The Polish Experience through World War II A Better Day Has Not Come [Paperback]

Ziolkowska-Boehm brings the reader into the hearts and souls of four women who have survived bloody massacres, hardships, deportation, and concentration camps through their oral histories. . . .A heart- wrenching book that should be read by all.Ziolkowska-Boehms collection of deeply affecting personal and family narratives returns us to the level where individuals are caught up in historical events that changed their lives forever, and tells us how they experienced them. ... During the war years Polish women undertook many difficult tasks to preserve both their families and their nation. Their efforts and perspective are given exposure here in a way that impresses the reader hitherto unfamiliar with their achievements. Ms. Ziolkowska-Boehm is to be congratulated for making their voices heard.A remarkable and highly personal account of the human suffering the victims of both Hitlerism and Stalinism had to endure & beyond comprehension of most Americans.In World War II the Poles suffered oppression and murder from both Nazi Germanyand the USSR , which attacked their country and divided it between them in September 1939.The Wartanowicz and Michalak families were deported from former eastern Poland to Soviet labor camps near Archangel or farms in Kazakhstan. Freed after the German attack on the USSR, they left in 1942 with the Anders Army for Persia (Iran) and then scattered all over the world. Reserve Captain, PilotWitold Krasicki was shot by the Soviets in spring 1940, along with thousands of Polish POWs and other prisoners. His family survived the German occupation in Warsaw, including the two-month Polish Home Army uprising against the Germans in 1944. Wanda Ossowska worked for the Polish resistance, survived brutal Nazi torture, three Nazi death camps, and risked her life to save a Jewish girl.In the author's interviews with the survivors and theirrelatives, theytelltheir poignant stories withvivid, personal memories of wartime life and death, as well astheir livel£€