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Author: Leonard Kniffel
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1585444413
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
Searching for the remnants of his family, Leonard Kniffel left Chicago in 2000 to live in Poland. A Polish Son in the Motherland is the story of a search for roots and for the reasons why one family’s ties were severed more than fifty years ago. Along the way, we see what half a century of communism did to Poland and how the residue of World War II lingers. The author’s search begins inauspiciously, but he soon meets a local wine merchant and her son, who are eager to reveal the secrets of Nowe Miasto Lubawskie, the town near which his grandmother was born. After he moves in with Adam, a local entrepreneur who trades in everything from shoes and cosmetics to computers and jam, he begins to master his ancestral language and learn the ways of the community from Adam’s mother, who loves long walks in the woods—and meals made from what she picks there. Kniffel’s search for a connection to Poland is propelled by memories of the stories his grandmother told him about her emigration to Michigan in 1913. While his family eludes him, the adventure becomes an investigation into the relationship between mothers and the legacy they give their sons. Poles who emigrated to America, the author concludes, must have been particularly good at assimilating into American culture. Less than fifty years after his maternal grandparents arrived in the United States, barely a trace of their Polishness existed in their grandchildren. Through his grandparents’ struggles, their children became American and created a new world for themselves and their descendants. In returning to Poland himself, Kniffel sought and found a bridge to the “Great Migration” that changed the lives of so many millions—and millions yet to come.
Author: Leonard Kniffel
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1585444413
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Get Book Here
Book Description
Searching for the remnants of his family, Leonard Kniffel left Chicago in 2000 to live in Poland. A Polish Son in the Motherland is the story of a search for roots and for the reasons why one family’s ties were severed more than fifty years ago. Along the way, we see what half a century of communism did to Poland and how the residue of World War II lingers. The author’s search begins inauspiciously, but he soon meets a local wine merchant and her son, who are eager to reveal the secrets of Nowe Miasto Lubawskie, the town near which his grandmother was born. After he moves in with Adam, a local entrepreneur who trades in everything from shoes and cosmetics to computers and jam, he begins to master his ancestral language and learn the ways of the community from Adam’s mother, who loves long walks in the woods—and meals made from what she picks there. Kniffel’s search for a connection to Poland is propelled by memories of the stories his grandmother told him about her emigration to Michigan in 1913. While his family eludes him, the adventure becomes an investigation into the relationship between mothers and the legacy they give their sons. Poles who emigrated to America, the author concludes, must have been particularly good at assimilating into American culture. Less than fifty years after his maternal grandparents arrived in the United States, barely a trace of their Polishness existed in their grandchildren. Through his grandparents’ struggles, their children became American and created a new world for themselves and their descendants. In returning to Poland himself, Kniffel sought and found a bridge to the “Great Migration” that changed the lives of so many millions—and millions yet to come.
Author: Maria Hummel
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619023547
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
This “haunting” family saga set in WWII Germany “illuminates the reality of war away from the frontlines . . . with a compassion and depth of understanding that will touch your heart” (People). Inspired by the author’s extended family and their status as Mitläufer—Germans who ‘went along’ with Nazism, reaping its benefits and later paying the consequences Inspired by the stories told by her father about his German childhood and letters between her grandparents that were hidden in an attic wall for fifty years, Motherland is a novel that attempts to reckon with the paradox of the author's father—a product of her grandparents’ fiercely protective love—and their status as passive Nazi–sympathizers known as Mitläufer. At the center of Motherland lies the Kappus family: Frank is a reconstructive surgeon who lost his beloved wife in childbirth. Two months later, just before being drafted into medical military service, Frank marries a young woman charged with looking after the surviving baby and his two grieving sons. Alone in the house, Liesl attempts to keep the children fed with dwindling food supplies, safe from the constant Allied air attacks and the tides of desperate refugees flooding their town. When one child begins to mentally unravel, Liesl must discover the source of the boy’s infirmity or lose him forever to Hadamar, the infamous hospital for “unfit” children. Bearing witness to the shame and courage of Third Reich families during the devastating final days of the war, each family member’s fateful choice leads the reader deeper into questions of complicity and innocence, and to the novel’s heartbreaking and unforgettable conclusion.
Author: Donna Solecka Urbikas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780299308544
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
An American baby boomer's searing memoir of the ordeals of her Polish mother and half sister as slave laborers in Siberia who escaped and survived, leaving a legacy of trauma to the next generation.
