The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather

The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather

In Nazi-occupied Poland, Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to infiltrate a mysterious new camp called Auschwitz along the Reich's border. His goal was to report Nazi crimes and raise an army to revolt. For the next two and a half years, Witold smuggled evidence of the Nazis' atrocities to the Allies, eventually shaping their response to the Holocaust. Yet after his show trial and execution in 1948, Witold's name was forgotten for decades--until the 1990s, after Poland's return to democracy.  

528 pages.

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman

Warsaw had one of the best-know zoos in Europe during the 1930's. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and  the ensuing bombing from the allies destroyed much of the city. Over the next few years, under German occupation, Warsaw Jews were confined to the Ghetto, the zoo animals were killed or taken by the Nazis for their own German zoos, and the zookeeper became a major player in the resistance.

During those years, the zookeeper, Jan Zabinaki,  and his wife used the grounds of the former zoo to hide weapons and ammunition, produce false papers for Jews, and even conceal Jews on the grounds, some in the animal cages. Using the diaries of Antonina Zabinski and other contemporary sources, Ackerman relates the story of over 300 Jews who were saved by this brave couple.

384 pages

Push Not the River by James Conroyd Martin

(Posted for Ann Roberts)

This book is further proof that I will read anything. I make this confession far too often. I recently purchased this book for 50 cents at the office booksale and therefore felt compelled to read it, having paid good money for it!  Push Not the River is based on the eighteenth century diary of Anna Maria Berezowska, a Polish countess who lived through the rise and fall of the historic Third of May Constitution (1791), which attempted to take away some of the disproportionate rights and privileges awarded to nobility in Poland. The adoption of the May 3rd Constitution precipitated the hostility of neighboring Russia, and it is the events leading up to the invasion and consequent fighting with Russia against which this story is set.  The events in the story itself are interesting enough, but the way in which the writer portrayed the events, make it little more than a bodice ripper. Bodices are ripped, with and without consent, and because the characters are so flat it is difficult to empathize with their plight.  Right down to the flashing green eyes (minus the “fiddle dee dee” attitude), the heroine is an 18^th century, Eastern European, Scarlett O’Hara. She survives many hardships and barely escapes with her life in a crazy “fleeing from the Russians over a burning collapsing bridge” ending, but who cares? And I read the entire book.

Paperback, 416 pages