Stefan Themerson - Second World War and After

Second World War and After

In 1940 Themerson was volunteered for a Polish infantry regiment, just in time for the débacle of the German invasion and the Allies' collapse. His memory was of marching day and night in summer heat to St-Nazaire. There, in June, the regiment was disbanded, the officers abandoning their men and the men dispersing where they could. Themerson himself travelled round France, visiting occupied Paris, Toulouse, where- through the Polish Red Cross- he got in touch again with Franciszka, who worked for the Polish Government in Exile as a cartographer in Paris and Normandy and then escaped to London on a troopship from Bayonne. He spent time in refugee camps, worked as a farm labourer, and spent over a year in the Polish Red Cross-run Hôtel de la Poste in Voiron. Here he began writing Professor Mmaa's Lecture in Polish and wrote the long poem Croquis dans les Ténèbres . Towards the end of 1942 Themerson got across France and Spain via Marseilles to Lisbon where he was flown to Britain by the R.A.F., rejoining his wife and re-enlisting in the Polish army. He spent time with the army in Scotland, where he finished Professor Mmaa, and then was sent to join the film unit of the Polish Ministry of Information and Documentation in London. There he and Franciszka made two short films, Calling Mr Smith, an account of Nazi atrocities in Poland and The Eye and the Ear, inspired by four songs by Szymanowski. In 1944 at the PEN club meeting to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of John Milton's Areopagitica, Themerson met Kurt Schwitters, who was a close friend until his death. At about the same time he met others who remained close, including Jankel Adler, Julian Trevelyan and Anthony Froshaug. Also in 1944 the Themersons moved to Maida Vale, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Stefan and Franciszka Themerson published books through their own Gaberbocchus Press from 1948 to 1979, many of them with Franciszka's illustrations, and sometimes working with the translators Barbara Wright and Stanley Chapman. Among those books were works by Guillaume Apollinaire and Kurt Schwitters, the first English translation of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style and The Good Citizen's Alphabet by Bertrand Russell. The latter wrote a warm preface to Professor Mmaa’s Lecture. In 1981 Stefan Themerson delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, The Netherlands, under the title: The Chair of Decency.