He becomes a puppeteer in the Warsaw ghetto, but when his talent is discovered, Mika is forced to entertain the occupying German troops instead of his countrymen.It is also the story of Max, a German soldier stationed in Warsaw, whose experiences in Poland and later in Siberia's Gulag show a different side to the Second World War. As one of Mika's puppets is passed to the soldier, a war-torn legacy is handed from one generation to another.

    A year later, they threatened to complete the city’s destruction by deporting its remaining residents. A sophisticated and cosmopolitan community a thousand years old was facing its final days—and then opportunity struck. As Soviet soldiers turned back the Nazi invasion of Russia and began pressing west, the underground Polish Home Army decided to act. Taking advantage of German disarray and seeking to forestall the absorption of their country into the Soviet empire, they chose to liberate the city of Warsaw for themselves.      Warsaw 1944 tells the story of this brave, and errant, calculation. For more than sixty days, the Polish fighters took over large parts of the city and held off the SS’s most brutal forces. But in the end, their efforts were doomed. Scorned by Stalin and unable to win significant support from the Western Allies, the Polish Home Army was left to face the full fury of Hitler, Himmler, and the SS. The crackdown that followed was among the most brutal episodes of history’s most brutal war, and the celebrated historian Alexandra Richie depicts this tragedy in riveting detail. Using a rich trove of primary sources, Richie relates the terrible experiences of individuals who fought in the uprising and perished in it. Her clear-eyed narrative reveals the fraught choices and complex legacy of some of World War II’s most unsung heroes.

    Nicholas' Day to the vigil of Christmas Eve and the mid-winter revelry of a Sylwester New Year's Eve Ball, the touching story picks up where its predecessor, the award-winning Rose Petal Jam, leaves off. Featuring 47 new recipes, the lush design and lavish visuals provide inspiration and nostalgia along a winter journey that takes in the cities of Lublin, Warsaw, Kraków, and Lódz, as well as some of Europe's oldest forests and the frozen Mazury Lakes. Part armchair travel but mostly a sumptuous personal narrative enhanced by many well-known romantic paintings and poems, this glorious cookbook demonstrates a deep love for Poland on every page.

    Przemysl, Poland. No one has explained to three-year-old Renatka what war is. She knows her Tatus, a doctor, is away with the Polish Army, that her beautiful Mamusia is no longer allowed to work at the university, and that their frequent visitors-among them Great Aunt Zuzia and Uncle Julek with their gifts of melon and clothes-have stopped appearing. One morning Mamusia comes home with little yellow six-pointed stars for them to wear. Renatka thinks they will keep her family safe.In June of 1942, soldiers in gray-green uniforms take Renata, Mamusia, and grandmother Babcia to the Ghetto where they are crammed into one room with other frightened families. The adults are forced to work long hours at the factory and to survive on next to no food. One day Mamusia and Babcia do not return from their shifts. Six years old and utterly alone, Renata is passed from place to place and survives through the willingness of ordinary people to take the most deadly risks. Her unlikely blonde hair and blue eyes and other twists of fate save her life but stories become her salvation. Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales transport her to an enchanted world; David Copperfield helps her cope on her own; and she longs for the family in Swallows and Amazons. A chronicle of the horrors of war, Let Me Tell You a Story is a powerful and moving memoir of growing up in a disturbing world, and of the magical discovery of books.

    Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans preserves the integrity and unique qualities of delicious Polish cooking while making it accessible to anyone, even those with no experience preparing Eastern European food.Craving traditional Polish Kie basa or Kapusta wie a na Kwa no (sweet sour cabbage), or how about Kapusta Czarwona (red cabbage), ledzie Marynowane (pickled herring), Czarnina (duck soup) with Kluski, or nearly a dozen varieties of Pierogi and P czki (fried donuts with filling)? Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans includes these recipes and many many more. With almost 500 recipes, every meal and practically every dish is covered, including a multi-course Christmas dinner.More than just a collection of recipes, Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans takes the reader on a tour of Polish culinary customs, dishes, and traditions. It also gives advice on foundational cooking techniques, ingredients, and sauces enabling you to master and improvise your own Polish-style dishes.Accented with Polish folk art, this timeless cookbook offers a charming and satisfying experience for both your stomach and spirit."

