[1] Born in the German hamlet of Ihmert [de],[2] now part of Hemer, Skrzynecki came to Australia in 1949 with his parents, Feliks and Kornelia, as a refugee from "the sorrow / Of northern wars" ("Crossing the Red Sea").
This voyage – a four-week-long sea expedition on the USS General R. M. Blatchford, a converted United States Navy transport ship, was the basis for many of the poems in his 1975 collection, Immigrant Chronicle.
He has received several awards for his contributions to Australian and multicultural literature, including the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 1972 for Headwaters, the Captain Cook Bicentenary Poetry Prize, the Henry Lawson Short Story Award, an Order of Cultural Merit from the Polish government in 1989 and in 2002, the Medal of the Order of Australia.
[4] Skrzynecki visits schools and gives lectures on the current topic area of Immigrant Chronicle.
The family, Peter Skrzynecki and his two parents, were in transit for over two years from 1949–51 (either physically travelling, or in a migrant hostel) before they were allowed to begin their new life in Australia.