Reviewers:
Zbigniew Brzezinski, John R. Alley,
Bruce E.Johansen, Radoslaw Palonka, Audrey Topping, Stanley Weintraub, Robert
Ackerman, Homer Flute, Rod Trahan, Jesse Flis, Blazej Bierczynski, Anna
Cienciala, Karl Maramorosch, Christopher Mick, Stanley Cloud, Lynne Olson,
Jerzy Krzyzanowski, Piotr Wandycz, James S. Pula, Ewa Thompson, Angela Baldwin, Florence W. Clowes, Larry
Cunningham, Charles S. Kraszewski, Wash Gjebre, Matt DeLaMater, John Knowles, Rosario
Tronnolone, Virginia Degiorgio, Isabella Rossellini, Danuta Batorska, Jean Wahl, Leszek Adamczyk, John Carr, John Mensch, Mary Lanham
OPEN WOUNDS - A NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE
I was intrigued by Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm’s observations of
American history, Native Americans, and Indian country. The fact that they are
the views of a well-educated European with a well-developed interest in such
subjects, rather than of a scholarly expert or an American insider, Indian or
not, adds another dimension of interest to them. .... John R. Alley, PhD, Utah State University
.
Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm takes us across the United States, visiting Indian Country,
with insight and compassion, raising many issues along the way with the eye of
a traveler from overseas (the book first appeared in Poland). Few people in
this country know that the first craftsmen at Jamestown were from Poland, or
that the family of Polish ancestry (relatives of hers) are carving a huge
memorial to Crazy Horse in South Dakota. The book includes a number of
wide-ranging interviews with people who are well known in Indian Country. This
book provides fascinating reading from fresh perspectives. The interview with
Rod Trahan is one of the most enlightening slices of reservation reality I have
read in a long time. .... Bruce E.
Johansen, PhD, University of Nebraska
.
Good reading not only for lovers of books on Indians. It describes the
history and rich culture of the indigenous peoples of America against their
current situation in American society. The author tries to eradicate
stereotypes, makes readers aware of Indian contributions to the history of the
United States and, at the same time, emphasizes difficulties they are forced to
cope with in order to preserve their autonomy and cultivate old traditions.
What plays a significant role is the autobiographical aspect which explains the
author’s personal commitment in Indians lives. .... Wydawnictwo DEBIT, Bielsko Biala, Poland
.
As always, it is very well written. .... Zbigniew Brzezinski, PhD, Author, National Security Adviser to
President Jimmy Carter
.
The book is the result of curiosity of the Indian world, and a try to
understand the problems that are facing modern Indians. The author does not
stop with a critique of the current situation but tries to look for the recipe
for resolution and salvation. Her attempts are shown in the second part of the
book by interviews with authors who know about Indians, as well as with Indians
of several Nations. Giving voice to the Indians is for sure a great attribute
of her book. Not minimized is the negative involvement of the American
government and its policies whom the author blames for the current situation.
Also, she blames the often mistaken writing/reporting by American writers.
.... Radoslaw Palonka, PhD, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
.... Radoslaw Palonka, PhD, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
.
Spending part of my life growing up on the Cass Lake Indian reservation
and being of Cree decent, I can appreciate the message and the plight of our
people contained in this book. My grandmother who was a Native Medicine Woman
taught me many things growing up. Many things have been lost in our culture,
which I have tried to teach my grandchildren, but I am also painfully aware of
the stigma that goes along with claiming our heritage. My hope is that one day
books like this will assist in peoples understanding of the hardships that the
Indian people have faced in the past as well as present day, so that we many
all live together with compassion towards one another.
.... Angela Baldwin, South Dakota
.... Angela Baldwin, South Dakota
.
I found the book really beautifully written, touching, absorbing and
scholarly. The personal connection made it even more interesting. ....
Audrey Ronning Topping, Scarsdale, New York, photojournalist, author of books
about China and Tibet
.
In a memorable line almost worth the book by itself, Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm has written, "Only in America can a person sculpt a
mountain." Her great-uncle, Korczak Ziolkowski, "a Polish orphan from
Boston," began the colossal memorial to near-legendary Sioux chieftain
Crazy Horse in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Ziolkowski had a more famous
predecessor. Also in the craggy Black Hills, Gutzon Borglum, an Idaho sculptor
of Danish descent, carved into Mount Rushmore the images of Washington,
Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt; and earlier, on Stone Mountain in
Georgia, the marching figures of Robert E. Lee and his Confederates. For
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm, however, the enormous sculpture of Crazy Horse is
the starting point for a moving lament, framed by human faces from the land,
about the conditions under which Native Americans, whose cultural and tribal
lands were ravaged by settlers from abroad. Europeans, she observes strikingly,
nevertheless adopted into their own culture some tribal laws and traditions
from "Indians" who now live theoretically autonomous lives but in
reality are wards of their conquerors--the most open of wounds.
.... Stanley Weintraub, Professor, author, biographer & historian
.... Stanley Weintraub, Professor, author, biographer & historian
.
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm has done a
thorough job of sharply focusing on the plight of the Native American in the
U.S. and, indeed, it is a sad state of affairs.
.... Wash Gjebre, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, retired
"Post-Gazette"staff writer
.
It’s sad but true that our society hasn’t even begun to realize
what harm has been done to the Native Americans starting at the beginning of
the European colonization here. Aleksandra’s book will be a big help, I think,
for educating the American public.
….Robert Ackerman, Forest
Conservationist, New Alexandria, Pennsylvania .
The book „Open Wounds” depicts many of the past and present problems
facing Native Americans as minorities in their own country, where bias, envy
and jealousies are still strong influences among the Indian people, as
portrayed in the author’s story about Crazy Horse being betrayed by his own
people. This still happens today. Many non-Indians are misinformed about
Indians and reservations because their only source of information comes from
fictional movies and books. This leads to false perceptions that stereotype
Indians reservations as the typical Indian camp with teepees and the Indians as
the typical “hang around the fort Indian” waiting for the handout from
government. These fictional movies and books do more harm to the Indian’s
dignity by categorizing him as a lazy alcoholic with no ambition. In reality,
all nationalities have a percentage of their people that fit in this particular
category. Government run Indian schools have been both positive and negative
the positive is that the schools have educated many of our Indian youth and
gave them hope for a future, but the negative aspect is that the government run
Indian schools deprived the Indian youths of their cultural heritage and
ancestral language. This book outlines the tragic obstacles encountered by
sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski while carving the statue of the Lakota Sioux war
chief Crazy Horse. The sculptor experienced many similar situations that
parallels the Indians’ situation.
Homer
Flute, Apache, Trustee/CEO Sand Creek Massacre Descendants Trust, Anandarko,
Oklahoma
.
“This is a complex history of the treatment and lives of Native
Americans ever since the land was discovered. It contains a wealth of
information the author gathered over many years from interviews, research,
histories, and interviews with Native Americans or those who worked closely
with them.
The plight of the Indians was caused by the American government in their
treatment and disregard for their culture. People were routed to the wastelands
of the continent; given reservations which the Government would withdraw if
they wanted that piece of land. These reservations are usually remote areas,
where the Indians received little support for housing, education or work.
Consequently, many resorted to liquor or drugs. Today, there is hope for some
tribes, with their casinos bringing in much-needed money. But not all tribes
are so lucky. They still live without hope or inspiration.
From the early 1900s children were taken from their parents and schooled
in American special schools, forcing them to speak only English and punished
for any Indian rituals the children would observe. Many of these children ran
away, wishing to retain their heritage. Others assimilated, went to college and
returned to the reservation, with plans of improving the health and education
of the reservation Indians. Some of course, disclaimed their heritage and
joined the American society. Today these schools still exist, but more emphasis
is now on retaining their language and culture.
The personal adventures of the author bring life to this history.
Korczak Ziolkowski is a relative of Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm and she
provides a history of that undertaking. The sculpture of Crazy Horse in the
Black Hills of South Dakota will be ten times larger than the presidents’ heads
on Mt. Rushmore. Today, the construction continues, under the supervision of
Korczak’s wife, Ruth and her children. No government funds are provided,
rather, funding comes from donations by project supporters around the country.
A chapter is dedicated to the Indian Code Talkers during World War II.
They developed codes from the Indian language that were used in Europe and the
Pacific. Philip Johnson, the son of Protestant missionaries, who grew up on a
Navaho reservation, approached General Vogel with the idea of the Navaho
language code. With twenty-nine Indians, a dictionary code was created which
was successfully used in war areas.
The efforts of Ziolkowska-Boehm in compiling this information is to be
highly commended”.
Florence W. Clowes, POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAl,
Boston, NY, April 2010
.
“Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm, author of Open Wounds
reveals her perspective on Native Americans and Indian Reservations in this
potpourri of stories, interviews and observations. The fact that she is a Native of Poland and
received her Ph.D. from Warsaw University makes the book in the words of John R. Alley of Utah State University ring
true:
“I was
intrigued by Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm’s observations of American history,
Native Americans and Indian country,” he observes. “The fact that they are the views of a
well-educated European with a well-developed interest in such subjects…. adds
another dimension of interest to them.”
Dr.
Ziolkowska writes with compassion and passion when it comes to Native American
issues. That developed in part because
it was her great-uncle, Korczak Ziolkowski, who began the monumental sculpture
of Crazy Horse in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Whether
reading about her great uncle’s lifelong desire to honor Crazy Horse, or learning
about the Code Talkers of World War ll, you will find Dr. Ziolkowska’s book
informative, lively and packed full of interesting information.
Finally you
will find her chapter on St. Labre Indian School to be informative and
reflective of her unique perspective.
Several of her interviews in the book are with people either formerly or
currently affiliated with St. Labre”.
Larry
Cunningham, Open Wounds, THE MORNING
STAR, April 2010
.
“Ziolkowska-Boehm
is a popular Polish writer with a gift for empathy and praiseworthy
industriousness. Her books are numerous. By an accident of life she encountered
American Indians and decided to dig deeper. The result is a very readable
account of their plight and tragedy. While the tragedy is irreversible; it is
good to see a book that gently lectures the winners. Ziolkowska-Boehm's book
makes us reflect on the injustices of life and fate, perhaps prompting us to do
a few things to remedy them”. E.T., SARMATIAN REVIEW, April 2010
.
"I am not sure if there
is any other country in Europe, where Indians are hold in a such unique esteem
as in Poland. And when we add family connections with Korczak Ziolkowski, there
is no surprise that Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm has decided to bring up that
topic. This is not only great piece of Indians’ story, this is a great piece of
literature".
Michal Sikorski, former editor-in-chief of "International Relations" Monthly
(Poland), December 27, 2010
"Open Wounds" will bring much needed awareness to the
many challenges still facing our Native Americans”. Jesse
Flis, Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians
.
“Aleksandra
is a warm and genuine person with a flair for painting an accurate and detailed
picture in your mind of many varied subjects she writes about”.
Rod Trahan, Montana
.
"Many books have been written about the history and cultures of
Native American tribes. However, I know of no book until OPEN WOUNDS - A NATIVE
AMERICAN HERITAGE that broadly portrays significant aspects of Native American
history, cultural treatment, subjugation, suffering, failed education, etc.
that has resulted in the subdued outlook for their future. With the advent of
casino ownership, a minor number of tribes have obtained a degree of success
financially and culturally giving their people an independence. But casinos
only thrive in the populated areas. Tribes located in the remote Northern
plains and Southwest desert areas do not have the opportunity to successfully
operate a casino. These Indians people continue to suffer from lack of work
(unemployment as high as 80%) shortages of food, health and dental services and
educational facilities. The author's sadness for the circumstances of these
original Americans will envelop the reader and cause a tear or two to flow in
compassion for them".
Frank Appleton, BARNES & NOBLE
Frank Appleton, BARNES & NOBLE
.
“Always interested in the history and treatment of Native
Americans, I found that Aleksandra Ziolkowska Boehm's book provided a rare and
compelling insight into the outcome of ill conceived policies by the Federal
Government. Native Americans have been relegated to second class citizenship in
their own country. What a shame!” Peter Clark, BARNES & NOBLE
.
"The sad story and mistreatment of Native Americans has been well
documented. But the result thereof in the current outlook for them has not...
until now when Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm's OPEN WOUNDS - A NATIVE AMERICAN
HERITAGE succinctly discloses in broad terms what has happened to them. An one
example, many believe Indians are now well off because of income from casinos.
Few realize that those tribes forced onto barren and distant reservation have
not. The remote tribes have no casino or other sources of income, and some
suffer unemployment rates up to 80% (Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation for example).
Even worse treatment of Indian people has offered little, if any, opportunities
for them to gain financial security. They are unable to even help themselves by
use of financial aide from the wealthy tribes because state governments only
allow the wealthier tribes to invest within the state the casinos are located.
The list of problems goes on: health, education, welfare etc. The status of
Native Americans is a gross blemish on the reputation of the U.S. in the eyes
of the world. It is wonderful to have read such a book disclosing the true
status of America's Indian people".
Carl Oberly, BORDERS, September 2010
.
"OPEN WOUNDS - A NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE by Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm presents a new and better understanding for the feelings of Native Americans and their hopes for a better future. The author uses a mechanism of broadly defining how the years of mistreatment at the hands of the Federal Government' and its misguided policies has resulted in despondency and despair. In another method of revelation, the author provides a series of interviews with real American Indians from the Apache, Chickasaw, Kiowa and Northern Cheyenne Nations. These are tribal representatives that speak with first hand knowledge of their peoples' treatment, the obstacles they themselves and others face and how they (but not all) have overcome the obstacles to achieve independence and even success. Through these interviews, the author manages to place the reader into the Indian's position and then to be able to experience their reactions, feelings and hopes. Every American would do well to read this book as it reveals another part of American's sad history where a minority was and continues to be mistreated".
Alicia Montgomery, GOOGLE BOOKS
Carl Oberly, BORDERS, September 2010
.
"OPEN WOUNDS - A NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE by Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm presents a new and better understanding for the feelings of Native Americans and their hopes for a better future. The author uses a mechanism of broadly defining how the years of mistreatment at the hands of the Federal Government' and its misguided policies has resulted in despondency and despair. In another method of revelation, the author provides a series of interviews with real American Indians from the Apache, Chickasaw, Kiowa and Northern Cheyenne Nations. These are tribal representatives that speak with first hand knowledge of their peoples' treatment, the obstacles they themselves and others face and how they (but not all) have overcome the obstacles to achieve independence and even success. Through these interviews, the author manages to place the reader into the Indian's position and then to be able to experience their reactions, feelings and hopes. Every American would do well to read this book as it reveals another part of American's sad history where a minority was and continues to be mistreated".
Alicia Montgomery, GOOGLE BOOKS
.
It is a unique book - very informative and written with beautiful style.
I have learned a lot about the current situation of Native Americans, that I
never realized before. I wish we could do something more effective for them, to
give them some perspectives in life, opportunities, particularly those to earn
a living.
We owe Native Americans living on the remote reservations continue to live in poverty, ignored for years by the Federal Government. Our government always seems to be involved in other places and other countries business, not our own. Truly Open Wounds are still there.
We owe Native Americans living on the remote reservations continue to live in poverty, ignored for years by the Federal Government. Our government always seems to be involved in other places and other countries business, not our own. Truly Open Wounds are still there.
Bill Adams, Amazon
This is the most comprehensive and totally honest description of the
plight of Native Americans, or properly stated, INDIANS, that I have ever read.
There is a consistent thread teeing events & their consequences.
I did think the book was expensive for a soft cover.
Amazon is the place where even obscure or O.O.D. books can be found.
Keep The Faith!!
I did think the book was expensive for a soft cover.
Amazon is the place where even obscure or O.O.D. books can be found.
Keep The Faith!!
Gidier, Amazon
.
Who
would you rather be in your childhood: a cowboy or an Indian? It was always
cooler to be the good guy the hero, the victors just like in a movie, wasn’t
it? It is confirmed by a Chickasaw Indian, who the author conducted an
interview with, that no child has even wanted and still does not want to be an
Indian. Because in the movies it was cowboys who won, and the Indians who lost.
The image of a blood-thirsty Native American, robbing the trains and attacking
white settlers, copied over the centuries in the US, was finally brought homes
thanks to western movies. And what is our knowledge about the native
inhabitants of North America? About their life at the beginning of
colonization, about the times of brutal expansion to the West, about their
contemporary life? In the majority, it is based on what the television and the
cinema provide us with and these are usually only a few useful pieces of
information, because the issue of the American Indians does not belong to the popular
one. However, even if we are willing to learn more, even full of good
intentions, we can easily become tendentious, and as a result create an image
of the Native Americans similar to our Polish Cepelia (Folklore and Artistic
Manufacturing Center), surrender to our emotions, look from a perspective that
is far from an objective one. That is why the book by Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm is so important and so special. The author examined the
subject not only with passion and curiosity of a traveler, but also with a
journalistic professionalism. That is why her work allows us to see the life of
the Native Americans without the blind admiration that covers the mistakes made
by themselves. Their life is analyzed from different perspectives their own,
the whites, and the historic, economic and cultural one. Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm does not feel satisfied with only one answer, avoids Sunday
tourist simplicities, bores into the topic, conducts interviews, which we will
find in the book partly as a whole, partly in a form of anecdotes and
paraphrases. She allows us to enter the world of reservations, casinos, Indian
princesses, great chiefs and ordinary people. She refutes the myths, reveals
the crimes, analyzes the behind the scenes of battles, e.g. she writes about
the Native American wind-talkers a phenomenon the US have only recently learned
about. She makes the reader realize, how tremendous was the participation of
the American Indians in the creation of the United States and what the cost of
the civilization progress were. For us, the Poles, the book would be especially
interesting because of the lives of our country man Korczak Ziolkowski, who
participated in building of the sculpture of four American presidents, but
whose greatest work is the statue of Crazy Horse (the sculpture is being
continued by the family of the artist). Surely, careful readers will not miss
an interesting piece of information about what links Polish tar-makers,
Pocahontas and the first strike of the history of American working unions. It
will be difficult to close Americas Open Wound and put it back on the shelf
just like that the American Indians are still a living history, the present and
the future of the United States. And ours too as descendants of the European
colonists (and then immigrants) and as a humankind.
