Warsaw is My Country The Story of Krystyna Bierzynska, 1928-1945 [Hardcover]

This book tells the story of Krystyna BierzyDska, an acculturated Polish Jew, from her birth in Warsaw in 1928 up to the wars end in May 1945, when she was reunited with her brother, Dolek, an officer in the Polish II Corps. BierzyDska 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. BierzyDskas 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.A beautiful and unusual book, Beth Holmgrens account of Krystyna BierzyDskas youth in cosmopolitan Warsaw before WWII and her experience during the war, including her efforts as a sixteen-year-old participant in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, sparkles with empathy, historical sophistication, and humanity. Based on extensive interviews with the protagonist herself and richly interspersed with relevant material from other published sources, Holmgrens narrative demonstrates the complex place of the daughter of affluent acculturated Jews, whose belief that she could be a proud Varsovian, patriotic Pole, and citizen of the world faced extreme challenges during the war, but ultimately proved true.
Krystyna BierzyDskas journey through the horrors of war and Holocaust may not be in itself unusual, but in the hands of a skilled storyteller and scholar it becomes a remarkable exploration of Polil&