Józef Czapski (Prague, 1896-Maisons-Laffitte, 1993), born into a family of Polish aristocracy, spent his childhood in Belarus and studied Law and Fine Arts. He was one of the few officers of the Polish army who escaped the massacre of Katyn in 1940, but was immediately taken prisoner. His book Memoirs of Starobielsk is a moving testimony of his stay in the prison camps of the USSR. As a painter, he was the lead animator kapista movement, made ​​up of students who reacted against classical Polish painting and exhibited in Paris between 1924 and 1933 After World War II, lived in Maisons-Laffitte, where he collaborated with Kultura literary magazine of the Polish diaspora in exile.