[a] Szczepanski spent his childhood in several places, such as Łęczyca, Grudziądz, Jablonna and finally, some time in mid-1930s, he moved with the family to Warsaw.

Back in Warsaw, Józef Szczepański continued his education in underground courses; interrupted by the German and Soviet attack on Poland.

Szczepanski was the soldier of the 1st Platoon of the 1st Company Agat of the Battalion Parasol, he publicly recited his first poem "Dzis ide walczyc - mamo" ("Today, I am going fighting, mother"), on 31 December 1943 in a house at 12 Swietojanska street in Warsaw.

His poetry, particularly his poem Red plague, was also one of the things that inspired Polish Oscar-winning film director, Andrzej Wajda, to create the movie Kanał.

[1] The poem, which described the failed hopes of Warsaw insurgents that the Red Army would save them, was banned in the People's Republic of Poland due to its anti-Soviet context; during the Joseph Stalin era the very possession of it was punishable by imprisonment.