Jerzy Witold Różycki (ˈjɛʒɨ ruˈʒɨt͡ski; Olshana, near
KievKiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, July 24, 1909 — January 9, 1942,
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, near the
Balearic IslandsThe Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
) was a Polish
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and cryptologist who worked at breaking German
Enigma-machineAn Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
cipherIn cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
s.
Life
Różycki was born in what is now
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, the fourth and youngest child of Zygmunt Różycki, a pharmacist and graduate of Saint Petersburg University, and Wanda, née Benita. He attended a Polish school in Kiev before moving with his family to Poland in 1918. In 1926 he completed secondary school at
WyszkówWyszków is a town in northeastern Poland with 26,500 inhabitants . It is the capital of Wyszków County . Wyszków is situated in the Masovian Voivodeship ; previously it was in Warsaw Voivodeship and Ostrołęka Voivodeship .-Description:The village of Wyszków was first documented in 1203. The town...
on eastern Poland's
Bug RiverThe Bug River is a left tributary of the Narew river flows from central Ukraine to the west, passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it empties into the Narew river near Serock. The part between the lake and the Vistula River is sometimes referred to as...
.
Różycki studied mathematics 1927–1932 in western Poland, at Poznań University's Mathematics Institute, graduating with a master's degree February 19, 1932. He would later earn a second master's degree from Poznań University, in
geographyGeography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, on December 13, 1937.
In 1929, while still a student, Różycki, proficient in
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, was one of twenty-odd Poznań University mathematics students who accepted an invitation to attend a secret cryptology course organized at a nearby military installation by the Polish
General StaffA military staff, often referred to as General Staff, Army Staff, Navy Staff or Air Staff within the individual services, is a group of officers and enlisted personnel that provides a bi-directional flow of information between a commanding officer and subordinate military units...
's
Cipher BureauThe Biuro Szyfrów was the interwar Polish General Staff's agency charged with both cryptography and cryptology ....
, headquartered in
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
.
From September 1932 Różycki served as a civilian cryptologist with the
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
General StaffA military staff, often referred to as General Staff, Army Staff, Navy Staff or Air Staff within the individual services, is a group of officers and enlisted personnel that provides a bi-directional flow of information between a commanding officer and subordinate military units...
's
Cipher BureauThe Biuro Szyfrów was the interwar Polish General Staff's agency charged with both cryptography and cryptology ....
, housed till 1937 in
WarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
's Saxon Palace. He worked there together with fellow Poznań University mathematics alumni and Cipher Bureau cryptology-course graduates
Marian RejewskiMarian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in 1932 solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma machine, the main cipher device used by Germany...
and
Henryk ZygalskiHenryk Zygalski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who worked at breaking German Enigma ciphers before and during World War II.-Life:...
.
After Rejewski had reconstructed the German military
Enigma machineAn Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
in December 1932, Różycki and Zygalski likewise worked at ongoing development of methods and equipment to exploit Enigma decryption as a source of intelligence. Różycki invented the "clock" method, which sometimes made it possible to determine which of the machine's
rotorIn cryptography, a rotor machine is an electro-mechanical device used for encrypting and decrypting secret messages. Rotor machines were the cryptographic state-of-the-art for a prominent period of history; they were in widespread use in the 1920s–1970s...
s was at the far right, that is, in the position where the rotor always revolved at every depression of a key.
Różycki perished in the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
on January 9, 1942, while returning to the
CadixCadix was the codename of a World War II clandestine Polish-French intelligence center that operated at Uzès, on the Mediterranean coast in southern, Vichy France, for over two years from September 1940 to November 9, 1942.-History:...
center, near
UzèsUzès is a commune in the Gard department in southern France.It lies about 25 km north-northeast of Nîmes.-History:Originally Ucetia, Uzès was a small Gallo-Roman oppidum, or administrative settlement. The town lies at the source of the Eure, from where a Roman aqueduct was built in the first...
in southern,
Vichy FranceVichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
, from a stint at its branch office at the Château Couba on the outskirst of
Algiers' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
. His passenger ship, the
Lamoricière, sank in unclear circumstances near the
Balearic IslandsThe Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
. Fellow victims of the disaster, among the 222 passengers killed, included
Piotr SmoleńskiPiotr Smoleński was a cryptologist in the Russian section of the interbellum Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau.He perished in the sinking of the passenger ship Lamoricière in the Mediterranean Sea....
and Capt.
Jan GralińskiJan Józef Graliński was chief of the Polish General Staff's interbellum Cipher Bureau's Russian section, B.S.-3....
, of the prewar
Cipher BureauThe Biuro Szyfrów was the interwar Polish General Staff's agency charged with both cryptography and cryptology ....
's Russian section, and a French officer accompanying the three Poles, Capt. François Lane.
Family
In 1938, aged 29, Różycki had married Maria Barbara Mayka. Their son,
Janusz Różycki, born May 10, 1939, would complete his studies at Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts and go on to be a member of the Polish fencing team that won a silver medal at the
1964 Tokyo OlympicsThe 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded with the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's...
.
More information about Jerzy Różycki may be found in the article on
Marian RejewskiMarian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in 1932 solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma machine, the main cipher device used by Germany...
.