One Polish family's fight to preserve culture, identity, and moral duty amid the rise of 20th-century extremism.
★★★★★ 4.7/5 on Empik · Poland's largest bookstore
Halina Donimirska-Szyrmer's memoir is an intimate record of a Polish family resisting Nazism's rise in 1930s Germany — the human impact of its spread, in vivid detail, woven through the major historical events of the era.
Follow the Donimirski family's struggle to preserve the Polish community as intimidation and violence ramped up — a gripping true story of life resisting fascism's rise, and its lessons for navigating authoritarianism in our own polarized times.
Born in 1918 as World War I concluded, Halina Donimirska grew up on a prosperous Polish landed estate in East Prussia. But gathering forces threatened her family's cherished way of life. As Nazism's shadow lengthened over 1930s Germany, her once-peaceful community descended into violence and fear.
In 1920 the Powiśle region faced a plebiscite: Poland or East Prussia. It stayed with Germany — and that verdict shaped the world Halina grew up in: a Polish landowning family living as a minority in their own homeland.
For generations the Donimirski family had kept Polish culture, language, and tradition alive in the Sztum region. Halina saw up close what it meant to hold on to that Polishness after the plebiscite — in schools, in churches, and in daily life under mounting pressure to Germanize, yet amid the plurality of ordinary Germans' views.
Her memoir tells that story from the inside — through the eyes of a child growing up on a contested border, in a world of manor houses that stood as strongholds of Polish culture. A history still little known.
The memoir highlights the singular bonds between brothers and sisters facing harrowing historic upheaval together. Out of the many family dramas woven through the account, the loyalty and affection between siblings emerges as a lifeline amid the swirling chaos.
Halina's brothers sustained her through her trials with carefree joy and a tenacious spirit — despite their own trials and tribulations, girding her for the supreme tests ahead.
"An assiduous, deeply intimate account of one Polish family's story before, during, and after WWII. Captures the small moments of life lived during enormous upheaval with precision and tactile sense."
"A world that no longer exists — and one worth remembering."
"The author tells her life story in a warm, natural way — an absorbing, inspiring journey into the past."
"Valuable material for understanding the era of Poland's rebirth and its later years under communism."
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