    A story of an eleven year-old boy and his rough-hewn uncle, both of whom cross paths with Wojtek, the legendary soldier bear of WWII.

    Its corollary was more elusive. Was it possible to remember—at least to recall—a world that existed before the calamity?”  In the winter of 2000, Louise Steinman set out to attend an international Bearing Witness Retreat at Auschwitz-Birkenau at the invitation of her Zen rabbi, who felt the Poles had gotten a “bum rap.” A bum rap? Her own mother could not bear to utter the word “Poland,” a country, Steinman was taught, that allowed and perhaps abetted the genocide that decimated Europe’s Jewish population, including members of her own extended family.   As Steinman learns more about her lost ancestors, though, she finds that the history of Polish-Jewish relations is far more complex. Although German-occupied Poland was the site of horrific Jewish persecution, Poland was for centuries the epicenter of European Jewish life. After the war, Polish-Jewish relations soured. For Poles under Communism, it was taboo to examine or discuss the country’s Jewish past. Among Jews in the Diaspora, there was little acknowledgment of the Poles’ immense suffering during its dual occupation.   Steinman’s research leads her to her grandparents’ town of Radomsko, whose eighteen thousand Jews were deported or shot during the Nazi occupation. As she delves deeper into the town’s and her family’s history, Steinman discovers a prewar past where a lively community of Jews and Catholics lived shoulder to shoulder, where a Polish Catholic painted the blue ceiling of the Radomsko synagogue, and a Jewish tinsmith roofed the spires of the Catholic church. She also uncovers untold stories of Poles who rescued their Jewish neighbors in Radomsko and helps bring these heroes to the light of day.   Returning time and again to Poland over the course of a decade, Steinman finds Poles who are seeking the truth about the past, however painful, and creating their own rituals to teach their towns about the history of their lost Jewish neighbors. This lyrical memoir chronicles her immersion in the exhilarating, discomforting, sometimes surreal, and ultimately healing process of Polish-Jewish reconciliation.

    Now as a parent and grandparent, he tells his life story to his grandchildren. After surviving the world's most deadliest camp, he hopes to pass on his life legacy to his family.Ari is a strong and courageous teen who must battle for his life throughout the second world war. Ari is forever scarred from his deep past. Despite being kept prisoner at the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp, seeing the untimely death of hundreds, and forced to endure unbearable conditions in lice infested clothing, Ari keeps his friends close and struggles to live. Throughout his stay in the camp, he meets two inmates who both stand along with him, trying to help as often as they can. Friendship and belief is all they have left, in which the Nazis and the war strip away from the trio and ultimately brings the devastating disaster that awaits. When Ari and his two friends are slowing down in a death march during a blizzard and his friend has frostbite, Ari still helps his friend despite an SS guard approaching them with a pistol. He even claims that "carrying Saul was a challenge" (page 149), but does not want to leave him in the snow, knowing the fate his friend would face.He tries to help and aid his fellow camp inmates whenever possible. During at his stay at Auschwitz III, everyone fears one Kapo guard who is known for being a sadist on the prisoners with a rubber truncheon. Ari not only stands up against the Kapo, he even goes to the point of scaring him too. The guard showed "in his eyes...he was confused, maybe even fearful. Almost as if he was the beaten victim" (page 104). No matter what consequences are to come, he always gives his best effort in order to make a situation better. Throwing himself into the line of fire while no one else would is the shocking reality that made those like Ari from ordinary people to heroes.A true friend and strong Samaritan, Ari Kolodiejski is a person who is stuck with the ability to make anyone into being a friend with him. After his liberation of six years of terror, he tries to rebuild his life to replace the one he lost a lifetime ago. With his family's history stored safely in the minds of his grandchildren, he can now preserve his memories for his great-grandchildren and their children to remember. KEEPING MY HOPE is an excellent book, and an even better one with the character of Ari.

