The War After: Living with the HolocaustPt. 1 (p. 1-161) contains interviews of the author with her parents, who relate their life-stories. Natalia, a pianist, was born in Kraków in 1911. She describes incidents of Polish antisemitism in the interwar period, and the German occupation in 1939. She was arrested and beaten in Tarnów in 1940, fled to Warsaw, and lived as a non-Jew on the "Aryan side". She was arrested again in 1943 while attempting to escape from Poland, and sent to Płaszów, where she was saved from death because of her skill as a pianist. From there she was sent to Auschwitz, where she was liberated. Josef, born in 1900, fled from Poland to Russia and survived the war there. They met after the war, married, and emigrated to England. In pt. 2 (p. 163-245) the author surveys the history of antisemitism in Great Britain. Discusses the refusal of the Allies to take the plight of the Jews into account during the war, and the reluctance of British authorities to help Jews after the war. |
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