They then moved back to Lwow, where, under Soviet occupation, Witold began his studies as sculptor at the Institute of Fine Arts under Marian Wnuk.

In order to escape from the Gestapo at 18 years old, he took on the name Eugene (Eugeniusz) Gutowski and left Warsaw for Riga, Latvia, where he became the head of a construction company working for the Organization Todt.

In a fruitful creative partnership they made Repulsion (1965), Cul-de-sac (1966) and The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), until Polanski moved to Hollywood under contract to Paramount in 1967.

Remaining close friends over the years, Gutowski and Polanski joined forces again to produce together The Pianist (2002), which won multiple Oscars.

In 2014, his son, the Hollywood-based filmmaker/producer Adam Bardach, made a documentary biopic "Dancing Before the Enemy: How a Teenage Boy Fooled the Nazis and Lived (Mój tata Gene Gutowski)".