Overview

This book tells the story of Krystyna Bierzyska, an acculturated Polish Jew, from her birth in Warsaw in 1928 up to the war's end in May 1945, when she was reunited with her brother, Dolek, an officer in the Polish II Corps. Bierzyska not only survived the Holocaust due in large part to the extraordinary efforts of her parents, blood relatives, and surrogate Christian family, but also served as a 16-year-old orderly in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Hers is a Warsaw story, a biography that demonstrates how, in urban interwar Poland, the lives of liberal educated Catholics and acculturated, unconverted Jews significantly overlapped. Co-creating the culture and developing the economy and industries of independent Poland, acculturated Jews at last dared to believe that they qualified as Polish citizens and patriots. Bierzyska's story details her experience of two very different Warsaws: a cosmopolitan oasis of high culture, modern amenities, and tolerance, and an occupied capital intoxicated and united by conspiracy, where the residents joined together to overthrow a common enemy.

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9781618117588

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This is a fascinating read as well as an outstanding addition to syllabi for courses in history, gender, identity, and memory studies, making also a notable contribution to the theme of 'reading and writing cities, ' as Bierzynska's story situates the city of Warsaw in its very center. ... Apart from being a needed monument to the much ignored female heroism in Poland's war struggles, the book testifies to the remarkable richness and complexities of Polish Jews' double identities, rendering impossible any simplistic affinity towards one ethnic group over the other. As such, the book should be considered a 'must have' for any American or European library. --Elwira M. Grossman, University of Glasgow, Slavic and East European Journal Vol. 62.3--Elwira M. Grossman Slavic and East European Journal

This is a fascinating read as well as an outstanding addition to syllabi for courses in history, gender, identity, and memory studies, making also a notable contribution to the theme of 'reading and writing cities, ' as Bierzynska's story situates the city of Warsaw in its very center. ... Apart from being a needed monument to the much ignored female heroism in Poland's war struggles, the book testifies to the remarkable richness and complexities of Polish Jews' double identities, rendering impossible any simplistic affinity towards one ethnic group over the other. As such, the book should be considered a 'must have' for any American or European library. --Elwira M. Grossman, University of Glasgow, Slavic and East European Journal Vol. 62.3--Elwira M. Grossman Slavic and East European Journal Krystyna Bierzynska is a Holocaust survivor par excellence. Born in Warsaw in 1928, the daughter of assimilated Polish Jews who perished during the six-year German occupation of Poland, she managed to leave the Polish capital as Jews were being herded into the doomed Nazi ghetto. In 1944, as a member of the underground Home Army, she participated in the failed Warsaw rebellion against the Germans. Five years ago, on the 70th anniversary of that revolt, she agreed to be interviewed by Beth Holmgren, a professor of Slavic Studies at Duke University. Holmgren's book, Warsaw Is My Country: The Story of Krystyna Bierzynska, 1928-1945 (Academic Studies Press), is wide-ranging in scope and sometimes deeply emotional. --Sheldon Kirshner, The Times of Israel

Author Information

Beth Holmgren is Professor of Slavic Studies at Duke University. Her recent books include Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and America (2012) and Transgressive Women in Modern Russian and East European Cultures, co-ed. Yana Hashamova & Mark Lipovetsky (2016). Her current research examines the role of popular entertainment and the experience of its primarily Jewish performers in the Anders Army (1942-1946).

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