Tomasz Szarota, a Polish historian and public-affairs writer who pioneered research into how civilians lived in Warsaw under German occupation, died Aug. 11, 2026, at 86, the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences said in an obituary.
After studying history at the University of Warsaw, Szarota joined the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1962, where he documented everyday life in occupied Warsaw. His 1973 book, Okupowanej Warszawy dzień powszedni, traced daily life from the German occupation’s beginning in September 1939 through July 1944.
In 1983, he published the first scholarly biography of Gen. Stefan Rowecki “Grot,” commander of Poland’s wartime underground army. From 1988 to 2000, he compared Polish and German views of one another and examined daily life in occupied European capitals, as well as anti-Jewish prejudice and violence.
By 2023, he had published books with Bellona about wartime cases, including the death of Warsaw mayor Stefan Starzyński. In 2025, he published the interview book Duma i wstyd. O historii i potrzebie pamiętania, which examined occupation, resistance, Polish-German relations and the Holocaust while addressing the need to remember both courage and wrongdoing.
