Despite the deepest suffering and the most profound loss, Eva was able to rebuild her life, and with her husband, also a survivor, raise a family in America – in the city, suburbs, and on the farm. Lehrhaus is proud to publish the second edition, which includes Eva’s eventful return to Poland in 2013 with 16 of her closest relatives spanning three generations.

    More than ten years in the making, The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy tells the dramatic story of the Pope’s battle with communism in light of new and recently disclosed information and brings to a close Weigel’s landmark portrait of a man who not only left an indelible mark on the Catholic Church, but also changed the course of world history. When he was elected pope in the fall of 1978, few people had ever heard of the charismatic Karol Wojty³a. But in a very short time he would ignite a revolution of conscience in his native Poland that would ultimately lead to the collapse of European communism and death of the Soviet Union. What even fewer people knew was that the KGB, the Polish Secret Police, and the East German Stasi had been waging a dangerous, decades-long war against Wojty³a and the Vatican itself. Weigel, with unprecedented access to many Soviet-era documents, chronicles John Paul’s struggle against the dark forces of communism.  Moreover, Weigel recounts the tumultuous last years of John Paul’s life as he dealt with a crippling illness as well as the “new world disorder” and revelations about corruption within the Catholic Church. Weigel’s thought-provoking biography of John Paul II concludes with a probing and passionate assessment of a man who lived his life as a witness to hope in service to the Christian ideals he embraced.

    All at once the life of her tranquil family became a Hell. Forbidden Strawberries is the riveting auto-biography of Cipora Hurwitz, an innocent young girl caught up in the Maelstrom of the Holocaust.Her eldest brother survived the war by the skin of his teeth by fleeing to the Soviet Union. The second brother was murdered when only sixteen. Her parents, by great efforts, succeeded in hiding their little daughter and thereby save her life. Devastatingly, they themselves were unable to escape the hands of the murderers.Cipora, as yet a young child and an orphan, was miraculously saved after surviving the Budzyn camps and the Majdanek extermination camp. The author relates the story of her life during the Holocaust to a delegation of Hashomer Hatzair youth and Israeli High School students on a mission to the death camps in Poland. In Forbidden Strawberries, Cipora presents her testimony on what transpired to her family and friends who were exterminated, thus paying tribute to their memory.

    There the Poles were among the Royal Air Force's most successful ace pilots. During the Battle of Britain, the pilots of the all-Polish Kosciuszko Squadron - 303 Squadron to the RAF - shot down more German planes than any other squadron. According to Britain's wartime air force minister, without the Polish pilots 'our shortage of trained pilots would have made it impossible to defeat the German air force and so win the Battle'. This gripping book tells the story of the Polish pilots, who flew and fought for the British RAF in World War Two. It follows five of these pilots from defeat in Poland and France to victory in the Battle of Britain, from their idolisation by the public to the harrowing story of their betrayal, and Poland's, by Britain and the USA as the war came to its closing stages. This is an utterly fascinating story, heroic, inspiring and finally tragic, strikingly well-told.

    Though Herbert is very much an Eastern European writer, the urgency, vitality, and relevance of his work extend far beyond the borders of his particular region and his particular time. His fascination with other subjects--from painting to all things Dutch--enriched the scope and depth of his poetry, and made for compelling explorations in his essays and short prose pieces.The first collected English edition of his prose work, this outstanding volume consists of four books--Labryinth on the Sea, Still Life with a Bridle, King of the Ants, and Barbarian in the Garden. Brilliant and erudite, dazzling and witty, these essays survey the geography of humanity, its achievements and its foibles. From Western civilization's past, as witnessed through the Greek and Roman landscape, to musings on the artistic that celebrate the author's discriminating eye, poetic sensibility, and gift for irony, humor, and the absurd; from a sage retelling of myths and tales that became twentieth-century philosophical parables of human behavior to thoughts on art, culture, and history inspired by journeys in France, Italy, and the Netherlands, Collected Prose is a rich compendium that celebrates the mastery and wisdom of a remarkable artist.

    Visit Krakow's stunning Main Market Square, Warsaw's historical Royal Way, or Gdansk's Main Town Hall, featuring Golden Age decorations. You'll get firsthand advice on the best sights, eating, sleeping, and nightlife, and the maps and self-guided tours will ensure you make the most of your experience. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves Snapshot guide is a tour guide in your pocket.