Blazej Bierczynski, Dancing with the Indians, ANGUS AND ROBERTSON 15/01/2012
Blazej Bierczynski, Dancing with the Indians, ANGUS AND ROBERTSON 15/01/2012
***
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm
ON THE ROAD WITH SUZY: FROM
CAT TO COMPANION
Purdue University Press, 2010
West Lafayette, Indiana
ISBN 978-1-55753-554-2
“I am a cat lover as well as a friend and admirer of Dr.Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm other fine publications and books.
I am sure that all animal lovers will find
it truly wonderful, and all thinking people, even if they hate cats, will
find it a profound, sensitive, insightful and funny book.
Dr. Aleksandra's understanding of cats,
and animals in general, goes beyond our common need for the
unconditional love we receive from our pets. It reaches into our deepest
feelings and spiritual needs in line with the Taoist and Buddhist
philosophy of wisdom and compassion: that the belief in an absolute
unity transcends all divergences, and all life is seen to be but forms of
the Primal One.”
Audrey Ronning
Topping /acclaimed author of six books and a prize-winning photojournalist/.
“Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boem should be highly commended for writing a book that conveys so
well the author’s appreciation and compassion for animals”.
Robert Ackerman
“I have always liked cats
admiring their grace, cleanliness and even their "quirks" that are
interesting to say the least. The wonderful story about the very special cat
Suzy gave me a new dimension of admiration for cats. Reciprocating with love,
devotion and faithfulness is a cat's reward for that given to them by humans.
The book by Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm is definitely a "good read". “
Carl Boehm
.
“I always like dogs and whole my life I had a one around me. Cats - in my
opinion - were too self absorbed and aloof. After reading "On the Road with
Suzy: From Cat to Companion" I decided to have a cat. Now, just one month
later, I am in love with him and became a great admirer of all cats. My cat is
very independent in a way that I respect him, but he is so loving and giving
that I love him. Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm did a miracle with me, and I am
very thankful! “
Bill Smart
Bill Smart
.
"Many
people would question Aleksandra's and her husband's decision to embark on a
2.5 months motor trip accompanied by their cat Suzy. Cats are generally
considered not to enjoy automobile transportation. Then, we learn about thus
special feline... calm, collected, warm, friendly; devoted and loving even
under what must have been trying situations. Surely, Suzy has to be remarkable,
unique and even brave to face challenges most cats never encounter. I can
understand how she became a focal point and an integral member of the family. I
wish Suzy many, many happy years.
What a beautiful book about the bond between a cat and humans!"
What a beautiful book about the bond between a cat and humans!"
Mary
Salkind, The Bond between a cat and humans, ALIBRIS, Sep. 10, 2010
.
“After reading "On the Road with Suzy" the first time, I
was left with the feeling of why and how could I have always disliked cats as
many others do. Surely, no one could dislike the sweet and loving Suzy. So, I
reread Aleksandra's book and came to the conclusion that the love, caring and
devotion she and her husband extended towards Suzy may have became a challenge
to her. Her qualities of affection and faithfulness were almost like those
of a dog but tempered a bit by the normal aloofness and pride of a cat.
However, when it was time to be affectionate, loving and faithful, Suzy
responded. She is a remarkable feline and most interesting to read about!”.
David Keller,
GOOGLE BOOKS
“If Suzy could talk and probably does
in cat language, I believe she would say to Aleksandra and Norman: "I
really love you for taking me in from stray status, for being with me during my
pregnancy and birth on my five beautiful kittens, for striving to find good
homes for my kittens because it was impossible to keep them, for always having
time for me and tolerating my cat quirks and antics, for caring for me in
sickness and in health, for always showing your love, affection and pride in me
(and bragging about me too). You two are truly cat people, co we are a
threesome"
This is a remarkable tale about a
wonderful cat! “. John Carr, ALIBRIS,
September 2010
“Doctor Aleksandra is an animal lover. Her compassion for her cat,
Suzy, makes this a book of discovery and adventure for all animal lovers.
Suzy found the Boehms, and stalking around their Houston
apartment, won their hearts and soon became a member of the family. She
accompanied them on trips either by auto or plane, a loving companion.
Aleksandra understood the need of compassion and love for animals,
and they related to her. A description of a long cross-country trip with
husband, Norman is hilarious, as they must make accommodations before and
during the trip. Suzy survives and explores her new surroundings in Delaware.
Later on Suzy even flies to Poland with her owners.
This is truly a couple who enjoy and deeply care for the welfare
of their animals”.
Florence Waszkelewicz Clowes, The
POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL, Boston, NY, September 2010
.
This book created a new feline heroine Suzy. Like other
known animals heroes , such as Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, she is a real and truly
remarkable creature. We observe her over a 13 years period - since as stray cat
she found herself the right couple - humans beings who welcomed her and who
made life changes for her addition to the family. Suzy accompanied them on
their trips, was in Indian territory for over two months, (and always stoic as
an Indian), oversees many times, in her lady friend Aleksandra's - country -
Poland.
She dedicated herself completely to that remarkable couple and enriched their lives.
This is truly an amazing story how humans and animals can fit into each other's lives and make a wonderful loving group.
Traveling with Suzy from Houston, Texas living in Wilmington, Delaware and traveling overseas is now part of the great literature about the animals and their bond with humans.
That book reminds me of RING OF THE BRIGHT WATER by Gavin Maxwell. Mr. Graham and his Mij the otter are truly remarkable like Suzy and her devoted couple Aleksandra and Norman.
Bill Adams, Amazon
She dedicated herself completely to that remarkable couple and enriched their lives.
This is truly an amazing story how humans and animals can fit into each other's lives and make a wonderful loving group.
Traveling with Suzy from Houston, Texas living in Wilmington, Delaware and traveling overseas is now part of the great literature about the animals and their bond with humans.
That book reminds me of RING OF THE BRIGHT WATER by Gavin Maxwell. Mr. Graham and his Mij the otter are truly remarkable like Suzy and her devoted couple Aleksandra and Norman.
Bill Adams, Amazon
What a
wonderful tale! Suzy, the homeless Texas cat, won the hearts of a caring couple
visiting her state. Their travels and experiences provide a heart warming
rendition of how a devoted feline and loving humans bond and the happiness each
brought to the other.
George
Mitchell,
What a
wonderful tale! Suzy, the homeless Texas cat, won the hearts of a caring couple
visiting her state. Their travels and experiences provide a heart warming
rendition of how a devoted feline and loving humans bond and the happiness each
brought to the other.
George Mitchell, ALIBRIS
The reader does not have to be
"cat person" to enjoy the heart-rending story of Suzy. Homeless, she
adopted a concerned couple as only a cat can. Always appreciative and devoted
to her new family, Suzy brought them untold happiness and joy in their travels
together.
Wonderful book!
Henry Albright, ALIBRIS
**
KAIA, HEROINE OF THE 1944 WARSAW UPRISING
Foreword: Bruce E. Johansen
Lexington Books, 2012, photos, notes, bibliography, 195 pp.
A moving and compelling account of
what heroism entails and what suffering can be endured for the sake of a higher
cause.
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, PhD, Author, National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, John Hopkins University and Center for Strategic and International Studies
In the clutter of books arguing the propriety of the Warsaw Rising, whether it should have taken place or not; in the avalanche of statistics and strategies, the flesh and blood people who lived through the heroic trauma are often overlooked. Ziólkowska-Boehm is a fine writer in the grand tradition of reportage established in Poland by her mentor, Melchior Wankowicz and her friend, Ryszard Kapuscinski. This sensitive and moving portrayal of Kaia deserves a place on the same shelf with Miron Bialoszewski's inimitable Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising.
— Charles S. Kraszewski, Kings College and The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences
In pages of striking contrast, Kaia moves from a colorful, nearly idyllic life by Polish exiles in southern Siberia earlier in the last century to the graphic horrors of Nazified Poland—and then to the moving aftermath of loss and recovery.
