promises punishment under law. Some prisoners begin to debate where to kill the American officer, but the crowd begins to applaud the officer's promise of justice. When the American officer leaves the camp the prisoners return to the SS officer from the opening scene and trample him to death. The Polish government considered the poem "amoral" but Borowski found work as a journalist. He joined the Soviet-controlled Polish Workers' Party in 1948 and wrote political tracts as well. At first he believed that Communism was the only political force truly capable of preventing any future Auschwitz from happening. In 1950 he received the National Literary Prize, Second Degree. In the summer of 1949 he was sent to work in the Press Section of the Polish Military Mission in Berlin. He returned to Warsaw a year later and entered into an extramarital affair with a young girl. Soon after a close friend of his (the same friend who had earlier been imprisoned by the Gestapo, and in whose apartment both Borowski and his fiancée had been arrested) was imprisoned and tortured by the Communists. Borowski tried to intervene on his behalf and failed; he became completely disillusioned with the socialist regime. Death On July 3, 1951, at the age of 28, Borowski died by suicide by breathing in gas from a gas stove. His wife had given birth to their daughter, Małgorzata, a few days prior to his death. "On 6 July 1951, the openly anti-militarist Borowski was buried, of all places, in the military section of Powązki National Cemetery in Warsaw to the strains of 'The Internationale', and was posthumously awarded the highest honours. An obituary notice in Nowa Kultura was signed by 86 writers. Soon after, a special issue of this weekly newspaper appeared with contributions from the elite of Polish literature. Since then, countless texts, poems and articles by and about Borowski have been published, as well as many books in various languages and editions," writes Holocaust survivor Arnold Lustiger in Die Welt. The book "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" is now also published as part of 'Penguin Classics', further cementing Borowski's place amongst literary greats. Legacy His books are recognized as classics of Polish post-war literature and had much influence in Central European society. Tadeusz Borowski is the subject of the 'Beta' section in Czesław Miłosz's book, The Captive Mind. His friend Tadeusz Drewnowski