Overview

In 1939, Countess Karolina Lanckoronska, professor and wealthy landowner, joined the Polish underground, was arrested, sentenced to death, and was held in Ravensbruck concentration camp. There she taught art history to other women who, like her, might be dead in a few days. This inspiring and beautifully written memoir records a neglected side of World War II: the mass murder of Poles, the serial horrors inflicted by both Russians and Nazis, and the immense courage of those who resisted.

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9780306816116

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H-Net<br> Sheds light on the war years in Poland from an atypical and highly interesting perspective that of an aristocratic, patriotic, cultured, and cosmopolitan daughter of Poland. For that reason, it fills a useful niche in Holocaust memoir literature, and does so in vivid, engaging prose. <br><br> Sierra Vista Herald , 3/12/10<br> It is a revelation as all literature of the horrors of that time have become, but it is also a dynamic witness of what it means never to accede to intolerance. It is a rare autobiographical account of life at the blood-spattered hands of the Soviets and the Nazis, while also being a particularly enlightening view of the Reich's only all-female concentration camp.

Great works of art are often said to be 'monuments to the human spirit'. But this remarkable book reinforces the feeling that the concentration camps were a more accurate monument to the human spirit, both in their negative and in their positive aspects. No reader will ever forget it.

<b>H-Net</b> Sheds light on the war years in Poland from an atypical and highly interesting perspective that of an aristocratic, patriotic, cultured, and cosmopolitan daughter of Poland. For that reason, it fills a useful niche in Holocaust memoir literature, and does so in vivid, engaging prose. <b><i>Sierra Vista Herald</i>, 3/12/10</b> It is a revelation as all literature of the horrors of that time have become, but it is also a dynamic witness of what it means never to accede to intolerance. It is a rare autobiographical account of life at the blood-spattered hands of the Soviets and the Nazis, while also being a particularly enlightening view of the Reich's only all-female concentration camp.

Author Information

Countess Karolina Lanckoronska (1898-2002) survived imprisonment and after the war lived in Rome, where she devoted herself to art history and to Polish culture and learning.

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