— Stanley Weintraub, author of "The Last Great Victory: The End of World War II, July–August 1945"
Kaia’s memories, excellently recorded and commented on by Aleksandra Ziólkowska-Boehm, give the story of her happy childhood and early architectural work in interwar Poland; her active resistance to Nazi occupation; Soviet imprisonment; and of her part, as an architect, in the rebuilding of Warsaw in postwar communist Poland. It is also the story of her husband, Marek Szymanski, deputy to Major 'Hubal,' commander of a Polish Army unit, who refused to surrender in September 1939. Hubal’s Cross of Military Valor served Kaia both as a talisman for survival—and as a key link to her marriage. This is a 'must read' for all those interested in the history of World War II as it played out in a country fatefully placed between Germany and Russia.
— Anna M. Cienciala, University of Kansas
I read Kaia, Heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising, I always believed that Siberia was only a terrible place of suffering and dying, where very few of the expelled people survived the primitive conditions and harsh climate. For me, it was an eye opener to read about the role played by exiled Poles in places like Irkutsk and other Siberian cities and about those who went there voluntarily to participate in the building of the trans-Siberian railroad, as well as numerous Poles who became prominent Russian scientists, engineers, and writers. Kaia’s description of her heroic actions is so lively and masterfully presented that I felt like I was going with her from place to place, witnessing the wounding and death of several fighters and following Kaia through the underground canals. I liked very much the large number of photographs of participants.
— Karl Maramorosch, Rutgers University
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, PhD, Author, National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, John Hopkins University and Center for Strategic and International Studies
In the clutter of books arguing the propriety of the Warsaw Rising, whether it should have taken place or not; in the avalanche of statistics and strategies, the flesh and blood people who lived through the heroic trauma are often overlooked. Ziólkowska-Boehm is a fine writer in the grand tradition of reportage established in Poland by her mentor, Melchior Wankowicz and her friend, Ryszard Kapuscinski. This sensitive and moving portrayal of Kaia deserves a place on the same shelf with Miron Bialoszewski's inimitable Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising.
— Charles S. Kraszewski, Kings College and The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences
In pages of striking contrast, Kaia moves from a colorful, nearly idyllic life by Polish exiles in southern Siberia earlier in the last century to the graphic horrors of Nazified Poland—and then to the moving aftermath of loss and recovery.
— Stanley Weintraub, author of "The Last Great Victory: The End of World War II, July–August 1945"
Kaia’s memories, excellently recorded and commented on by Aleksandra Ziólkowska-Boehm, give the story of her happy childhood and early architectural work in interwar Poland; her active resistance to Nazi occupation; Soviet imprisonment; and of her part, as an architect, in the rebuilding of Warsaw in postwar communist Poland. It is also the story of her husband, Marek Szymanski, deputy to Major 'Hubal,' commander of a Polish Army unit, who refused to surrender in September 1939. Hubal’s Cross of Military Valor served Kaia both as a talisman for survival—and as a key link to her marriage. This is a 'must read' for all those interested in the history of World War II as it played out in a country fatefully placed between Germany and Russia.
— Anna M. Cienciala, University of Kansas
I read Kaia, Heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising, I always believed that Siberia was only a terrible place of suffering and dying, where very few of the expelled people survived the primitive conditions and harsh climate. For me, it was an eye opener to read about the role played by exiled Poles in places like Irkutsk and other Siberian cities and about those who went there voluntarily to participate in the building of the trans-Siberian railroad, as well as numerous Poles who became prominent Russian scientists, engineers, and writers. Kaia’s description of her heroic actions is so lively and masterfully presented that I felt like I was going with her from place to place, witnessing the wounding and death of several fighters and following Kaia through the underground canals. I liked very much the large number of photographs of participants.
— Karl Maramorosch, Rutgers University
*
“It was an eye opener to read about the Poles in
Siberia, their lives and descriptions of the country--so different from my
pre-conceived ideas. The world is such a cruel place and so many people have
lived through so much. I realized once again how fortunate I have been in
life--born and raised in Canada--where I have never suffered from hunger, war
and occupation. But I almost envied Kaia and her friends the great comradery,
the sharing of a pot of soup, a bed, a place of refuge-- a common cause where
they were willing to risk everything for the freedom of their city and
country-- but sadly at great sacrifices. Kaia is a story that deserves to be
told. Stories such as this--and there are thousands, will soon be lost with the
passing of time. Thank you Alexandra for keeping her's alive.”
- Marina Glista, Missisauga, Ontario, Canada
*
“In the extraordinary, finely detailed story of Cezaria
(“Kaia”) Iljin we see Poland’s history in personal microcosm. Like Alex Haley’s Roots, this is much more than a personal memoir. It is the story of
a people. For this reason, Kaia has received a wide readership and warm reviews
in Poland, where the oral history of World War II and events that Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm describes are well-remembered. People there understand
innately certain things that bear explaining to an American audience, even,
sometimes, to the many Polish-Americans who have been “Americanized.”
(…) First, the scale of the horror and suffering
will strike many Americans like a blow. Some of us may recall a glancing
reference from a movie, perhaps The
Pianist. Poland, a primary field of battle in World War II, left about a
quarter of the nation’s population dead. Americans as a whole lack personal
references to such a holocaust – perhaps the Cherokee Trail of Tears, during
which a quarter of a nation (4,000 of 16,000) also died, multiplied several
hundred times (about six million Poles died) or the accumulated suffering of
slaves shipped from Africa for more than two centuries, a quarter of whom also
died in the Middle Passage.
Kaia’s story is full to the brim with the essentials of diaspora – of
many peoples’ lives being directed by events larger than oneself from home to
temporary home, with prison camps between.
Warsaw was ruined three times during World War II – by the German
blitzkrieg moving eastward in 1939, then again as the front moved westward in
1945, and, in between, by the Germans in retribution for the two-month-long
Warsaw Rrising of 1944, as the Gestapo also carried out Hitler’s orders to
eradicate the carriers of Polish knowledge and culture. This followed the razing of the Jewish ghetto
of Warsaw (once home to half a million people) during May, 1943, following its
own uprising on the eve of Passover.
Secondly, anyone who knows the least
about the history of Poland knows that the Poles have been victims of arrogant
and militaristic neighbors – most notably the Russians, and, during World War
II, the Germans under the Nazis. This, plus the fact that Poland is a nation of
poets and musicians (who else has named its largest airport after a composer, Frédéric Chopin?) This may have left
an impression that the Poles have been passive through centuries of
oppression. This is not true in the
least. The Germans forbade the playing of Chopin, fearing that the music would,
as Ziolkowska-Boehm remarks, “stir up the Polish spirit.” The playing of Chopin
was punishable by death. The death camps were for Poles (and other
non-Germans), as well as Jews. Kaia’s brother Modest died in Auschwitz during
1941. Before that, when one German soldier demanded his documents, Modest had
announced: “I am a Hubal partisan, you Kraut!”
Kaia’s story belies the stereotype of Polish passivity.
She witnessed the obliteration of Warsaw while maintaining a safe house for
insurgents during the war, in memory of
Henryk Dobrzanski (who assumed the nom
de guerre Hubal, perhaps the
most exemplary of early anti-German Polish insurgent leaders during World War
II). While this name requires explanation to an American audience, Poles have
named many schools and parks after him. A movie has been made about Hubal and
his underground army. Once inside Kaia’s
safe house, insurgents could always find delicious soup to eat and a welcoming
mattress. Between times, Kaia and her
cohort sometimes sought solace in the countryside, where “They drank goat’s
milk and read Voltaire” – and, no doubt, played recordings of Chopin.
Ziolkowska-Boehm writes that Kaia and her compatriots
moving under Warsaw in the sewers, watching and waiting for the Gestapo,
listening for boot-clicks above, as Germans dumped hand grenades into
manholes. The author remarks at one
point that if the Warsaw Rising had not been organized, the Poles would have
exploded in rage: “The atmosphere in the city was pregnant with revolt.” If the Polish Home Army – the insurgents –
killed one German soldier, the Nazis would shoot ten Polish passersby at
random.
My first host in Poland, Jakub Piechota, during 2005
greeted my naïve description of Poland’s peaceful transition from
Soviet-imposed socialism with a forbearing smile, and then reminded me, with
dates, Poles in the thousands who had given their lives during the country’s
many journeys to freedom. Each sacrifice spilled someone’s blood -- personal, painful, and searing in memory – as
with a friend of Kaia’s, Jurek Pujkiewicz, crushed to death during the last
days of World War II in the collapse of the bombed-out Warsaw Stock Exchange,
surviving in agony for several days. After a Canadian fighter plane was shot
down above Krasinski Square, “The pilot burned along with his machine. [Kaia]
helplessly watched it in pain, powerless to do anything.” She watched as another
man’s head, severed by a tank’s shell, bounced down a flight of stairs.