Author: Andrew A. Michta
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 9780817988630
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
The rise of the Polish army elite had a profound effect on the Communist Party. Many current changes stem from the tougher attitudes the Polish military under Jarulzelski took toward Solidarity. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author: Ewa Kurek
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1475938322
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
The following book was translated and published in English: Ewa Kurek, YOUR LIFE IS WORTH MINE - How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, foreword by Prof. Jan Karski, New York 1998. She has also contributed articles in English that were published in Polin (Oxford: Institute for Polish Jewish Studies), Embracing the Other (New York University Press) and From Shtetl to Socialism (LondonWashington). Her research on the subject of Polish-Jewish relations in World War II in Poland has been presented at several international academic congresses, including Yad Vashem, Jerusalem (1988), Princeton University (1993), and Columbia University (2007). In the book POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS 1939-1945; BEYOND THE LIMITS OF SOLIDARITY, Ewa Kurek reconstructs the wartime history based almost exclusively on Jewish sources. Like in her other books, Ewa Kurek has the courage to raise important questions and the courage to search for equally important answers.
Author: Leonard Kniffel
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1626369240
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
Published with the American Library Association, Reading with the Stars uses the power of politicians, celebrities, and other prominent men and women to celebrate books, libraries, and reading. Fourteen of the biggest names in America offer their thoughts on why literature is important and how books have touched their lives. Television icon Oprah Winfrey discusses how library books were her “pass to personal freedom.” Microsoft founder Bill Gates discusses his library computerization project. Former Vice President Al Gore addresses the “information ecosystem,” including how reading contributes to an informed citizenry. A fun, fascinating gift for any- one who works in the world of publishing, libraries, or bookselling.
Author: Serhiy Bilenky
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228018595
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
When the powers of Europe were at their prime, present-day Ukraine was divided between the Austrian and Russian empires, each imposing different political, social, and cultural models on its subjects. This inevitably led to great diversity in the lives of its inhabitants, shaping modern Ukraine into the multiethnic country it is today. Making innovative use of methods of social and cultural history, gender studies, literary theory, and sociology, Laboratory of Modernity explores the history of Ukraine throughout the long nineteenth century and offers a unique study of its pluralistic society, culture, and political scene. Despite being subjected to different and conflicting power models during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ukraine was not only imagined as a distinct entity with a unique culture and history but was also realized as a set of social and political institutions. The story of modern Ukraine is geopolitically complex, encompassing the historical narratives of several major communities – including ethnic Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and Russians – who for centuries lived side by side. The first comprehensive study of nineteenth-century Ukraine in English, Laboratory of Modernity traces the historical origins of some of the most pressing issues facing Ukraine and the international community today.
Author: Ewa Mazierska
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571819475
Category : Motion pictures
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
This work aims to explore the main types of female character in Polish feature cinema, from its beginnings to contemporary times and also to analyse the work of the most prominent Polish women film directors against the background of the roles being played by women in Polish history and their positions within society.
Author: Ellie Midwood
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781986277242
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
Poland, 1939. A country, torn by the occupation of two unlikely allies - Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. On the border of this newly divided territory, a young Wehrmacht Unteroffizier, Werner and a Soviet Military Interpreter, Kira meet and fall in love against all odds. Both forced into the military against their will, they wish for one thing only - a peaceful life together. Everything is set for Kira to defect and marry Werner... But the German army invades the Soviet Union, and now the two lovers are forced to fight against each other on the opposite sides of the frontline; trying to keep their humanity as more and more atrocities are committed by both armies. They have to decide if their love is stronger than the devastation surrounding them or succumb to the hate as sworn enemies should. Partially based on true events, this novel will take you on the unforgettable journey through war-torn countries, where hope can be lost in no-man's-land, and one will have to go to great lengths not to lose sight of it.
Author: Helena Goscilo
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155225567
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
Discursive practices during war polarize and politicize gender: they normally require men to fulfill a single, overriding task—destroy the enemy—but impose a series of often contradictory expectations on women. The essays in the book establish links between political ideology, history, psychology, cultural studies, cinema, literature, and gender studies and addresses questions such as— what is the role of women in war or military conflicts beyond the well-studied victimization? Can the often contradictory expectations of women and their traditional roles be (re)thought and (re)constructed? How do cultural representations of women during war times reveal conflicting desires and poke holes in the ideological apparatus of the state and society?
