Publisher's Synopsis
Author's biography. I shall begin by the framework which has moulded my original view of the world - Warsaw between the two wars. Poland savoured its newly acquired independence, victoriously defended against the recent Bolshevik invasion. The all-new Polish army was commanded by former Russian, Austrian and German officers, residents of Polish lands partitioned in the 18 century, who have opted for Poland. Such was the case of my father, former captain of German Hussars, who consolidated his new citizenship fighting the Russians in 1920 and the Germans in 1939, as captain of Polish Uhlans. Warsaw between the two wars was perhaps the most cosmopolitan city of the world. It counted about 30% of "pure" Poles, the rest divided among Jews, Russians, Germans, French, Armenians, etc. True, it was causing some frictions, but the cultivated intelligentia couldn't care less about religion and nationality, attributing them purely descriptive value. In short, I never heard about our Jewish origin. The revelation struck me like a lightning from the blue. Nazis invaded Poland and I was sent with my father to the Ghetto. . Down in the Ghetto, I was appalled by the horror of daily atrocities and started to envisage the escape. All sages tried to dissuade me: in the ghetto I have a chance to survive; the Germans need workforce; they cannot kill everybody (!). But at the other side, where they shoot at sight during the curfew, I shall perish at the first evening, because nobody will let me enter a house under the death penalty. Finally, I did it my way and have survived the war, which proves the incidental superiority of intuition over logic. It's true, that I had an unheard-of fortune. The curfew approaching, I ran into my mother's friend, the countess Mierzejewska, who, - as I learned later - worked for the Polish resistance AK heading under the alias of Captain Danuta the service of Gestapo infiltration. She led me to a hideout and later suggested that I use o my German proficiency by working for her as liaison agent. I accepted and asked for additional assignment of liaison with the ZOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa) in the Ghetto. I was on a liasion mission in the Ghetto when, on the Holy Monday 1943, broke out the ghetto uprising, which I have joined. After the fall of the uprising I escaped from the ghetto through my usual channels. I worked for Danuta's section of AK till the war's end.
