Dariusz Stankowski was born, as Dawid Szternbach, in 1919 in Chyrów in, what is today, Ukraine. He lived in nearby Smolnica village. His father was a timber trader, while his mother ran a model Jewish home. He had four siblings. Of his entire family, only his eldest brother and sister survived Shoah. His brother had hidden in Sanok and his sister had emigrated to Palestine in 1935.

Following the outbreak of war, Dariusz Stankowski was called up into the Russian Army and, for two years, fought in the Crimea. In 1942, he was accused of attempted anti-Soviet sabotage and of expressing views inappropriate for a Russian soldier. He was sentenced to death, which was then commuted to ten years in a Siberian gulag labour camp, without the possibility of return.

After transport in very harsh conditions, during which half of the prisoners died, he found himself in a place called Iwdelłag (a labour camp in Iwdel in the Caucasus). For ten years, except for Sundays and Soviet holidays, he worked in frosty conditions cutting timber in a boreal forest. In order to receive 700 grams of bread each evening, he was required to cut and process sixteen pine trees.

When he was released after ten years, he was employed by a Leningrad-based iron-ore mining concern. From being a technician, he was promoted to the prestigious position of pilot. His life began to go well – he married, built a large, comfortable home and had two sons.

He made contact with his brother who had survived and, at his instigation, in 1959, he returned to Poland and settled in Szczecin.

As a result of the Match 1968 antisemitic campaign, his sons left for Israel. His wife had died less than a year earlier.

In 1971, Dariusz Stankowski married again. He did not maintain any Jewish traditions and did not speak of his Jewish origins. Despite that, his son from his second marriage, as an adult, converted to Judaism and gives his children a Jewish education.