Ireland Books

Christians In The Warsaw Ghetto: An Epitaph For The Unremembered by Peter F. Dembowski (Distinguished Service Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago) is an intense, personal, and moving story of evading the German troops and camps during World War II. Readers follow Dembowsi through the gripping and remarkable tale of two imprisonments of the Nazi troops, an induction into the Polish Home Army and all of the happenings that enabled his survival in Christians In The Warsaw Ghetto, highly recommended for its informative and gripping content to all non-specialist general readers, particularly students of World War II.

According to the German-developed Nuremberg Laws, Jewish Christians were considered Jews, and treated accordingly by the Nazis in German-occupied Poland. Interestingly, Poland's Jewish leaders often considered assimilation into Polish society as much a repudiation of one's Jewishness as conversion to Christianity (p. 117, 137-138). Jewish Christians often experienced animosity from other Jews in the ghetto (p. 122), including unprovoked violence (p. 85).

Dembowski presents a variety of historical information. We learn that the prewar ONR had been outlawed by Polish authorities since its inception (p. 62). While the occupying Germans forced Jews to wear the star, they also forced the Polish slaves in Germany to wear the "P" (pp. 45-46). Marek Edelman recounted the fact that Warsaw's Jews initially disbelieved Polish reports of the mass gassings of Jews (pp. 53-55). Edelman's wife praised THE PIANIST for its qualities (p. 39).

Dembowski rebuts Mordecai Kaplan's charge that Polish priests wrote false certificates for Jews out of mercenary motives. In actuality, false baptismal certificates were a risky undertaking, incurring the German-imposed death penalty for both the priest and recipient if caught (p. 99).

There is irony in the betrayal of Anne Frank by a Dutchman. Two of her benefactors were not arrested at all, while one of the remaining two was released after arrest. Had Anne Frank's family and benefactors been Polish, they would all have all been summarily shot by the Germans (p. 83).

The Jewish-Christian bacteriologist Ludwik Hirszfeld put prewar Polish anti-Semitism into perspective: "My nation accused by the world of anti-Semitism is a good nation. [It gives assistance] despite the death sentence for help, and despite the inherited antipathy towards Jews. I believe that if Jehovah maintains the register of all the injuries suffered by Jews, he will erase the Przytyk pogrom, university disturbances, and separate seating for Jews [in the universities], because Polish antipathy lasted only as long as there was a vision of powerful Jews. It was replaced by pity when the pauper appeared. It was the case during the Jewish martyrdom." (p. 124).

Several accounts, such as the fictional little Polish girl in Steven Spielberg's SCHINDLER'S LIST and the various selectively-chosen anecdotes in Jan T. Gross' FEAR, would have us believe that Poles delighted in Jewish suffering. In contrast, Antoni Marianowicz (Kazimierz Jerzy Berman) wrote: "When we were returning to the car, wearing our armbands, children at Zytnia Street pointed their fingers at us and whispered: `Look, the Jews!' There was no animosity in their voices, only curiosity in seeing the officially branded people." (p. 114).

The reader learns that the eyewitness monographs of Hirszfeld (p. 33), Makower (pp. 102-103), and Marianowicz (p. 110) have never been translated into English. Why not? Is it because these Jewish Christians are not considered Jews, or is it because their works don't fit the ultra-Judeocentric and oft-Polonophobic motif of much contemporary Holocaust material?

Richar Wires does himself most admirably here,in placing 'Cicero' in a wider focus, enlarging one's knowledge of WWII espionage significantly.As much as I enjoyed "The Cicero Affair" and "Five Fingers," to be without the depth and understanding of the principals in this spy episode is like viewing the Mona Lisa only on TV. The overall effect is to add brilliant color to a prized black-and-white photo. Not only are you left with a deeper understanding of wartime espionage but a respectful regard for the diplomatic corps at that period. Who could believe that an amateur servant, with the right impulse, and appropriate acting bravadoes, could upset several continents, and get his just desserts? Or did he? This was an engrossing read, a combination treasure-hunt for clues weighed against fact that is hard to put down. 50 years later the WWII victor, USA, chooses to believe the documents presented before Congress by its internal security watchdogs. Go figure.

This is not a neutral, unbiased review. Even before finishing The Cicero Spy Affair: German Access to British Secrets in World War II, I'd bought second and third copies to forward to author and scholar par excellence Richard Wires for autographing and forwarding to relatives as gifts. How many other reviews posted on this website -- or any other, for that matter -- are based on a copy of the subject volume autographed by the author at his home? I bet very few. This review is an appreciation, really. If you like the numerous excerpts I've included below, you will have to get the book to get more, as this is only a sampling.

