Comment

The Eagle Unbowed

Poland and the Poles in the Second World War
Jun 15, 2013baldand rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
The book takes as its subject the fortunes of all people who were living on Polish territory at the start of the Second World War, be they ethnic Poles, Jews, Eastern Slavs or Germans. Although herself a British woman of Polish descent, she is remarkably objective in telling the story of Polish citizens in the war. People like myself who have read a lot of Russian and Ukrainian history but nothing directly about Poland will be especially fascinated by the chapters on the Poles held captive in the Gulag, and on what amounted to a civil war in the Polish territ ories east of the Curzon line. I was quite unaware before I read this book of the vital Polish contribution to breaking the Nazi military codes, without which the Second World War might well have been lost. Ms Kochanski also clears up the story everyone has heard about Polish cavalary assaulting German tanks at the beginning of the war. (It didn't happen that way, and the Germans had their own cavalry at the start of the war, which also tussled with Polish horsemen.) The events described are sometimes inspring, sometimes disgusting, but the author always arranges her material to inform and not, as another might have done, simply to shock. For such a grim period of history, it is also occasionally a funny book, as Ms. Kochanski has a knack for finding the telling anecdote, whether humorous or not