Warsaw is My Country
The Story of Krystyna Bierzynska, 1928-1945
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Academic Studies Press
Published:28th Feb '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book tells the story of Krystyna Bierzyńska, an acculturated Polish Jew, from her birth in Warsaw in 1928 up to the war’s end in May 1945, when she was reunited with her brother, Dolek, an officer in the Polish II Corps. Bierzyńska not only survived the Holocaust due in large part to the extraordinary efforts of her parents, blood relatives, and surrogate Christian family, but also served as a 16-year-old orderly in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Hers is a Warsaw story, a biography that demonstrates how, in urban interwar Poland, the lives of liberal educated Catholics and acculturated, unconverted Jews significantly overlapped. Co-creating the culture and developing the economy and industries of independent Poland, acculturated Jews at last dared to believe that they qualified as Polish citizens and patriots. Bierzyńska’s story details her experience of two very different Warsaws: a cosmopolitan oasis of high culture, modern amenities, and tolerance, and an occupied capital intoxicated and united by conspiracy, where the residents joined together to overthrow a common enemy.
“Krystyna Bierzynska is a Holocaust survivor par excellence. Born in Warsaw in 1928, the daughter of assimilated Polish Jews who perished during the six-year German occupation of Poland, she managed to leave the Polish capital as Jews were being herded into the doomed Nazi ghetto. In 1944, as a member of the underground Home Army, she participated in the failed Warsaw rebellion against the Germans. Five years ago, on the 70th anniversary of that revolt, she agreed to be interviewed by Beth Holmgren, a professor of Slavic Studies at Duke University. Holmgren’s book, Warsaw Is My Country: The Story of Krystyna Bierzynska, 1928-1945 (Academic Studies Press), is wide-ranging in scope and sometimes deeply emotional.” —Sheldon Kirshner, The Times of Israel
“[A] shining example of what can result when difficult and deeply troubling personal histories are placed into the hands of skillful and careful storytellers. … A captivating and moving coming of age story, Warsaw Is My Country traces the intersections of Polish and Jewish histories of the Second World War through the eyes of a young, real life heroine.” —Michal Wilczewski, H-Poland
ISBN: 9781618117588
Dimensions: 238mm x 159mm x 9mm
Weight: 367g
132 pages