The third aspect of this story that
will surprise many Americans is the attachment of the Poles to the Roman
Catholic Church, which over centuries became a refuge from oppression and a
conduit of culture and language that was being repressed by outsiders whose
nations wiped Poland from the map. Once again, Americans have no historical
parallel – our founders warned against oppression by churches intertwined with
state power. Our diversity demands tolerance for a world of faiths.
Many Americans, even some Catholics, disagree with
the policies of a church that prescribes personal behavior vis a vis abortion, birth control, and other matters. Appreciate
Poland in Polish terms, however, to understand the role of the Church, and the
continuing popularity of John Paul II, the Polish Pope. Understand that, alone
among the Soviet bloc, the churches never closed in Poland, even under Stalin.
I once asked Jakub why the Soviets never closed the churches. “They would not
have dared,” was his reply. I was teaching as a guest at the Catholic
University of Lublin at the time, John Paul’s academic home for a quarter
century before he was called to Rome. Alone among universities under Soviet
influence, “the KUL” had retained its independence. Stalin once asked, in an attempt to
demonstrate his power, how many troops the Pope commanded. John Paul II
answered him.
Hubal’s Virtuti Militari Cross
demonstrates this unique union of church and state in Polish history. Kaia
carried the cross throughout her life after it was left with her during May,
1940, after Hubal was killed in combat, and at times shielded it with her life,
once in a hollow of her boot heel while marching to a Soviet prison camp after the war, where her weight dropped
to 84 pounds. The Poles now were faced with occupation by the Soviets, their
new Constitution edited by Stalin himself. Churches often hosted schools that
were forbidden under both the Germans and the Soviets. The independent Catholic
University of Lublin also was a center of resistance to occupation – and, to
this day, part of its budget is allocated from tax money. Most Poles see
nothing wrong in such an arrangement, which would be illegal in the United
States. Most are, in fact, proud of it.
Reading Kaia’s personal story weaves these historical threads into one
cloth, with powerful narrative and imagery. It is at once tender and taut.
Poles remember her – and Americans should, as well. Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm
will take you there, put you down on the streets of Warsaw, and open your eyes.”
Prof. Bruce E.
Johansen, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Author. Introduction
Cont. REVIEWS:
*
Ziolkowska-Boehm has provided
a fascinating biography of a young woman, beginning with her simple childhood
in a small town of Djungaria, near the Russian-Chinese border of the Altai
Mountains. People have lived there for centuries, still in yurts, drinking
camels’ milk or delicious tea flavored with sheep grease. Kaia spent much of
her time roaming in their large estate and extended family.
This childhood was soon
destroyed, when Djungaria was overtaken by the Bolsheviks in 1921. Some of the
Polish families returned to Poland, others stayed. Kaia and her family began
their year-long journey, first to Barnaul, then Moscow and finally Bialystok.
The family settled on a vast property on the outskirts of town, with two wooden
houses, gardens and vast fields. Many ethnic groups lived side by side, with
Polish organizations, such as the Falcons, and colorful festivals held
throughout the year. By 1933 Kaia had graduated from school in Vilnius and
entered the Architecture Department of the Warsaw Polytechnic School, where her
brother was already a student.
During the 1930s Poland was
just beginning to develop its Second Republic and identity. Erased from the map
for more than 100 years, the task was daunting. By 1939 Kaia had completed her
studies and written her thesis, but was unable to progress further, when her
academic advisor died as war broke out. Poland was attacked on both sides, and
soon the Soviets had prepared a list of compulsory removal of Poles. Kaia and
her friend, Dzida, were able to escape to a railroad station and eventually
Zamosc. She was told Polish military officers were being arrested by the
Germans. Papers needed to be prepared and civilian clothing found. Thus began
Kaia’s life of the underworld, preparing ID cards with seals and photographs,
switching to sewing pajamas whenever the Germans approached. Shortly after, the
girls returned to Warsaw and to the school apartment, now in shambles. She was
able to obtain work with a company helping with the reconstruction of destroyed
buildings. Underground schools were established when Polish was banned from the
German controlled schools. The Polish secret educational network was a unique
form of resistance seen nowhere else in Europe. Kaia’s apartment became a
meeting place for resistance workers to gather. There was always a pot of warm
soup for the exhausted workers.
Kaia was able to visit her
parents, Bronislawa and Modest Iljin who were ordered to move to the small
village of Ostashki, which was taken over by first the Soviets and Germans, and
lastly, the Soviets again. Modest was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where he
died in February, 1941. In 1943 Kaia was assigned to monitor the covert
training in sabotage techniques. It included providing explosives, maps and
other instructional materials. She was responsible for the safety of the
instructors and cadets, and safe escape for the participants.
At the outbreak of the Warsaw
Uprising Kaia provides a vivid description of the valor, fright and bravery of
the workers. For 63 days they fought, avoiding death at all costs. Some were
not that successful, with many slaughtered on the streets or tortured in jail.
These interviews were provided to the author many years later, but still vivid
in Kaia’s mind. She is even able to provide humor in the grotesque conditions.
The People’s Republic of
Poland was established in 1945, but a state subordinate to Soviet Russia. Many
trials were held, in full mockery of justice, resulting in deaths or life
imprisonment.
This book provides a personal
view of the struggle of Poland and its people to overcome the horrors of war.
Kaia is a symbol of hope for the future of Poland—her undaunted faith in the
freedom of man, her bravery in helping others and her love of life. A heartfelt
book.
Florence Waszkelewicz Clowes, A Vivid Description Valor and Bravery, Books
in Brief, POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL, September 2012, pg. 15
*
“The book opens with Kaia’s childhood in Siberia, and here the reader is in for a surprise. Siberia, it is revealed, is more than a land of prisons and slave camps. It is a vast country of great beauty, rich in natural resources, and many Poles went there when Poland was still partitioned in search of a better life. Better educated than the local population, they established thriving communities, owned successful farms and other enterprises, and many Polish engineers worked on the Trans-Siberian Railway. True, for decades, the Tsarist regime had exiled thousands of Poles to this distant land and the exiles, once freed from confinement and still not permitted to return to Poland, found solace among their fellow countrymen.
The violence and ideology of the Russian revolution put an end to all that and the Poles fled back to their homeland, freed by Piłsudski’s Legions at the end of WWI. The weeks-long train journey home is an adventure in itself, and finally Kaia’s family settles near Wilno (Vilnius). Families are reunited, adults establish new homes, children resume school. Kaia gifted both academically and artistically, chooses architecture for her career. A bright future awaits her and her interesting, animated, highly motivated friends.
In September of 1939 all that came comes to an end. The double invasion by Germans and Russians, the cruelty under occupation, the dangers of underground resistance, and finally the horror and brutality of the 1944 Rising. Finally? Their ordeal was far from over. As the Germans retreated the Soviets entered, bringing their second reign of terror with them. Both occupiers focused on destroying the best and brightest, and so it continued. Kaia, and her surviving friends were once again hounded, arrested and sent to the gulag. And yet, she and her husband, Marek Szymanski, returned to a Warsaw in ruins and set to work to rebuild it. They had time for neither hatred nor self-pity. They worked, they traveled, and they enjoyed life, remembering everything but living very much in the present.
(…) Note also the social history implicit in the narrative. The friendships and the collegiality of the young men and women, the unquestioned equality, their mutual respect and affection; the value attached to education; the high spirits combined with a strong will; the love of freedom and the commitment to their society. It was a very special generation and Kaia is an inspiring example of it.
“Christoph Mick praises a very personal and moving testimony”.
This is a very personal
book, first published in Polish in 2006. The author, Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm, tells the story of Cezaria Ilyin Szymańska, a personal friend
who participated in the Warsaw Rising of 1944. Kaia is the name under which the
heroine is known to her friends. The idea of writing about Kaia’s life can be
traced back to conversations and an exchange of letters between the author and
her heroine.
The author has combined
quotes from letters with passages in which she retells what she heard from Kaia
herself. The author uses a collage technique (following the example of Ryszard
Kapuścinski) and a ‘mosaic method’ developed by her teacher, the Polish writer
Melchior Wańkowicz. Ziolkowska-Boehm also makes use of quotes from other
testimonies and from historical literature. The book has 37 chapters, many of
them only a few pages long. The chapters consist of thematically arranged
stories and reminiscences or summaries of Kaia’s impressions of places she
lived at or visited during different periods of her life. A considerable part
of the book does not deal with the Warsaw Uprising but with Kaia's life, family
and friends before and after the war. These chapters contain numerous comments
by the author and sometimes include extensive quotes from books on Polish
history.
