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History Eastern

Night Voices

Heard in the Shadow of Hitler and Stalin

by (author) Heather Laskey

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Nov 2003
Category
Eastern
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773526068
    Publish Date
    Nov 2003
    List Price
    $45.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773571426
    Publish Date
    Nov 2003
    List Price
    $29.95

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Description

It is the story of Poland in the years leading up to the war, the horrors Polish Jews faced during the Nazi occupation, the brief period of hope when they believed they were building a better society, and their gradual disillusionment as state sponsored corruption, brutality, Stalinist paranoia, and anti-Semitism developed. The story is told through the memories of four people, Stasia Alapin Rubilowicz, her husband Mietek Rubilowicz, her son Peter Alapin, and her friend Alina. Life in Poland before and during the war is seen primarily through Stasia's eyes, who evokes her youth in an affluent family, largely assimilated into Polish society. This life was shattered forever in her early adulthood when the Nazis invaded, bringing death and destruction to Poland and to Polish Jews in particular. She recounts the anguish of life in the Warsaw Ghetto, her escape from it, her survival on the run, her betrayal to the Gestapo by a woman who had known her at school, and her rescue from prison by Christian Polish friends at the risk of their lives. In the second half of the book we are introduced to Mietek and her friend Alina, who describe their experiences in Poland during and after the war and their hopes that communism would rid the country of bigotry injustice, and want. But as old hatreds, now supported by a perverted catechism of socialist dogma, reawakened anti-Semitism they became increasingly disillusioned, ultimately deciding they had no recourse but to leave Poland and start a new life elsewhere. By 1968 the Polish communist leadership, through a campaign of intimidation and harassment, had succeeded in ridding Poland of virtually all its surviving Jews.Night Voices is a testimony both to the strength of the human spirit and to our capacity for self-delusion.

About the author