], he also arranged for the publication of his third volume of poetry, ''{{ill|Poems (Miłosz)|lt=Poems|pl|Wiersze (Czesław Miłosz)}}'', under a pseudonym in September 1940. The pseudonym was "Jan Syruć" and the title page said the volume had been published by a fictional press in Lwów in 1939; in fact, it may have been the first [[Polish underground press|clandestine book]] published in occupied Warsaw.<ref>{{Cite book|oclc=982122195|title=Milosz: A Biography|last=Franaszek, Andrzej|pages=202}}</ref> In 1942, Miłosz arranged for the publication of an anthology of Polish poets, ''Invincible Song: Polish Poetry of War Time'', by an underground press.<ref>{{Cite book|oclc=982122195|title=Milosz: A Biography|last=Franaszek, Andrzej|pages=203}}</ref>[[File:Andrzej Milosz and Czeslaw Milosz.jpg|thumb|190px|Czesław Miłosz ''(right)'' with brother Andrzej Miłosz at [[PEN Club]] World Congress, [[Warsaw]], May 1999]]

Miłosz's riskiest underground wartime activity was aiding Jews in Warsaw, which he did through an underground socialist organization called Freedom. His brother, Andrzej, was also [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|active in helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland]]; in 1943, Andrzej transported the Polish Jew Seweryn Tross and his wife from Vilnius to Warsaw. Miłosz took in the Trosses, found them a hiding place, and supported them financially. The Trosses ultimately died during the [[Warsaw Uprising]]. Miłosz helped at least three other Jews in similar ways: Felicja Wołkomińska and her brother and sister.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|url=http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4044933|title=Yad Vashem Institute Database of Righteous Among the Nations: Milosz Family|website=yadvashem.org|access-date=2019-04-10}}</ref>

Despite his willingness to engage in underground activity and vehement opposition to the Nazis, Miłosz did not join the Polish [[Home Army]]. In later years, he explained that this was partly out of an instinct for self-preservation and partly because he saw its leadership as right-wing and dictatorial.<ref name="dublin">{{cite web|url=http://www.drb.ie/essays/apples-at-world-s-end|title=Apples at World's End|author=Enda O'Doherty|publisher=[[Dublin Review of Books]]|access-date=5 June 2014|archive-date=7 June 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140607000131/http://www.drb.ie/essays/apples-at-world-s-end|url-status=dead}}</ref> He also did not participate in the planning or execution of the Warsaw Uprising. According to Polish literary historian [[Irena Grudzińska-Gross]], he saw the uprising as a "doomed military effort" and lacked the "patriotic elation" for it. He called the uprising "a blameworthy, lightheaded enterprise",<ref name="dublin" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://aseees.org/newsnet/2012-08.pdf|title=The Year of Czesław Miłosz|date=August 2012|publisher=[[Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies]]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130918140736/http://aseees.org/newsnet/2012-08.pdf|archive-date=18 September 2013}}</ref> but later criticized the [[Red Army]] for failing to support it when it had the opportunity to do so.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Captive Mind|last=Milosz|first=Czeslaw|publisher=Vintage International|year=1990|location=New York|pages=169}}</ref>
[[File:German Brennkommando-firing Warsaw 1944.jpg|left|thumb|200px|German troops setting fire to [[Warsaw]] buildings, 1944]]
As German troops began torching Warsaw buildings in August 1944, Miłosz was captured and held in a prisoner transit camp; he was later rescued by a Catholic nun—a stranger to him—who pleaded with the Germans on his behalf.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69162/the-doubter-and-the-saint|title=The Doubter and the Saint|last=Haven|first=Cynthia|date=2008-11-20|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en|access-date=2019-10-29}}</ref> Once freed, he and Janina escaped the city, ultimately settling in a village outside Kraków, where they were staying when the Red Army swept through Poland in January 1945, after [[Destruction of Warsaw|Warsaw had been largely destroyed]].<ref>{{Cite book|oclc=982122195|title=Milosz: A Biography|last=Franaszek, Andrzej|pages=223}}</ref>

In the preface to his 1953 book ''[[The Captive Mind]]'', Miłosz wrote, "I do not regret those years in Warsaw, which was, I believe, the most agonizing spot in the whole of terrorized Europe. Had I then chosen emigration, my life would certainly have followed a very different course. But my knowledge of the crimes which Europe has witnessed in the twentieth century would be less direct, less concrete than it is".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Captive Mind|last=Milosz|first=Czeslaw|publisher=Vintage International|year=1990|location=New York|pages=vi–viii}}</ref> Immediately after the war, Miłosz published his fourth poetry collection, ''[[Rescue (Miłosz)|Rescue]]''; it focused on his wartime experiences and contains some of his most critically praised work, including the 20-poem cycle "The World," composed like a primer for naïve schoolchildren, and the cycle "Voices of Poor People". The volume also contains some of his most frequently anthologized poems, including "A Song on the End of the World", "{{ill|Campo dei Fiori (poem)|lt=Campo dei Fiori|it|Campo dei Fiori (poema)}}", and "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto".