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Ordinary Men has been
admired all over the
world and is now
published in the UK for
the first time. It takes
as its basis the detailed
records of one squad from
the Nazis` extermination
groups and explores in
detail its composition,
its actions, andthe
methods by which it was
trained to perform acts
of genocide on an
industrial scale. He
introduces us to
cheerful, friendly,
ordinary men who killed
without hesitation or
apparent remorse for
years on end, in docile
obedience to an authority
theyhappily accepted as
legitimate. It is a
valuable corrective to
the idea of German
uniqueness and offers a
much more chilling
picture of human beings
as avidly suggestible and
desperate for an
organising purpose in
their lives, however
disgusting.
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£9.99
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The image of Poland has
once again been impressed
on European
consciousness. Norman
Davies provides a key to
understanding the modern
Polish crisis in this
lucid and authoritative
description of the
nation`s history.
Beginning with the period
since 1945, he travels
back in time to highlight
the long-term themes and
traditions which have
influenced present
attitudes. His evocative
account reveals Poland as
the heart of Europe in
more than the
geographical sense. It is
a country where Europe`s
ideological conflicts are
played out in their most
acute form: as recent
events have emphasized,
Poland`s fate is of vital
concern to European
civilization as a whole.
This revised and updated
edition tackles and
analyses the issues
arising from the fall of
the Eastern Block, and
looks at Poland`s future
within a political
climate of democracy and
free market.
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£14.99
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This new edition of
Norman Davies`s classic
study of the history of
Poland has been revised
and fully updated with
two new chapters to bring
the story to the end of
the twentieth century.
The writing of Polish
history, like Poland
itself, has frequently
fallen prey to interested
parties. Professor Norman
Davies adopts a sceptical
stance towards all
existing interpretations
and attempts to bring a
strong dose of common
sense to his theme. He
presents the most
comprehensive survey in
English of this
frequently maligned and
usually misunderstood
country.
Availability: In Stock
£37.49
Available
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This new edition of
Norman Davies`s classic
study of the history of
Poland has been revised
and fully updated with
two new chapters to bring
the story to the end of
the twentieth century.
The writing of Polish
history, like Poland
itself, has frequently
fallen prey to interested
parties. Professor Norman
Davies adopts a sceptical
stance towards all
existing interpretations
and attempts to bring a
strong dose of common
sense to his theme. He
presents the most
comprehensive survey in
English of this
frequently maligned and
usually misunderstood
country.
Availability: In Stock
£35.99
Available
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For desperate families
trapped inside the Warsaw
ghetto in 1942 with small
children, one name was
whispered urgently. It
was the name of a young
social worker in her
thirties with the courage
to take staggering risks
and to save over 2, 000
of those children from
death and deportation.
Granted access to the
ghetto as a public health
specialist, Irena
Sendler began by
smuggling orphaned
children out of the
walled district and
convincing her friends
and neighbours to hide
them. Soon, she began
the perilous work of
going from door to door
and asking Jewish
families to trust her
with their young
children. Driven to
extreme measures and with
the help of local Warsaw
tradesman, Jewish
residents, a network of
mothers and her
star-crossed lover in the
Polish resistance, Irena
Sendler ultimately
smuggled thousands of
children past the Nazis,
making dangerous trips
through city`s sewers,
hiding them in coffins
and under overcoats at
check points, and
slipping through secret
passages in abandoned
buildings. At immense
personal risk, Irena
Sendler did something
even more astonishing:
she kept a secret list
buried in a jar under an
old apple tree in her
garden.On it were the
names and true identities
of these Jewish children,
recorded so that after
the war their families
could find them.
Celebrated for her
courage, Sendler was
nominated for a Nobel
Peace Prize in 2007, the
year before her death at
the age of 98. The story
of Irena Sendler - and of
the children she saved -
has until now never been
told in a compelling
narrative account.
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£18.99
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The traumatic story of
one of the last major
battles of World War II,
in which the Poles fought
off German troops and
police, street by
street, for sixty-three
days. The Warsaw Uprising
of August 1944 was a
shocking event in a
hideous war. This is the
first account to recall
the tragedy from both
German and Polish
perspectives and asks
why, when the war was
nearly lost, Hitler and
Himmler decided to return
to Warsaw bent on murder,
deportation, and
destruction. This was the
only time in history that
a European capital has
ever been emptied of its
entire population and
destroyed entirely.
Hundreds were thrown from
windows, burned alive,
trampled to death. The
murder of 40, 000
innocents on 5th August
was the largest
battlefield massacre of
the war. But the Poles
did not give in.
Organized and popular,
the Uprising, which had
been expected to last
under a week, fought off
German troops including
Himmler`s most notorious
SS battalions street by
street, for sixty-three
days.Using first-hand
accounts, Richie charts
the atrocities and the
breakdown of SS morale,
but she also goes on to
examine the long-term
implications of Stalin`s
refusal to help and how
the Uprising affected
negotiations over the
fate of post-war Europe,
sowing the seeds of the
Cold War. But above all
else `Warsaw 1944` is the
story of a city`s
unbreakable spirit, in
the face of unspeakable
barbarism.
