“The Warsaw Sisters: a novel of World War II Poland” by Amanda Barratt (Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group)
As we continue to watch with horror the news of Hamas invasion of Israel and the accompanying atrocities against the Jews, I invite you to read a most incredible novel about how a pair of sisters survived the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, Poland. It is based on the true accounts of the misery inflicted by the barbarians on all the Poles, but the Jews were targeted for annihilation. However, it was a gradual destruction, often capricious. (In fact, the very casual brutality of it made it all the more horrific.) The German military invaded Poland from the west on Sept. 1, 1939. Two weeks later, the Soviets invaded from the east. After a month of bitter fighting, Poland’s freedom was ended, and they were a captive people. The Nazis killed without any reason, treating the Jews as their private punching bags, and stealing from them with impunity. Over time, the Jews would be squeezed into less and less territory within Warsaw, the Polish capital city, until finally they were sequestered into the Warsaw Ghetto. From there they would starved to death or carried off in the trains to the death camps. The nearest was Auschwitz, and it grew exponentially during the next four and a half years. Families were torn apart, men were killed on the streets, children were terrorized, women were raped and murdered. Few of the German soldiers seemed to have any moral fiber at all. They looked upon the Poles and especially the Jews and Slavs are sub-humans and treated with disdain, But the Polish people never gave up resisting; indeed their resistance groups were much more organized and efficient than the much-vaunted French Resistance. Our heroines are sisters from a nice middle-class family, caught in this reign of terror. They each deal with it in their own way. Antonina loves a brilliant fellow musician who is Jewish, which made little difference before the war. Now it makes every difference. She tries smuggling food into the Ghetto but Marek and his mother insist that she stop. Antonina decides to hide Jewish children as part of a daring network of women in an“underground railroad” to get them out of the country. She finally realizes that Marek is unlikely to last the war (or even the year) so they are secretly wed and conceive a child, both capital crimes. Her sister Helena is astounded that her sister is taking such chances and wants to avoid any more notice than necessary by the Nazi authorities. But after she learns of the birth of her sister’s child Kasia, and remembering how the Nazis casually murdered their Aunt Kasia, a physician, Hela joins the Resistance as a soldier for Poland. It will not be easy or safe; indeed, they are fearless but the Nazis are ruthless. And the promised help from the Soviets never arrives, because they had no intention of helping the Resistance. The communists plan to make Poland their colony after the war (and they will do so.)
The book is “a richly-rendered portrait of courage, sacrifice, and resilience.” I would add: powerful, shocking and inspiring.
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