    He also happens to have been the author's grandfather. The book is based on the diaries that Marateck began keeping in 1905. That was when he decided to overthrow the Czar . . . The story is told in Marateck's voice, and is characterized by his remarkable humor and irony that contrasted with the circumstances and were key to his survival. It includes a rare, soldier's-eye view of a little-known war that changed the geopolitical status of several nations.

    His 1969 volume, Act of Birth, marked the emergence of a major voice in the "New Wave" of Polish poetry. In Krynicki's work, political and poetic rebellion converged during the 1970s and '80s, he was arrested on trumped-up charges and forbidden from publishing. But his poetry is hardly just political. From the early dissident poems to his recent haiku, Krynicki's lyrical work taps deep wells of linguistic acuity, mysticism, compression, and wit.

    During Khrushchev s first state visit to Helsinki, Dosha, star rider of the Soviet Dressage Team and her horse defect with the help of local Gypsies. The novel follows the life of Dosha, a Gypsy in disguise. It offers unique insight into the tribal life of nomadic Gypsies, who under Stalin joined partisans fighting Nazi invaders, only to face entrapment during Khrushchev s Thaw. By then Dosha and her talented circus horse have been drafted into the dressage team in Leningrad. Navigating political intrigue, narrowly escaping discovery by the KGB, she enters a love forbidden to Gypsy women. One goal remains uppermost in her mind leading her tribe and her horse to freedom in the West.   Discoveries:  A Kircus Service:    "Meyer's writing is crisp and speedy, crackling with sharp metaphors and rich descriptions." Julia Ann Charpentie,Foreword Reviews: " Edgy, entertaining, and filled with political stratagem, even a jaded fan of novels set during the Soviet era will not be disappointed. Indeed, Meyer's knowledge and research shine on every page."   Dorothy Morkis, US Olympic Dressage Rider: "The brilliance with which Sonia Meyer portrays both the magical connection between a horse and rider performing the intricate movements of dressage, and the intuitive love and feeling are to my mind unsurpassed in fiction." Rene Schwiesow, Massachusetts poet and writer, co-host of Plymouth's Art of Words:    " There is richness to her images, depth in her characters, and fluidity in her narration."

    A broken Polish immigrant family leaves a legacy of heartbreak, separation, Civilian Conservation Corps redemption, and World War II heroism. From these dissimilar backgrounds emerges a quintessential American family, one whose members embody the conflicting social movements of their times: a staunchly Catholic Polish immigrant U.S. Marine Corps father, an emotionally effusive Italian mother, an Oliver North son, a Hillary Clinton daughter, a mentally ill sister, a jock brother, a lesbian rocker, and a gay male activist. In an era of bitter cultural polarization, Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century celebrates what has kept America together. This true story is an engrossing portrait of an American family and an evocative documentation of nearly 100 years of American history. Read a free excerpt (Chapter One) either here on the author page or at www.johnpaulgodges.com/excerpt1.html

    What Will Your Krakow Encounter Be?Grabbing a seat and a snack on bustling Plac NowyWandering among the ghosts of kings at mighty Wawel CathedralCocktails and candlelit jazz in a 700-year-old cavernAvant-garde theater in Nowa Huta's communist-era surroundingsHiring a bike and exploring the Old Town by pedal powerDiscover Twice the City in Half The TimeFull-color pull-out map and detailed neighborhood maps for easy navigationOur discerning author recommends the very best neighborhoods, sights, restaurants, shops and entertainmentUnique itineraries and highlights help you make the most of a short breakLocal experts reveal Krakow's secrets: from the founder and director of the Jewish Culture Festival on contemporary Jewish culture to a local gallery owner on the city's unique art scene

    In the -Bieganski- stereotype, Poles exhibit the qualities of animals. They are strong, stupid, violent, fertile, anarchic, dirty, and especially hateful in a way that more evolved humans are not. Their special hatefulness is epitomized by their Polish anti-Semitism. -Bieganski- discovers this stereotype in the mainstream press, scholarship, film, in Jews' self-definition, and in responses to the Holocaust. Bieganski's twin is Shylock, the stereotype of the crafty, physically inadequate, moneyed Jew. The final chapters of the book are devoted to interviews with American Jews. These reveal that Bieganski - and Shylock - are both alive and well among those who have little knowledge of Poles or Poland.