    Drawing on Slavs and Tatars’ multi-disciplinary practice encompassing research, installations, lecture-performances and print media, this publication embraces new contributions in the form of essays, interviews, and archival presentation on subjects that range from seventeenth-century Sarmatism to the twenty-first-century Green Movement, taking in along the way, tales of the Polish Exodus, Wojtek the bear, craft, hospitality, Passion plays and taziyeh and the political lessons of a Polish slow burn-revolution for contemporary Iran. Slavs and Tatars is joined here by Agata Araszkiewicz, Ramin Jahanbegloo and Adam Michnik, Mara Goldwyn, Shiva Balaghi and Michael D. Kennedy.

    I am delighted by her lyrical flare, her wit, and her remarkable ability to be both one and many poets, or one poet with twenty one voices."—Nin AndrewsThis faux anthology of twenty-one invented poets belongs in the company of world literature's distinguished fabulists—Fernando Pessoa and Italo Calvino—in blurring the boundary between the textual and actual worlds.Agnieszka Kuciak lives in Poznan, Poland, and is the author of two collections of poetry.

    Zaremba, a wealthy businessman, is about to be arrested on trumped-up charges and only she can save him. Swept along by events, Cordelia finds her feelings increasingly involved with a stranger for whom she is both rescuer and victim. When Zaremba is implicated in terrorist activities and disappears, Cordelia is painfully uncertain if she has been abandoned and must overcome surveillance, corruption, the media, and mounting humiliations and difficulties to learn the truth.This is a story about love between a man and woman, but also love of family, country, and justice. Although set in Poland, where the CIA had a black site, it is a story that could happen anywhere, in a world where young democracies struggle against the temptations of covert operations and older democracies sometimes lead them astray.

    It is a story of Olenka’s free spirit and passion for life, which helps her overcome extreme tragedy and suffering. Olenka grew up in Poland before WWII started. She witnessed the German invasion of 1939 and well as the tragic years that followed under the German occupation of Poland. During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, she was captured and labelled a Polish political prisoner. Olenka was sent to both Ravensbruck and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. As the Allied Forces advanced, some of the prisoners at Sachsenhausen concentration camp were forced to leave and were taken on a death march. Olenka miraculously survived the death march and was liberated by the American Army on the 3rd May, 1945. After liberation, Olenka spent some time in Italy before eventually heading for England. This amazing autobiography is both gripping and unforgettable.

    He loved adventure without thinking about the ever-present dangers of war.

    For ten million people of Polish ancestry in the United States, as well as many who have settled in the UK since the fall of communism, it is a heartfelt matter--and amid all the travel guides and guides to Polish language, folklore,and customs, there is no single, comprehensive, reader-friendly and yet ever-informative reference on what it means to be Polish. Enter The Essential Guide to Being Polish -- the go-to concise resource for anyone looking to reconnect with their culture or, indeed, hoping that their friends, children, or colleagues learn something about their heritage. Divided into three sections to make for an easy-to-follow format --Poland in Context, Poles in Poland, and Poles Abroad -- this guide covers just about everything and does so in a style that is at once entertaining and informative: the country's history and geography, wars, Jews in Poland, the communist past, the postcommunist past and present, language, kings and queens, religion/Catholicism (with special focus on Pope John Paul II), holidays, food, and drink. What is a real Polish wedding all about? That, too, is addressed succinctly and with flair in this guide. Other chapters cover literature, music, art, famous scientists, Polish men and Polish women, Poles in America, Poles in the UK, Poles and the EU, and last but not least, Polish pride.

    Illustrated with black and white photos.

    It worked. 'Lives of the Orange Men' tells the story of the movement's main protagonists, and is the first standalone English-language account of the Orange Alternative, written by is central figure and featuring an appendix of newly-translated key texts, a timeline of every Orange Alternative happening and a new foreword from the Yes Men.