Kaia’s story – as unusual
as it appears to be at first glance – is a typically Polish story. She was born
on 2 April 1916 in the small town of Zaysan (today in Kazakhstan) in the
western part of Djungaria not far from the Altai Mountains. She and her family
were not the only Poles in the region. In the 19th century the Russian
government deported many Poles to Siberia or Central Asia as a punishment for
socialist or patriotic activities. After the turn of the century a growing
number of Poles also had economic motives for emigrating to the north and east
of the Russian Empire. One of these economic emigrants was Kaia’s maternal
grandfather Bolesław Szemiot, who found employment in Djungaria as an engineer
building roads and bridges. Kaia’s father, Modest Iljin, was a student at St.
Petersburg University who was sent to Siberia because of his underground
activities. Kaia’s parents married in 1908 and Cezaria was born as their second
child.
After the October
Revolution the family continued to live in Djungaria and lived out the years of
the First World War and the Russian civil war there. Ziolkowsa-Boehm recounts a
few anecdotes from Kaia’s early childhood during these troublesome times. By
1922 life under Bolshevik rule had become unbearable and the family decided to
leave for Poland. This was easier said than done and it proved to be a very
long journey. The family travelled by train and it took almost a year before
they arrived in Białystok where they settled. The following chapters tell of
Kaia’s experiences at school and include reminiscences of Kazakhstan and her
youth together with a short chapter on animals and their importance in Kaia’s
life and that of her family. How these stories are remembered many decades
later gives an interesting insight into the processes of remembering and
forgetting. Childhood memories are often very vivid while memories of later
events often fade away quickly. This can also be seen here. The reader learns
much more about Kaia's early years than about her life as a young adult.
The main part of the book
deals with the Second World War and the German occupation of Poland. Ziolkowska-Boehm
does not offer any deep analysis of the reasons and consequences of the Warsaw
Uprising. The author quotes some of the research literature but there is a
greater focus on quotes taken from the testimonies of participants of the
Uprising and linking these comments to Kaia’s own recollections. Kaia’s
resistance initially consisted of attending courses held by the underground
university. Later she participated in the Uprising and worked as a messenger, a
very dangerous role as it entailed helping the different groups of insurgents
to keep in contact with each other. Always at risk of being shot by German
soldiers or caught in crossfire she risked her life more than once, and all the
stories show her to be a very brave woman. These chapters do not exclusively
focus on Kaia. They also attest to the heroism of her fellow insurgents, also
containing a portrait of Kaia's later husband Marek Szymański and descriptions
of friends and acquaintances, interspersed with anecdotes demonstrating the
commitment of the insurgents. Marek Szymański had been a captain in the unit of
Major Henryk Dobrzański (code name: Hubal) who commanded the last regular unit
of the Polish Army still fighting Nazi Germany in the autumn of 1939. Hubal
also formed the first underground unit which resumed the fight against the
occupiers. Ziolkowsa-Boehm praises the heroism of this unit and of its leader
Major Hubal who died fighting against the German occupiers on 30 April 1940.
Marek Szymański took over the command of the Hubal partisans until the unit was
dissolved in June. Szymański was later highly decorated for his role in the
Polish Army and in the resistance against Nazi Germany. One leitmotif of the
book is the story of the Virtuti Militari order previously awarded to Major Dobrzański.
It was Kaia's task to guard the order and she managed to keep it safe during
the Uprising and during her time as a Soviet prisoner.
After the defeat of the
Uprising Kaia fled Warsaw but she was soon arrested by agents of the Soviet
People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (abridged in Russian as NKVD). She
was brought to NKVD Camp 41 in Ostashkov where she remained imprisoned until
1946.
The last part of the book
covers life in Communist Poland. After she was released Kaia returned to Warsaw
where she worked as an architect on the reconstruction of the city. She wanted
to lead a normal life, and the book tells about her travels and her work, but
also shows how badly former non-Communist resistance fighters were treated.
Their resistance against Nazi Germany was marginalised, although it survived in
the memory of those who had lived through those difficult times. Kaia’s husband
Marek remained loyal to Major Hubal even in Communist Poland. He saw it as his
task to preserve Hubal’s memory.
The book includes a number
of black-and-white photographs, many of them from Kaia's personal collection.
There are two appendices at the end of the book. Appendix one consists of short
quotes about Siberia by people who were there but also by Americans who were
asked what they knew about Siberia. It is not clear how these quotes or the
subsequent quotes about the Warsaw Uprising were collected. The quotes from
Americans without Polish roots indicate the lack of historical knowledge about
Poland’s fate during the Second World War.
The book tries to preserve
as much of Kaia’s life as possible for posterity and is also a celebration of
Polish heroism and a testimony to Polish suffering. The decision to start the
Uprising is not criticised but is presented as the result of a decision taken
by the resistance fighters themselves. Like Kaia, the author does not question
whether the Uprising made political or military sense but views the Uprising as
a natural event, not unlike a volcanic eruption. She is right to point out that
a
posteriori criticism often does not take
contemporary circumstances and the explosive mood in Warsaw sufficiently into
account. There are some good arguments in support of the opinion that the
Uprising would have happened anyway, with or without the approval of the local
command of the Home Army and without the consent of the government-in-exile.
This, however, misses the point. One of the main problems of the Uprising was
its timing – it came too early. The German forces were still too strong.
Starting the Uprising in August 1944 was also a political decision. The command
of the Home Army and the government-in-exile wanted to liberate Warsaw before
the arrival of Soviet troops as they hoped to improve the Polish position in
the negotiations with Britain, France, the USA and the Soviet Union. However,
the aim of the book is not to participate in these historiographical debates.
Ziolkowska-Boehm has created a moving testimony to her friend, whose biography
is woven into the history of Poland in the 20th century. The Polish original
won the literature prize of the Association of Polish Writers Abroad (London)
in 2007.
Dr Christoph Mick, REVIEWS IN HISTORY, University of Warwick,
University of London, March 21, 2013
Cont. ON INTERNET:
*
Every so often, a true story is better than
fiction. This is one of them. Born with an indomitable spirit, courage,
determination and will to make the best of circumstances, Kaia was able to go
through life accepting all challenges. A challenge did not phase her or deter
her…she overcame it. Her strengths carried her through any and all
obstacles…the harsh winters of Siberia, achievement of an architectural
education, soldiering gallantly against the German occupants of her country,
twice wounded heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising, rebellious prisoner of the
Russian NKVD, and a participant in the rebuilding of Warsaw. After a lifetime
of challenge, Kaia lived to see Poland free and independent. Any reader will
come away from this book with an admiration for a woman who was a true patriot
of Poland ready to sacrifice her life for her country. Kaia’s story could make
a great movie!
Robert R.Robinson
from Annapolis, MD, June 19, 2012. overstock.com
*
I read Kaia, Heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising
to help me in my research with an historical fiction novel I'm writing about
the scouts in Warsaw who helped during the RIsing. Kaia helped provide more
first-hand information on the Rising. For those interested in this time period,
and in reading about people who lived through it, Kaia provides a good
resource. I also appreciated the pictures in the book. These were pictures I
hadn't seen before online or in other books. I also appreciated the fact that
Kaia was written by someone who lived and studied in Poland, and understands
events from a Polish point of view, but who has also lived and worked in the
United States. Writing about cross-cultural events always rings more true when
written by someone who has experienced life in both cultures.
Mesontag, 25
September 2012 Amazon.com
*
I
read KAIA HEROINE OF THE 1944 WARSAW RISING. She would have had a fascinating
story even without the war! Imagine the changes in Poland to which she was a
witness over her remarkable live span. A remarkable story well told!
Patrick Wahl, Amazon.com
Patrick Wahl, Amazon.com
*
KAIA HEROINE OF THE 1944 WARSAW RISING shows an
extraordinary life under extreme and harsh circumstances. I am surprise I have
not heard about the Warsaw Rising 1944 - that was so bravely and so costly. All
I have heard was about the year earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Thanks to the
book, I am aware of this special heroic event in Polish history.
This is real life history that flows like is happening now. The book is costly but worth every dollar of its cost.
This is real life history that flows like is happening now. The book is costly but worth every dollar of its cost.
John Mensch.
Powell's Books, March 6, 2013
*
The book was purchased by the library I belong to and I
just read it. I am Polish origin a few generations back and I find more and
more interest in European history. The difference between the author of the
book and her heroine is around 35 years, so it is amazing how the young friend
described her elderly friend in the book - with kindness and dignity. Also
amazing in the end of the book are voices of many about the 1944 Warsaw
Uprsing. The majority of people know about the Jewish Ghetto Rising in 1943,
not knowing about 1944. In my opinion it is why the title was stressed, to be
not confused.
