OVERVIEW

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On July 24, 1978, the 39 ^th anniversary of the historic Polish-French-British cryptological conference that opened in Warsaw, Poland, on July 24, 1939, and a year and a half before Marian Rejewski's death, Richard A. Woytak tape-recorded a conversation with the former Polish cryptologist at his home in Warsaw. Below are some highlights of this, possibly the only such extensive interview to have been recorded with the foremost-and last surviving of the Polish cryptologists who broke Enigma.

WOYTAK: [H]ow [did your involvement with Enigma] begin, back in Poznan?

REJEWSKI: Well, it was like this: At the time [in early 1929] I had, actually, stopped being a student [of mathematics at Poznan University]. I was writing my master's dissertation and was no longer attending lectures. But the other, younger mathematics students were still attending lectures. Well, one day or one evening, I don't exactly remember which, one of the younger mathematics students came up to me and said that on such-and-such a day at such-and-such an hour, Professor [Zdzis?aw] Krygowski [director of Poznan University's Mathematics Institute] wanted me to come to the Institute. This student had some sort of list, and he would go and tell each of the persons on the list about this. Not everybody was invited, only a certain number [of] selected students. What the criteria...