    There is a light in the heart of darkness." - The Hamsa. Bronislaw Czech is a dashing Polish highlander born in 1908. His father teaches young Bronek the secrets of the Tatra Mountains while his father's friend, 'The Captain' teaches the boy to ski. He learns well and represents Poland in three Winter Olympic Games, which teach him as much about life as about the sport he loves. He is honored to lead his team and carry the Polish flag into the stadium at Germany's 1936 games in Bavaria. With him always is the hamsa, a good luck charm he receives as a boy in 1923 from a young Jewish girl. When Germany invades Poland in 1939, Czech's mountain skills make him a valuable asset to the Polish resistance and a target for Hitler's SS. From the majesty of Europe's greatest mountains to the shores of America and back, from the height of Olympic glory to the depths of human cruelty and suffering, The Hamsa spans four decades of one man's struggle to preserve his dignity in the face of 'the final solution.'

    Yet, in slightly over a century, the idea of Galicia came to have meaning for both the peoples who lived there and the Habsburg government that ruled it. Indeed, its memory continues to exercise a powerful fascination for those who live in its former territories and for the descendants of those who emigrated out of Galicia.The idea of Galicia was largely produced by the cultures of two cities, Lviv and Cracow. Making use of travelers' accounts, newspaper reports, and literary works, Wolff engages such figures as Emperor Joseph II, Metternich, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Ivan Franko, Stanislaw Wyspiański, Tadeusz Boy Żeleński, Isaac Babel, Martin Buber, and Bruno Schulz. He shows the exceptional importance of provincial space as a site for the evolution of cultural meanings and identities, and analyzes the province as the framework for non-national and multi-national understandings of empire in European history.

    

    Until the Second World War, this was the heartland of the Jewish world: nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland alone, while nearly three million more lived in the Soviet Union. Although the majority of the Jews of Europe and the United States, and many of the Jews of Israel, originate from these lands, their history there is not well known. Rather, it is the subject of mythologizing and stereotypes that fail both to bring out the specific features of the Jewish civilization which emerged there and to illustrate what was lost. Jewish life, though often poor materially, was marked by a high degree of spiritual and ideological intensity and creativity. Antony Polonsky recreates this lost world - brutally cut down by the Holocaust and less brutally but still seriously damaged by the Soviet attempt to destroy Jewish culture. Wherever possible, the unfolding of history is illustrated by contemporary Jewish writings to show how Jews felt and reacted to the complex and difficult situations in which they found themselves. This second volume covers the period from1881 to 1914. It considers the deterioration in the position of the Jews during that time and the new political and cultural movements that developed as a consequence: Zionism, socialism, autonomism, the emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, Jewish urbanization, and the rise of popular Jewish culture. Galicia, Prussian Poland, the Kingdom of Poland, and the tsarist empire are all treated individually, as are the main towns of these areas. *** Winner of the 2011 Kulczycki Book Prize for Polish Studies, awarded by the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. *** "Polonsky's magisterial The Jews in Poland and Russia is one of those rare works that can hope to bridge the gap between specialist and "intelligent general reader." . . No one interested in Jewish, Polish, or Russian history can afford to be without these volumes . . . will long remain the standard work on this crucial Jewish community . . . The most important thing one can say about Antony Polonsky's The Jews in Poland and Russia is: get it and read it!" Theodore R. Weeks, The Polish Review. *** "This superb and very up-to-date book is very well written, carefully documented, balanced, and will be a standard reference in the field. It has a glossary and a wide-ranging bibliography, very useful maps, and statistical tables all of which make it a good starting point for any reading on East European Jewry." - Shaul Stampfer, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 38, No. 2, June 2012 *** "The Jews in Poland and Russia contains a meticulously crafted synthesis of existing historiography, and yet also goes far beyond. Antony Polonsky s particular scholarly achievement lies in the fact that he combines a masterful grasp of Jewish history with that of Eastern Europe. . . . these beautifully narrated volumes should not only be seen as a staple for university courses, but also as a must-read for anyone attempting to understand any aspect of modern Jewish history and religious tradition, wherever it may be playing out. It all originates in Eastern Europe, Antony Polonsky reminds us, and without understanding our collective past, how can we understand our present." - European Judaism, Vol. 46, No. 2, Autumn 2013

    Although Conrad did not visit the country until a year before his death, his fiction served as both foil and mirror to America's conception of itself and its place in the world. Peter Mallios reveals the historical and political factors that made Conrad's work valuable to a range of prominent figures—including Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Richard Wright, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore and Edith Roosevelt—and explores regional differences in Conrad's reception. He proves that foreign-authored writing can be as integral a part of United States culture as that of any native. Arguing that an individual writer's apparent (national, gendered, racial, political) identity is not always a good predictor of the diversity of voices and dialogues to which he gives rise, this exercise in transnational comparativism participates in post-Americanist efforts to render American Studies less insular and parochial.