1marco2, Overstock,
Miami, Florida, Mar 6, 2013
*
This is real life history that flows like it is happening now. I started the book and could not stop reading. The book is worth every dollar of its cost.
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm:
The Polish Experience through World War II A Better Day Has Not Come
Foreword: Neal Pease
Lexington Books, Lanham, MD,
2013
ISBN 978-0-7391-7819-5
“A remarkable and highly personal account of
the human suffering the victims of both Hitlerism and Stalinism had to endure …
beyond comprehension of most Americans.”
Zbigniew Brzezinski, PhD,
Author, National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, John Hopkins University and Center for
Strategic and International Studies
“Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm has written on a wide
variety of subjects. But she writes with particular feeling when describing, as
she does in this new book, the heroism and suffering of Poles during the Second
World War. These are stories that must be told -- and she tells them very well,
indeed”.
-Stanley Cloud and Lynne
Olson, authors of A Question of Honor: The Kościuszko Squadron -- Forgotten
Heroes of World War II.
“In World War II the
Poles suffered oppression and murder from both Nazi Germany and the USSR ,
which attacked their country and divided
it between them in September 1939.
The Wartanowicz and Michalak families were deported from former eastern
Poland to Soviet labor camps near Archangel or farms in Kazakhstan. Freed after
the German attack on the USSR, they left in 1942 with the Anders Army for
Persia (Iran) and then scattered all over the world. Reserve Captain, Pilot Witold Krasicki was
shot by the Soviets in spring 1940, along with thousands of Polish POWs and
other prisoners. His family survived the German occupation in Warsaw, including
the two-month Polish Home Army uprising against the Germans in 1944. Wanda
Ossowska worked for the Polish resistance, survived brutal Nazi torture, three
Nazi death camps, and risked her life to save a Jewish girl. In the
author's interviews with the survivors
and their relatives, they tell their poignant stories with vivid, personal
memories of wartime life and death, as
well as their lives in postwar Communist Poland
or elsewhere. We should be grateful to Aleksandra
Ziolkowska-Boehm who has saved these memories
for us.”
- Anna M. Cienciala, University of Kansas
These accounts of Polish family life in Russian and German camps
during World War II describe people subsisting on weeds and horse heads, living
sometimes in pig sties. Children watch as fathers and mothers wither and die
amidst “the calm of terror.” Bodies are thrown out of running trains. Prisoners
shiver in the intense cold of long winters, always hungry, amidst bedbugs that
somehow survive even the coldest nights. Meet Wanda Ossowska, interrogated 57
times by the Gestapo, tortured “to the limits of her endurance,” refusing to
name names. It’s another time, another world, “the true valleys of death,” when
even hospitals were “houses for dying”—genocide one by one, or by the thousands
(as in the Katyn massacre). These evocative, descriptive accounts become
terrifyingly haunting and personally intimate.
— Bruce E. Johansen, University of Nebraska at Omaha
An unforgettable picture of the martyrdom of women and children sent from Poland behind the Urals. A powerful work of art that should be read and re-read.
— Karl Maramorosch, Rutgers University
— Bruce E. Johansen, University of Nebraska at Omaha
An unforgettable picture of the martyrdom of women and children sent from Poland behind the Urals. A powerful work of art that should be read and re-read.
— Karl Maramorosch, Rutgers University
“Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm tells stories that are the substance of history and of dreams. She tells the stories of individuals who are both ordinary and heroic…The book is an easy read in spite of its spellbinding intensity.”
-Ewa Thompson, Rice University
“I particularly liked Joanna's story - she is truly
a remarkable person to have experienced genuine human evil, and still keep the
capacity to appreciate and recognize the goodness in most people!
I agree with Professor Pease in that most readers
(especially Americans) will be familiar with the main historical events of the
period, but they cannot appreciate what it would be like to have actually
experienced this first hand. The stories from the people you have written about
can help us do that.
You have written a very important book that will
help satisfy a public need here.
Let us all hope that a better day has now dawned
for Poland!”
-Robert Ackerman, New
Alexandria, PA June 11, 2013
.
Dear Aleksandra:
A million thanks for sending a copy of your great and so well written
book. It is an often painful but always inspiring read. You are fantastic! Your
courageous research must have been terribly difficult but so important for the
readers to understand the true grit, bravery and ingenuity of the Polish
characters you chose to show the touching, enormous and incredible human
sacrifices during the tragic events.
My book: CHINA MISSION: A PERSONAL HISTORY FROM IMPERIAL CHINA TO THE
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC (LSU Press) deals with some similar events. It will be out in
October and I will send you a copy.
Much love and admiration
Your friend Audrey
-Audrey Topping,
NY, June 18, 2013
**
MELCHIOR WANKOWICZ
Meticulously
researched, innovative and challenging, as well as written in a pleasant style,
it is a trustworthy, really indispensable, guide to the great writer, and his
writings. In her objective scholarly
base of sources, and in her unique subjective perspective on the writer she
knew and admired, Ziółkowska-Boehm gets it right
Prof. Charles S. Kraszewski,
King’s College, Pennsylvania
Dr. Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm has written an excellent book on
her master and guru, Melchior Wankowicz (1892-1974). Generally recognized as an
unsurpassed master of literary journalism, he had set high standards for that
type of writing, distinguishing himself with his 3 vols. study "Monte
Cassino" (1945), dealing with a major victory of Polish troops in WW II.
Serving as Wankowicz's associate for two plus years, she has become an expert
on her subject, and aptly demonstrated how much she has learned from her
master. The book, written with her elegant style, sparkled with anecdotes and
humor, may very well serve as a perfect example of a modern Polish contribution
to American literary studies.
- Jerzy Krzyzanowski, Ohio State University
I found this book fascinating and delightful. Ziolkowska-Boehm recorded with freshness and directness her memories of one of Poland's greatest writers. This is clearly a great book.
- Karl Maramorosch, Rutgers University
Wankowicz combined first class literary writing with outstanding reportage. He was a free spirit, going against the tide of émigré opinion by returning to then communist Poland for good in 1958. But he also protested publicly, with other writers, against communist repression of Polish culture in March 1964 — after which he was briefly imprisoned and put on trial on rigged charges. Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm, a prolific author herself, and Wankowicz’s secretary in the last years of his life, has written a fine, documented account of this extraordinary individual and his writings.
- Jerzy Krzyzanowski, Ohio State University
I found this book fascinating and delightful. Ziolkowska-Boehm recorded with freshness and directness her memories of one of Poland's greatest writers. This is clearly a great book.
- Karl Maramorosch, Rutgers University
Wankowicz combined first class literary writing with outstanding reportage. He was a free spirit, going against the tide of émigré opinion by returning to then communist Poland for good in 1958. But he also protested publicly, with other writers, against communist repression of Polish culture in March 1964 — after which he was briefly imprisoned and put on trial on rigged charges. Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm, a prolific author herself, and Wankowicz’s secretary in the last years of his life, has written a fine, documented account of this extraordinary individual and his writings.
-Anna M. Cienciala,
University of Kansas
An intimate portrait of Wankowicz, the writer, public figure,
family man, and one-time prisoner of the Communist regime. Important documents
accompany the narrative.
- Piotr Wandycz, Yale University
- Piotr Wandycz, Yale University
Melchior
Wańkowicz was a prominent journalist and
reporter, but he was more than that. Whether writing about Polish revolutionaries
at the end of the nineteenth century, Polonia in America, or armed struggles
during the Second World War by partisans at home and Anders army at Monte
Casinno, Wańkowicz gave the reader unique insides into Polish recent past. His
cicle of books has been compared to a vast panorama.
-Piotr S. Wandycz, Professor of History Yale Univ
*
LOVE FOR FAMILY FRIENS AND BOOKS
Some fragments are
almost like a movie with interesting dialog, compelling moments and realistic
characters.
The autobiography presents the author’s recollections of her childhood, school and university years, travels abroad, and contacts and meetings with recognized people of achievement in the fields of writing, art, theater and politics.
The autobiography presents the author’s recollections of her childhood, school and university years, travels abroad, and contacts and meetings with recognized people of achievement in the fields of writing, art, theater and politics.
The book clearly demonstrates the author’s ability to write openly about
personal matters, family and socializing among the intelligentsia.
Polish life, immigrant stories and impressions and experiences of life
in Canada and the United States are supplemented by keen observations of
European, Canadian and American cultures. The many family, friends and
acquaintances of the author become personal to the reader. But most intriguing
of them is the famed Polish writer Melchior Wankowicz whose influence and
mentoring are acknowledged, deeply appreciated, praised and never forgotten by
the author.
John
Knowles, amazon.com March 3, 2018
*
I sent the copy of your book to mamma's archive at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut where all paper concurring her is kept.
