13 Comments

Dear Alice. I just read Chapter 15 Parts 1 and 2 and Chapter 16 all at once: excellent writing as ever. It must have been so intense for you, after your earlier experience researching history in an academic setting, to track down the pieces of this less well known story, inspired by your father's actual life history.

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Such horror, and such heroism. I sometimes have a hard time wrapping my head around the extremities in our world. Stories, narratives, like these help.

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Seeing the uprising through your eyes and your dad's makes it even more heartbreaking while giving life to the true definition of courage.

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Alice, what an extraordinary story told unflinchingly with a universality that touches anyone whose even just read about the cruelty humans are capable of. You're an incredibly gifted writer, thank you for using your voice to tell these very important stories in such a personal way.

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Thank you for sharing, Alice. As a Jew, my history was limited (until now) to the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. They too were brave. Here’s to the Home Army 🙏🏽

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Thank you your comment. I have been married to a Jewish man for 37 years and to an extent I knew the same history you did. Broadening my knowledge to understand more about what happened is part of my motivation for writing. It is a complicated story. More to come. It’s not black and white. And thanks for reading.

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I’m not sure what I wrote (to the wrong address) in response to your comment, which I very much appreciated. I hope the Home Army saw Polish Jews as compatriots and were not scapegoated by them. I wanted to recommend a book I was changed by: "A Chorus of Stones" by Susan Griffin, where she proposes that we all carry the world’s history - every secret, and they weigh like stones until we release them.

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The brief section where the citizens of Warsaw are celebrating their liberation is so uplifting. It's remarkable that you were able to learn so much detail.

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Incredible story and so empathetic. I know some children of survivors from that horrific time and I now feel how exhausting and harrowing it was for them.

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So much I didn’t know. What resilience! So well recounted.

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With your stories I’m starting imagine what your father and his fellow citizens in Warsaw must have experienced during the war years. He and his resistance team were so brave and resolute!

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Thanks for sharing your family’s stories of resilience and courage with us.

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May we never forget.

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