Intertwining the fate of a country with the life of one Polish family, this book tells the story of a Polish girl who attempted to outwit the Nazis and the Soviets. The events are true and based on extensive oral accounts of the participants and documents released only in Polish and never before available in English, including original Auschwitz letters and Nazi exhumation documents.

It's 1935. Rita Feuerstahl comes to the university in Krakow intent on enjoying her freedom. But life has other things in store--marriage, a love affair, a child, all in the shadows of the oncoming war. When the war arrives, Rita is armed with a secret so enormous that it could cost the Allies everything, even as it gives her the will to live. She must find a way both to keep her secret and to survive amid the chaos of Europe at war. Living by her wits among the Germans as their conquests turn to defeat, she seeks a way to prevent the inevitable doom of Nazism from making her one of its last victims. Can her passion and resolve outlast the most powerful evil that Europe has ever seen? In an epic saga that spans from Paris in the '30s and Spain's Civil War to Moscow, Warsaw, and the heart of Nazi Germany, The Girl from Krakow follows one woman's battle for survival as entire nations are torn apart, never to be the same.

During the Wolrd War II Soviet authorities deported over one million Poles, many of them children, to various provinces of the Soviet Union. In 1941 the Polish government in exile in London received permission to organize military units among the Polish deportees and later to transfer Polish civilians to camps in the British-controlled Middle East. There the children were able to attend Polish-run schools. The 120 essays translated here were selected from compositions written by the students of these schools.

Publisher description

On September 17, 1939, two weeks after the German invasion of Poland, Soviet troops occupied the eastern half of Poland and swiftly imposed a new political and economic order. Following a plebiscite, in early November the area was annexed to the Ukraine and Belorussia. Beginning in the winter of 1939&–40, Soviet authorities deported over one million Poles, many of them children, to various provinces of the Soviet Union. After the German attack on the USSR in summer 1941, the Polish government in exile in London received permission from its new-found ally to organize military units among the Polish deportees and later to transfer Polish civilians to camps in the British-controlled Middle East. There the children were able to attend Polish-run schools.The 120 essays translated here were selected from compositions written by the students of these schools. What makes these documents unique is the perception of these witnesses: a child's eye view of events no adult would consider worth mentioning. In simple language, filled with misspellings and grammatical errors, the children recorded their experiences, and sometimes their surprisingly mature understanding, of the invasion and the Societ occupation, the deportations eastward, and life in the work camps and kolkhozes. The horrors of life in the USSR were vivid memories; privation, hunger, disease, and death had been so frequent that they became accepted commonplaces. Moreover, as the editors point out in their introductory study, these Polish children were not alone in their suffering. All the nationalities that came under Soviet rule shared their fate.

An in-depth history of the Polish soldiers who served in World War 2, with previously unpublished first-hand accounts and rare photographs. There is a chapter of World War II history that remains largely untold; the monumental struggles of an entire nation have been forgotten, and even intentionally obscured. This book gives a full overview of Poland's participation in World War II. Following their valiant but doomed defence of Poland in 1939, members of the Polish armed forces fought with the Allies wherever and however they could. Full of previously unpublished accounts, and rare photographs, this title provides a detailed analysis of the devastation the war brought to Poland, and the final betrayal when, having fought for freedom for six long years, Poland was handed to the Soviet Union.