Isabella Rossellini, August 3, 2015
*
.The book was so interesting I could hardly put it down. Ingrid was indeed a very beautiful woman, and a strong one with what she had to through.
Ruth Grabner, Washington, NJ, August 28, 2015
*
UNTOLD STORIES OF POLISH HEROES FROM WORLD WAR II
(Lanham, Md. : Hamilton Books, 2018)
"Aleksandra is a marvelous, erudite writer with a keen eye for human interest and justice issues. Among the great Polish practitioners of reportage."
Professor Charles Kraszewski, King’s College, Pennsylvania
INGRID BERGMAN AND HER AMERICAN RELATIVES
“Ingrid will be best remembered for her part in
“Casablanca”, staring with Humphrey Bogart in 1942. It was one of the many
films, plays and TV documentaries she acted in during her lifetime. She lived
to act, saying she left her shyness behind when she stepped on the stage. As a
tall, sensuous and beautiful Swedish woman, she began acting early in life, in
London, Paris, America and Sweden. She won many awards, including three Oscars,
during her lifetime. The book describes the relationship with her American
relatives, the Boehm. Cousin Norman Boehm visited with her during her lifetime.
Correspondence between Aunt Blenda Boehm, her son Carl and grandson Norman
reveal the nature of the actress. The author, Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm did
not meet, but research and family contacts with Ingrid bring her to life.
Ingrid’s first marriage to Peter Lindstrom ended in bitter
divorce over the child, Pia, all this happening while Ingrid was pregnant with
Roberto Rossellini’s child. (After her divorce she married Rossellini and later
had three more children with him.) This caused a huge scandal, with Senator
Edwin C. Johnson denouncing her on the floor of the Senate. She was finally
forgiven 22 years later, in 1975. The Rossellini marriage ended in 1957 when
Rossellini became involved with another woman. Later Ingrid marries Lars
Schmidt, a marriage which lasted for 17 years.
Ingrid maintained close contact with her children (they did
not live with her as Rossellini had custody of the children), stopping work for
18 months to stay with her daughter Isabella when she had serious surgery. She
also maintained contact with the Boehms and other family members; much of the
correspondence is provided here.
Bergman was diagnosed with cancer in 1974 and struggled with
it, continuing to act until she became too weak. She died on August 30, 12982,
at the age of 67. She will be remembered as a beautiful actress, and a warm,
generous, kind and compassionate person”
Florence Waszkelewicz Clowes, Books in Review,
POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL, October 2013, pg. 23
*
“What a nice
book written by Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm, a well known scholar of literature, the author of numerous biographies and contemporary history. Ingrid
was a kin of Norman
Boehm, the author’s husband. The book
presents correspondence between
Ingrid Bergman and her relatives residing in the United States. Ziolkowska has cleverly interwoven family
letters with the biography of the
actress. Ingrid Bergman had a
life fulfilled. Her
roles in films and theatrical creations provided audiences with joy and pleasure.
Bergman is probably one of the few
actresses who inspired
a spontaneous acceptance.
Readers of Ziolkowska’s book will be rewarded with generally warm feelings."
Maja Cybulska, Ex Libris, Tydzien Polski, London, April 27, 2014
Maja Cybulska, Ex Libris, Tydzien Polski, London, April 27, 2014
*
Ingrid Bergman was loved by critics, directors,
writers, and above all by audiences, not only of cinema, but the theater as
well.
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm was able to tell all that should be said about the actress but also about her artistry that grew as much from native talent as from her extraordinary personality.
Bergman’s adventures in acting helped her become someone else, someone who did not feel fear. As a girl, she was kind to others, and so it remained for the rest of her life. The book by Ziółkowska - Boehm recalls not only the history of Ingrid Bergman and her family, but also what happened to her three husbands and four children.
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm was able to tell all that should be said about the actress but also about her artistry that grew as much from native talent as from her extraordinary personality.
Bergman’s adventures in acting helped her become someone else, someone who did not feel fear. As a girl, she was kind to others, and so it remained for the rest of her life. The book by Ziółkowska - Boehm recalls not only the history of Ingrid Bergman and her family, but also what happened to her three husbands and four children.
From the letters cited by the author, Bergman is
shown as one oriented in the fate of her loved ones. Always interested in their
lives, she was appreciative of any sign of feelings for her from them.
Hardly surprising is the fact that the documents
provided by the author’s husband were interpreted with a great culture by
Ziolkowska-Boehm. The reader will find a beautiful portrait of a woman and an
artist, one that anyone would like to be near or in her presence.
Andrzej
Józef Dabrowski, Play it again, Ingrid! PRZEGLAD POLSKI, NOWY
DZIENNIK,. New York, May 2014
*
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm includes
many tales, and much more in her book. After Norman visited his famous cousin
Ingrid Bergman and her husband Roberto Rossellini in Paris on his first company
vacation, he wrote that he was "treated royally in France": "a
high speed spin around Paris late at night in a Ferrari"; a party in the
home of the painter Jean Renoir. On his next holiday, he spent a weekend with
Bergman and others, including Yul Brynner, in Deauville, France one time
dancing with the Swedish actress and Rita Hayworth. He continued to meet Ingrid
Bergman over the years (she died in 1982). He is clearly entranced with his
cousin, writing in the foreword of Aleksandra's book that, aside from having
the talent to win three Oscars, Bergman "was blessed with warmth,
generosity, compassion, devotion, dedication and enthusiasm".
Al-Ayyam Al-Jamilah,
Spring 2014
*
I found it a great pleasure to learn that the famous star of
stage and screen had time for her American relatives. Being an extremely busy
person, she found and allocated time to stay in contact, if only briefly, with
them. Here is a true tribute to the woman’s character. Ingrid Bergman was and
is still loved and respected by her many loyal fans. Similarly,
Ziolkowska-Boehm’s book clearly discloses the same feelings for her by the
American relatives.
Beverly Martin. Google.com
*
By reading the enjoyable book by Aleksandra
Ziolkowka-Boehm, I learned that there were Americans related to Ingrid Bergman.
Throughout her career, she was always portrayed as the Swedish actress and as
being totally European. For me, another revelation was her German ancestry that
was never disclosed by the media. Why should such a fact be “covered up” when
the largest ethnic part of America’s population was of German ancestry? (Klaus Schneider)
*
Being of
Italian ancestry, I very much admire and appreciate how delicately the author
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm was able to bring about respect and understanding
for Roberto Rossellini, the husband of Ingrid Bergman. As a director,
Rossellini achieved great respect and recognition for his talents. The author
led me to have empathy for him as well as Bergman over the stigmas of their relationship
and the failure of marriage. (Anthony
Perlosi)
*
The
author has cleverly interwoven the career of Ingrid Bergman with the
relationship the actress had with American relatives. Over a time span of
nearly forty years, Bergman maintained contact with these relatives. The warmth
and gratuitousness of the famous actress is beautifully portrayed by
Ziolkowska-Boehm from Bergman’s letters to and personal contacts individually
described. Here we learn of a very famous woman caring for, and treating
accordingly, her not so famous relatives. (Virginia
Degiorgio)
*
I do admire your writing a great deal – it is as if you are
speaking yo the reader. And I do review
a great many any books
Florence Clowes, Vero Beach, Florida, 11/22/2013
*
“What a wonderful tribute to a special lady”.
Jean Wahl,
Wilmington, Delaware, January 2014
*
Sembra impossibile poter pubblicare qualcosa di
nuovo su un'attrice famosa e celebrata come Ingrid Bergman, eppure questo
piccolo libro c'e' riuscito: il suo maggior pregio e' la riproduzione di
diverse lettere e fotografie inedite di Ingrid Bergman. Un ritratto
affettuoso e rispettoso di una grande attrice e di una donna gentile e
coraggiosa. Una veste editoriale più preziosa avrebbe forse giovato.
Rosario Tronnolone, March 23, 2014, Amazon.com
Translation:
It seems impossible to be able to publish something new about a famous and
celebrated actress like Ingrid Bergman, yet this little book has succeeded: its
greatest value is the reproduction of several unpublished letters and
photographs by Ingrid Bergman. An affectionate and respectful portrait of a
great actress and a kind and courageous woman.
Rosario Tronnolone, March 23, 2014, Amazon.com
*
I read your book ….whenever I read about mamma I get very sad and miss her a
lot.I sent the copy of your book to mamma's archive at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut where all paper concurring her is kept.
Isabella Rossellini, August 3, 2015
*
.The book was so interesting I could hardly put it down. Ingrid was indeed a very beautiful woman, and a strong one with what she had to through.
Ruth Grabner, Washington, NJ, August 28, 2015
*
UNTOLD STORIES OF POLISH HEROES FROM WORLD WAR II
(Lanham, Md. : Hamilton Books, 2018)
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