About the Author

Beth Holmgren is Professor of Slavic Studies at Duke University. Her recent books include Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and America (2012) and Transgressive Women in Modern Russian and East European Cultures, co-ed. Yana Hashamova & Mark Lipovetsky (2016). Her current research examines the role of popular entertainment and the experience of its primarily Jewish performers in the Anders Army (1942-1946).

Reviews

“Krystyna Bierzynska is a Holocaust survivor par excellence. Born in Warsaw in 1928, the daughter of assimilated Polish Jews who perished during the six-year German occupation of Poland, she managed to leave the Polish capital as Jews were being herded into the doomed Nazi ghetto. In 1944, as a member of the underground Home Army, she participated in the failed Warsaw rebellion against the Germans. Five years ago, on the 70th anniversary of that revolt, she agreed to be interviewed by Beth Holmgren, a professor of Slavic Studies at Duke University. Holmgren’s book, Warsaw Is My Country: The Story of Krystyna Bierzynska, 1928-1945 (Academic Studies Press), is wide-ranging in scope and sometimes deeply emotional.” —Sheldon Kirshner, The Times of Israel

“[A] shining example of what can result when difficult and deeply troubling personal histories are placed into the hands of skillful and careful storytellers. … A captivating and moving coming of age story, Warsaw Is My Country traces the intersections of Polish and Jewish histories of the Second World War through the eyes of a young, real life heroine.” —Michal Wilczewski, H-Poland