My Boyhood War Warsaw 1944 Author:Bohdan Hryniewicz An account from one of the last living Polish fighters of the bloody massacre that was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 Bohdan Hryniewicz was only 8 when war broke out and 13 when it ended. In those years he saw more than most men would in 10 lifetimes; and his recall is extraordinary. He cites three days as defining this period: the saddest, Septemb... more »er 19, 1939 as Russian tanks rolled into his home town of Wilno; the happiest, August 1, 1944, when the Polish flag flew once again from the highest building in Warsaw; the most bitter, October 3 that year, when his commanding officer forbade him to join the other members of his battalion as they entered a prisoner of war camp. The Warsaw Uprising lasted 63 days and was the largest single military effort by any resistance movement in the war. Throughout, Bohdan was the personal runner of lieutenant Nalecz, CO of the battalion of the same name. Betrayed by Stalin, all the Poles were expelled to camps after surrender and the city dynamited. Bohdan is probably the last witness to this tragedy. An account from one of the last living Polish fighters of the bloody massacre that was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 This is a searing account of one of history's most extraordinary acts of military resistance: the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
As a teen, Bohdan Hryniewicz fought on the barricades against the forces of Nazi Germany. This luminous memoir recounts those fateful days of World War II, when the future of the Polish nation hung in the balance, and the world stood by as Warsaw burned. Praised by eminent scholars and diplomats alike, Hryniewicz's account stands as a cautionary tale about the brutal and lasting costs of war. As tensions in Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe continue to mount, this book serves as a timely reminder of the ever-present dangers of imperial annexation on Europe's eastern flank. Hryniewicz reminds us that the past continues to shape the present: today's politicians and leaders ignore the history of wartime Poland at their own risk.« less