Abstract

The article describes the youth and adolescence of Adam Schaff in the years 1913–1939. Taking into account the context of Polish-Jewish relations during the former Austrian Partition, the author presents Schaff’s growing up in the interwar Lviv and his gradual involvement in the communist movement, which led him to become a member of the youth wing of the Communist Party of Poland and the party itself, and his several-month imprisonment in 1937. In addition to the factual reconstruction of the Polish philosopher’s life, the article aims to answer the question: what were the main motives that made Adam Schaff a communist? This question can be considered in at least two ways – as an individual choice of Schaff himself, but also as a case study of the entire generation of Polish-Jewish communists described, for example, by Jaff Schatz.