Różycki was born in 1909 in what is now Ukraine, 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 Kyiv before moving with his family to Poland in 1918. In 1926 he completed secondary school at Wyszków on eastern Poland's Bug River.

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Różycki studied mathematics from 1927 to 1932 in western Poland, at Poznań University's Mathematics Institute, graduating with a master's degree on February 19, 1932. He would later earn a second master's degree from Poznań University, in geography, on December 13, 1937.

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In 1929, while still a student, Różycki, proficient in German, 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 Staff's Cipher Bureau, headquartered in Warsaw.

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In 1938, aged 29, Różycki married Maria Barbara Mayka. Their son, Janusz Różycki, born May 10, 1939, completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and went on to be a member of the Polish fencing team that won a silver medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

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From September 1932 Różycki served as a civilian cryptologist with the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau, housed till 1937 in Warsaw's Saxon Palace. He worked there together with fellow Poznań University mathematics alumni and Cipher Bureau cryptology-course graduates Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski.

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After Rejewski had reconstructed the German military Enigma machine 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 rotors was at the far right, that is, in the position where the rotor always revolved at every depression of a key.

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Różycki contributed original analytical thinking that helped determine rotor settings and dramatically reduced the time required to break daily keys. Long before most of the world grasped the scale of the coming catastrophe, Polish mathematicians were already reading German military communications. In the summer of nineteen thirty-nine, as war approached, they passed this knowledge to French and British intelligence. That transfer made later Allied codebreaking efforts possible.

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The consequences were immense. Reading Enigma meant foresight. Convoys were rerouted away from German submarines. Air attacks were anticipated. Operations were planned with knowledge instead of guesswork. Campaigns ended sooner because commanders no longer fought in darkness. Historians widely acknowledge that the early Polish breakthrough laid the foundation for the entire Allied codebreaking effort that followed. Without the work begun in Poland, the cryptologic war against Germany would have started far later. Many scholars estimate that this achievement shortened the war in Europe by at least two years, saving countless lives across the continent.

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Then came the personal tragedy. In January 1942, Różycki was traveling aboard the French liner SS Lamoricière when it sank near the Balearic Islands. He was 33 years old. There were no battlefield and no final report, only disappearance. One of the most gifted minds of the war was simply gone.

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It is impossible not to wonder what more he might have done. German cryptographic systems continued to evolve. New ciphers appeared. The struggle between concealment and revelation intensified. Różycki was precisely the kind of thinker who could adapt as quickly as the problem changed. Had he lived, he might have accelerated later breakthroughs and saved still more lives. The war ended without him, but it almost certainly would have lasted longer had he never lived at all.

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On 21 February 2000, Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski posthumously awarded Różycki the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for outstanding contributions to his homeland.

 

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Source: Several posts online

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