When he graduated from the school in Wollstein in 1900, teachers and the local parish priest advised his parents to send him to a stonemason's workshop for education.

[6] After graduation in 1909, he received a request from the Poznań Cathedral to design a commemorative plaque in memory of Bishop Florian Stablewski.

As an ardent Polish patriot, he refused to enlist in the Prussian Army following the outbreak of World War I and feigned illness to avoid conscription.

On 1 November 1919, the School of Decorative Arts, Poznań was establishsed and Rożek became the head of the department of sculpture, but left after one year to devote his time to his own artistic endeavors.

After leaving the School of Decorative Arts, he began to sculpt prolifically; creating a series of tondos for various churches, and two large works, Ewa and Ligia i Ursus.

In 1925, he began work in the halls of the Cegielski factory in Poznań on the design of the 4.75 meter tall Monument to Bolesław the Brave in Gniezno at the initiation of Bishop Antoni Laubitz.

[11] On 12 September 1925, President of the Republic of Poland Stanisław Wojciechowski unveiled a plaster replica of the monument, which was officially the act of laying the cornerstone and commemorating the 900th anniversary of the coronation of Bolesław I the Brave.

[10] On 7 September 1929, the Monument to the Insurgents of the Greater Poland Uprising was unveiled in Szamotuły amidst great fanfare to a crowd of thousands.

Chief of State and Marshal of Poland Józef Piłsudski sent telegrams, which were read to the crowd by the President of the Szamotuły District of the Society of Insurgents and Soldiers, Edward Müller.

[13] Numerous commissions permitted Rożek to build a comfortable villa by his own design in 1934 with two spacious studios for himself on Stycznia Street in his hometown of Wolsztyn.

One of the last surviving works created by Rożek before the German invasion of Poland in 1939 is the portrait head of Karol Kurpiński in 1938, which still adorns the foyer of the Grand Theatre, Poznań.

[10] In 1939, following the German invasion and defeat of Poland, Rożek was soon targeted by Nazi authorities, both because he belonged to the Polish creative intelligentsia, and for his close association with writer, journalist and nationalist politician Józef Kisielewski.

In late 1939, he traveled in secret to Wolsztyn, where one of his students informed him that the Germans had ransacked his home while searching for him, smashing many of his sculptures and throwing some into the lake just beyond his garden.

[14] On 23 July 1943, Rożek was sent by transport to Auschwitz concentration camp from Fort VII after allegedly refusing to paint a portrait of Adolf Hitler by demand of the prison warden.

[7][18] Sculptor Jerzy Sobociński reconstructed Rożek's Monument to Bolesław the Brave from a prototype and the sculpture was unveiled on 9 May 1985 on Jan Łaski Street in Gniezno, where it had stood before its demolition in 1939.

The small relief had previously only been known from photographs taken prior to World War II that were held by the Marcin Rożek Museum.