Halik Kochanski

Excerpt from a longer article:

Timely Take-aways for Life-long Learners

Lesser-known Stories from the World War II Era
Several new books explore the lesser-known stories of prisoners, survivors, resistance fighters, scientists, and other amazing individuals of the World War II era.

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Resistance
Halik Kochanski, 2022, Liveright, an imprint of W.W. Norton Themes: History, War & Conflict, World War II
This comprehensive examination of resistance movements during World War II shares little-known stories from the many occupied nations.
Take-aways: Use this book to share examples of the impact of resistance movements in their many forms during World War II.

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Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lamb… (more)

Very impressed with this book. Even though I am well versed in WWII history, I find I really had no idea of the extent of the Polish suffering, which was, as the author notes, the longest -lasting of any nation in WWII, literally from the first day of the war to the last. Everything is covered, from the trauma of the German invasion & conquest, Nazi atrocities against Poles and Jews alike, as well as Soviet atrocities against Polish refugees and captured Polish officers, the attempts to establish to a Polish government in exile and a Polish army to fight alongside the Allies, and the Big Power conniving which led to Poland being effectively betrayed and sacrificed to Stalin's ambitions by the British and Americans. Interestingly, the author, who is of Polish ancestry and whose family were caught up in the horrors described, and makes no secret of her bias, (not that I have any problem with that, if my family and nation had been subject to the same atrocities as hers was, I would feel exactly the same, in fact probably much less commendably restrained than Ms Kochanski is) devotes much more time to Soviet crimes against Poland than Nazi atrocities. It is quite clear from this book, that regardless of the horror unleashed against Poland by Hitler, Russia remains the eternal enemy as far as Poles are concerned. Even if you are not particularly interested in Polish history, it is nevertheless a great read, never becoming bogged down in excessive detail or statistics, full of passion, tragedy, triumph, and above all the fighting spirit of the Poles themselves, subjected to the horrors of occupation by two equally brutal totalitarian dictatorships, but never giving up on their dream of being free once more.… (more)