 His uncle was professor Jan Piekałkiewicz, a leader of the Polish resistance, who was murdered by the Gestapo in 1943.At age seventeen, Janusz joined the Armia Krajowa (the Home Army), later participated in the Warsaw Uprising, and spent the remainder of the war in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.After graduating from high school in 1946, he began studies at the National Film School in Łódź, in the Film Production Department.