(For high school students, teachers, and adults). In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke is a compelling memoir of a young Polish woman’s experience as a resistance fighter, rescuer of Jews, and survivor of both the German and Soviet occupations of Poland from 1939 to 1945. When Germany invaded Poland…

Poignant novel based on an extraordinary Polish heroine who delivered 3,000 babies in the horror of the Germans’ largest death camp. (For high school students, teachers, and adults). The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stuart is a poignant historical novel based on the true-life experiences of StanisÅ‚awa (Stah-nee-swahva) LeszczyÅ„ska, who trained as a midwife and…

(For high school students, teachers, and adults) Imogene Salva re-constructs the emotional climate that surrounded the wartime ordeals of her mother, Józefa (Josephine) Nowicka, who was one of almost two million Polish citizens deported by Stalin to the depths of Soviet Russia, Siberia, and Central Asia. This is not an episode that is familiar to…

(For high school students, teachers, and parents) In recounting the human suffering of World War II, Hitler’s genocide of European Jews remains the dominant narrative in popular literature, academic writing, and public school curricula. By contrast, Hitler’s genocide of Poles remains largely unknown. As Richard Lukas points out, Hitler’s planned genocide of Poles was evident…

(For high school students, teachers, and adults) Kosciuszko came to America one month after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with little more than a revolutionary spirit and a genius for engineering. He quickly proved his capabilities and became the most talented engineer of the Continental Army. Kosciuszko constructed fortifications for Philadelphia, devised battle…

(For high school students, teachers, and adults). In response to anti-Polish bias in Holocaust scholarship, education, and popular culture, Polish journalist Grzegorz Gorny, together with well-known photographer Janusz Rosikon, published this book to explain what it really meant to save Jews in German-occupied Poland. The Righteous! tells the story of Poles rescuing Jews during the…

Young Polish Women Deported to Germany as Forced Laborers to Support Hitler’s War Effort Among the little-known tragedies of World War II was Hitler’s abduction of Poles and ordering them to work as civilian forced laborers to support Germany’s war effort. According to the Polish government’s recently-published, three-volume report on Poland’s losses under German occupation,…

(For high school students, teachers, and adults) Only in Poland did the Germans maintain a standing order that anyone aiding Jews would be executed together with immediate family. By defying the German death penalty, thousands of Poles saved Jewish lives. Among the most effective were the female Catholic religious orders. Without Vatican leadership, Polish nuns…