Zygmunt Haupt

Who was Zygmunt Haupt?

Zygmunt Haupt was a Polish writer and painter.

His father Ludwik was a school inspector, mother was a teacher. Initially he attended a school in Tarnopol. In 1925 he graduated from Kopernik gymnasium in Lwów and later studied engineering and architecture at the Lwów Politechnic. After the death of his father in 1928, he went to Paris, where he studied urban studies in 1931-1932 at Sorbonne. He started to write and paint there. After return to Lwów he became active in local cultural life.

In 1939 he was mobilized into army and fought in the Polish Defensive War in the 10th Brigade of Motorized Cavalry of colonel Stanisław Maczek. After the Soviet invasion of Poland Haupt fled to Hungary and later to France. He survived the siege of Dunkirk and was evacuated to England. He served in the Polish army until 1946.

At the end of the war, Haupt married American Edith Norris from New Orleans, whom he met in Great Britain. They married in London and later moved to New Orleans, New York and Washington, settling in Virginia, where he lived the rest of his life. For three decades he contributed stories, articles, and memoirs in Polish to several periodicals, including the Paris-based emigre journal Kultura.