He was one of the most outspoken critics of the Sanacja regime and was tried and sentenced to three years in prison during Brest trials in 1931 for plotting anti-government coup. After the German invasion into Poland in 1939, Ciołkosz, his wife Lidia Kahan was of Jewish descent (also a prominent socialist from UJ), and son Andrzej Ciołkosz fled first to Romania, and later France and England. His son died at the age of 23 in 1952, having translated Herling a year earlier.