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£12.99
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Adam Zamoyski first wrote
his history of Poland two
years before the collapse
of the Soviet Union. This
substantially revised and
updated edition sets the
Soviet era in the context
of the rise, fall and
remarkable rebirth of an
indomitable nation. In
1797, Russia, Prussia
and Austria divided
Poland among themselves,
rewriting Polish history
to show that they had
brought much-needed
civilisation to a
primitive backwater. But
the country they wiped
off the map had been one
of Europe`s largest and
most richly varied, born
of diverse cultural
traditions and one of the
boldest constitutional
experiments ever
attempted. Its
destruction ultimately
led to two world wars and
the Cold War. Zamoyski`s
fully revised history of
Poland looks back over a
thousand years of turmoil
and triumph, chronicling
how Poland has been
restored at last to its
rightful place in Europe.
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£10.99
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As Antony Beevor cast new
light on the Battle of
Stalingrad, Alexandra
Richie here unearths the
traumatic story of one of
the last major battles of
World War II, in which
the Poles fought off
German troops, street by
street, for sixty-three
days. The Warsaw Uprising
of August 1944 was a
shocking event in a
hideous war. This is the
first account to recall
the tragedy from both
German and Polish
perspectives and asks
why, when the war was
nearly lost and resources
were so urgently needed
in the Fatherland,
Hitler and Himmler
decided to return to
Warsaw bent on murder,
deportation, and
destruction. This was the
only time in history that
a European capital has
ever been emptied of its
entire population and
destroyed street by
street, house by house,
razed leaving acres of
smouldering ruin.
Hundreds were thrown from
windows, burned alive,
trampled to death. The
murder of 40, 000
innocents on 5th August
was the largest
battlefield massacre of
the war. But the Poles
did not give in.
Organized and popular,
the Uprising, which had
been expected to last
under a week, fought off
German troops including
Himmler`s most notorious
SS battalions street by
street, for sixty-three
days.Alexandra Richie is
connected to this story
through her father-in-law
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski
who participated in the
Uprising and whose vast
archive forms the basis
of the book, The book
charts Nazi crimes but
also through the
testimony of a Pole
press-ganged into a
`cremation detail` who,
by living amongst them
witnessed the break-down
of morale in the SS at
the end of the war. Dr
Richie puts the Uprising
in context of the
collapse of Army Group
Centre and the now
forgotten battles which
raged around Warsaw in
the summer of 1944. She
looks at the implications
of Stalin`s refusal to
help the beleaguered
Poles and shows for the
first time how the Nazi
leadership, and Himmler
in particular, hoped
that the increasing
divisions between the
Allies over Warsaw would
lead to a Third World
War. She also shows how
the Uprising affected
negotiations over the
fate of post- war Europe
and is rightly called the
first battle of the Cold
War.But above all else
`Warsaw 1944` is the
story of a city`s
unbreakable spirit, in
the face of unspeakable
barbarism.
Availability: In Stock
£25.00
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Warsaw Boy is the
remarkable true story of
a sixteen-year old boy
soldier in war-torn
Poland. ”The best-ever
account of what is was
like to be young and
fighting in the Warsaw
Rising.” (Neal
Ascherson, Sunday
Herald, Books of the
Year). Poland suffered
terribly under the Nazis.
By the end of the war six
million had been killed:
some were innocent
civilians - half of them
were Jews - but the rest
died as a result of a
ferocious guerrilla war
the Poles had waged. On 1
August 1944 Andrew
Borowiec, a
fifteen-year-old
volunteer in the
Resistance, lobbed a
grenade through the
shattered window of a
Warsaw apartment block
onto some German soldiers
running below. `I felt I
had come of age. I was a
soldier and I`d just
tried to kill some of our
enemies`. The Warsaw
Uprising lasted for 63
days: Himmler described
it as `the worst street
fighting since
Stalingrad`. Yet for the
most part the insurgents
were poorly equipped
local men and teenagers -
some of them were even
younger than Andrew. Over
that summer Andrew faced
danger at every moment,
both above and below
ground as the Poles took
to the city`s sewers to
creep beneath the German
lines during lulls in the
fierce
counterattacks.Wounded in
a fire fight the day
after his sixteenth
birthday and unable to
face another visit to the
sewers, he was captured
as he lay in a makeshift
cellar hospital wondering
whether he was about to
be shot or saved. Here he
learned a lesson: there
were decent Germans as
well as bad. From one of
the most harrowing
episodes of the Second
World War, this is an
extraordinary tale of
survival and defiance
recounted by one of the
few remaining veterans of
Poland`s bravest summer.
Andrew Borowiec dedicates
this book to all the
Warsaw boys, `especially
those who never grew up`.
”A subtle, well
observered autobiography.
Beautifully paced.”
(The Times). ”A timely,
angry, terribly moving
and drily amusing account
of an especially dark
period in Poland`s often
tragic history.”
(Telegraph).
”Excellent, hugely
engaging. For all the
horrors that Borowiec
describes, his is an
affectionate, wryly
amusing account puntuated
by episodes of warmth and
humanity.” (Financial
Times). Andrew Borowiec
was born at Lodz in
Poland in 1928. At
fifteen he joined the
Home Army, the main
Polish resistance during
the Second World War,
and fought in the
ill-fated Warsaw
Uprising.After the war he
left Poland and attended
Columbia University`s
Graduate School of
Journalism. He lives in
Cyprus with his English
wife Juliet.
Availability: In Stock
£9.99
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