Featured 1st ed. World War II thriller

Found this at a garage sale today for a buck. Not particularly rare, but a forgotten book and sadly a forgotten story. It was a best seller in it’s time yet not even a thought today. I read it college and now have a 1st edition in my library.

Jan Karski was a true life James Bond during the first half of WWII. In 1939, he escaped from a train bound for the Katyn Forest, and he wound up joining the Polish Resistance. Fluent in four languages and possessing a photographic memory, he organized and ran a secret courier service between the Polish Resistance and the gov’t in exile in London. He smuggled himself into (and out of) the Warsaw ghetto and the Belzac death camp to get first hand info on the Holocaust. He was later caught and tortured by the Gestapo, sprung by the Resistance, and made it to both Roosevelt and Churchill in late 1943 to make his report.

He was met with indifference as taking action against the camps “would not shorten the war by even a day”. Things were not going particularly well for the Allies in 1943 and the decision was made to keep him back as a real live hero to boost the morale at home.

The book shown here was written in 1944 and while from Karski’s perspective, this gripping story covers the Resistance and life in Poland during the dark days, with only a little covering what he had done (to protect those still in Poland). So disgusted with the lack of Allied action and his own perceived failure in motivating leadership, Karski spoke very little about the war or his activities after WWII. A devout Roman Catholic risking it all for Polish Jews.

I see a couple of 1st editions at Abe Books for $10 ea, and a few for $100. If you find a reprint at a used bookstore, and have an interest in spies, Resistance movements, or the heroism of the individual in the face of staggering odds, or maybe just a student of history, this is a very good book. It was also published in London in 1945.

 

Another good book about WWII resistance fighters is titled Two Eggs On My Plate, by Oluf Reed-Olsen. I think it was published in 1947 or so.

 

Thanks for the recommendation, I just picked up a copy on eBay.
My father and grandparents were with the Polish resistance in Warsaw so this will be very relevant to my family history and is sure to be interesting!

 

I've always enjoyed The Man Who Never Was. So much so that I visited his grave in Huelva.

Debora

 

Debora-Just saw very fine movie 'Operation Mincemeat'(2021)ie:'The Man Who Never Was' operation.Stars Colin Firth, Rufus Wright, Matthew Macfadyen, Ruby Bentall. WIKI Synopsis-Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the WWII to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain (Acting Major) William Martin. Correspondence between two British generals which suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint, was also placed on the body.Alowed the Allied Forces to establish a beach head in Southern Italy,and begin the successful invasion of Hitler's Europe culminating with the D-Day Landing and the march to Berlin.
I haven't consulted numerous WWII Historians/Bogs on the absolute accuracy and veracity of every second of this drama,but for a long fact packed piece of cinema-it moved like a freight train ! ...no easy feat.

 

The film shows His grave in Huelva,Andalucia Spain.The town was settled by the Phoenicians roughly 900-1000 BCE. The Knights Templar were the new kids on the block when they arrived after the French expulsion.

 

Haven't seen the new version yet but have seen the original 1956 film. Unfortunately, Huelva is the most unappealing capital of Andalucia. Poor urban development eliminated most, if not all, of its charm.

Debora

 

Urban Renewal-How many architectural masterpieces did the US lose between the 1940's up to now.I like 'modernism' as applied to certain things,but the cookie cutter bastardized,perverted pseudo 'Bauhaus' boxes that were horrid imitations of Gropius and the other originals-they all look like concrete crematoriums good for one thing-a 9.7 Quake ! That would be true Urban Renewal,but those overloaded concrete 'tilt-ups' would very tragically kill many.

 

@Jon L
I think I have this exact same book. I started reading it two or three years ago, but don't think I ever finished it. Does it begin with the Bolsheviks/Soviets rolling into Poland and rounding up all the Polish military officers?
I'm going to dig around and see if I can find it tomorrow.

 

Yep, that's the one.

Peter FitzSimmons book on Nancy Wake ("The White Mouse") is another great book concerning one of the French Resistance's greatest operatives. Beautiful, wealthy, hard drinking, and an absolute bee-otch to the Nazis, Nancy Wake was one of a kind. She even made #1 on the Gestapo's hit list. After the war she was asked if there was anything more she thought she could have done, she replied "kill more Germans". She sold off all the medals she was given postwar because "There was no point in keeping them. I'll probably go to hell and they'd melt anyway."

Her obits below give an overview of her adventures:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/08/nancy-wake-obituary

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...i-dies-at-98/2011/08/08/gIQABvPT5I_story.html

 

It's good to see all of the recommendations. I have not read many books about this part of WWII, but some fiction related to it has recently come up on my radar. I recently read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. A friend really likes that book and recommended it. Took me a little while to get used to the writing style, but in the end I loved it.
I want to read more nonfiction books about that era!

 

Just picked up a book about America's most decorated female spy of WWII, Virginia Hall. "The Wolves At The Door" by Judith Pearson. Just started it so I can't give a review. My next book in the genre will be "Spymistress" by Sir William Stephenson (spymaster "Intrepid" in WWII), about superspy/spymaster Vera Atkins who actually recruited the Ms Hall mentioned above.

These are not "honey trap" girls, these are real deal Jane Bonds, deadly and insanely dedicated spies that the Nazis desperately wanted to kill. Seems this genre has taken over my current reading direction.