[1] He was a 1939 silver medalist in the Amateur Championships of Europe, a multiple champion of Poland and a participant in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

In the first round he beat French boxer Pierre Bonnet, but lost in the second to South African fighter Alec Hannan.

Two years later, during the 1939 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Dublin, he won silver, after beating Karl Käbi from Estonia and Lambert Genot from Belgium.

Shot in the leg by a German patrol (he continued to limp for the rest of his life), Czortek was recognized and sent to Auschwitz.

Upon returning to Poland, Czortek settled back in Warsaw, but in 1947, after losing a fight to an unknown boxer from Częstochowa, he left the capital and moved to Radom.

In summer of 1978 Czortek had a cameo part in Polish boxing feature movie Clinch directed by Piotr Andrejew (film released in 1979).