Under totalitarian ideology he remained aloof from socialist realism and was never tempted to flirt with the regime

Under totalitarian ideology, he remained aloof from socialist realism and was never tempted to flirt with the regime, explaining that he lacked literary ambition, and that the moral cost of being published was too high.Consistently loyal to the tradition of his youth, he felt unable to identify with Roman Catholic orthodoxy, but found himself working for many years as film critic of the liberal Krak?atholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, the only oasis of tolerance and intellectual polyphony over several decades of Communist domination.As a novelist, he was largely precursory. Even before the Thaw he spearheaded the literature of “re-evaluating the past” with Portki Odysa (“Ulysses’ Breeches”, 1954) and in Pojedynek (“The Duel”, 1957) addressed the problem of truth under totalitarianism long before Alexander Solzhenitsyn did. His historical narratives tackle major moral and historiosophic issues. Well before terrorism came on the world agenda, his portrayal in Ikar (“Icarus”, 1966) and Wyspa (“The Island”, 1968) of a 19th- century Polish insurgent deported to New Caledonia for attempting to assassinate the tsar probes the extreme existential situation of an idealistic hero driven to the utmost limits of sanity and loneliness.In the 1960s Szczepanski also wrote several award-winning film-scripts, was literary director of the Groteska Theatre in Krak?and travelled over several continents, from Spitzbergen to Chile and the Persian Gulf, to California, Tanganyika, South Africa and India. The resulting travelogues betray his endless fascination with human and cultural otherness, and a committed interest in Third World national identity. His subsequent fiction inclined more towards retrospection, reportage and philosophical meditation.In 1975, firmly believing in the primacy of ethics over aesthetics, Szczepanski publicly condemned state censorship, signed the Memorial of the 59 Intellectuals protesting proposed changes to the Polish constitution, and committed himself to other dissident activities.

With Andrzej Kijowski he co-authored the screenplay for Krzysztof Zanussi’s film about Pope John Paul II, From a Far Country (Z dalekiego kraju, 1980).In 1980, Szczepanski was elected Chairman of the Union of Polish Writers in the most turbulent period of its history, through the Solidarity heyday and then under martial law, until it was brutally suppressed by the authorities in 1983 The story is told in Kadencja (“Term of Office”, 1988). Symptomatically, in 1990, he published Malenka encyklopedia totalizmu (“A Small Encyclopaedia of Totalitarianism”).A keen Alpine climber, Szczepanski also translated Guillaume Apollinaire, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Hindu and Negro fables, and Conrad’s Nostromo into Polish. His awards include the PEN Club Prize (1975), the Jurzykowski Prize for Literature (1978), the “Odra” Prize (1980) and the Herder Prize (1981). His somewhat Conradian decalogue is probably best summarised in the collection of essays entitled Przed nieznanym trybunalem (1975) – about the unknown tribunal which judges human life and deeds.Nina Taylor-Terlecka. ROLF SCHILD was a refugee from Nazi Germany who arrived in Britain penniless but built up a company which eventually became Huntleigh Technology, making state-of-the-art medical equipment that has won Queen’s Awards for Industry.

In 1979-80 he was better known for being, with his wife and daughter, the victim of a dreadful kidnapping. Rolf Schild, medical-equipment designer and manufacturer: born Cologne, Germany 18 May 1924; chairman, Huntleigh Technology 1975-2003; married 1959 Daphne Farley (two sons, one daughter); died Luton, Bedfordshire 14 April 2003.
Rolf Schild was a refugee from Nazi Germany who arrived in Britain penniless but built up a company which eventually became Huntleigh Technology, making state-of-the-art medical equipment that has won Queen’s Awards for Industry. There had been a spate of kidnappings, mostly of wealthy Italians who owned holiday villas on the island. A gang with more villainy than brains, who apparently took his name to be Rothschild, laid in wait when Schild, his wife Daphne and daughter Annabel returned from dining with neighbours. The family were blindfolded, and bundled into a car, and driven for four hours to a cave in the mountains.Sixteen days later a bus driver picked up the dishevelled Schild, who had been released with instructions to raise a preposterous £11m ransom – far more than the family had. The kidnappers kept changing their minds about how much they wanted, and some British newspapers speculated that the Schilds were far wealthier than they were, thus encouraging even greater demands from the kidnappers.