I met Dr. Wires at Ball State University in 1975, when I was a European history major working for him as a student assistant when he was chairman of the history department. Four years later, he supervised my senior thesis in European intellectual history on Nietzscke, Malraux and Jaspers. Over the last twenty years, we've stayed in touch though postcards during travels, home visits, phone calls and letters. He is a quintessential intellectual whose history of the most remarkable spy episode during WW II, if not ever, warrants only one - and even that is tongue-in-cheek - criticism: stylistic inconsistency. Specifically, the book is only elegantly written where it is not eloquent. A typical passages of the latter characteristic are:

"In the extensive literature about espionage affairs and intelligence activities during World War II the episode known as Operation "Cicero" has gained prominence and popularity, because of its remarkable character and ironies. For more than four months during the winter of 1943-1944 the valet of Britain's ambassador in neutral Turkey photographed secret papers that his employer failed to safeguard properly; by selling his undeveloped films to a representative of German intelligence in Ankara for a reported total of $1.2 million the servant became history's then most highly paid spy. The access to one of its opponents' most important embassies marked Germany's outstanding achievement in an otherwise poor record of secret service work. But little came of the success. Many of the documents were extremely valuable, but the dictatorship never used the information effectively; the enterprising spy escaped being caught but soon discovered that his money was mostly counterfeit."

The prominence and popularity of the literature about Elyesa Bagna, a Turkish kavass, or valet, who brazenly photographed secret papers of Britain's ambassador to neutral Turkey and sold the rolls of film to a handler at the German embassy for $1.2 million in what mostly turned out to be bogus pounds during the height of WW II is extraordinary and "has become a staple of intelligence lore." Fortunately, the Germans made little effective use of their intelligence lodestar, owing to the intrinsic rivalries, conflicts and jealousies of Nazi totalitarianism, a maze of party, military and career figures, including ambassador and one-time Weimar chancellor Franz von Papen, one of the nearly-purged non-Nazis outmaneuvered at the onset of Hitler's takeover of Germany's interwar democratic attempt in 1933. Cicero even inspired a 1952 movie, Five Fingers, portrayed as a documentary that falsely shows German knowledge of D-Day (in truth, the Germans only learned the word "Overlord," meaning little more than a second Allied front against some target in the northwest part of so-called "Fortress Europe," i.e., the German occupied nations of the continent).

The legacy of the affair is in the lessons learned and the embarrassment of the British reluctantly coming to terms with the scope of the compromises even today, as demonstrated by the sluggish sales of The Cicero Spy Affair in the U.K. In the U.S., however, some stores have sold out their initial stock and each speaking engagement by the author generates further opportunities for spoken history telling, one of the highest praises a historian can receive.

Nearly twenty five years ago, a college history professor sitting next to me at a formal lecture by Dr. Wires said he was the only person he'd ever met who could write a speech, read it verbatim as an oration, and hold the audience's rapt attention as he infused us with knowledge, insight and expansion of whatever we knew, or thought we knew, to newer, higher levels. This reader genuinely "heard" the author on every page of The Cicero Spy Affair.

Writing accurate history requires meeting an exacting standard; Dr. Wires has exceeded it, though. Chief Justice Rehnquist demonstrated the difficulties in meeting this standard when he recently said that, if you think you know a subject, write a book on it and read the reviews. The Chief Justice's referenced book mentioned the dates of admission to the union of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, all wrong! He also referenced a Confederate who kept fighting after Appomattox who, in truth, fell at Shiloh three years earlier. The comment by the Chief Justice, who is certainly not mistake-prone but, rather, is blessed with a wry, dry sense of humor, illustrates the demanding standard of the historian's blend of craft, science and art. Even the most accomplished researcher can still err, but The Cicero Spy Affair appears, by all accounts, to be definitive.

Still not convinced you should read it? Your loss. Say you're not a twentieth century history, military intelligence specialist, read it anyway. Read it for its comprehensive research, documentation, analysis and explanations, and accompanying insightful photographs. Its passages on the vacillations and evasions of Europe's key neutral country, in light of Allied, Nazi and Soviet influences, the (thankfully) inefficient competitiveness of the German intelligence offices and the ineptitude of British security as a result of sleeping pills, piano playing and extremely careless handling of very secret writings all will amaze, enrich, entertain and astonish you. Read it.

In her writing,Stella Tillyard manages to span the difficult gap that separates fiction from non-fiction. Her style is lyrical - almost like a historical fiction - but without the emotive judgement. I find that it makes her books highly evocative and very easy reading.

However that should not lead people to think she has a flare for dubious tabloid presentation. She is quite ruthless in ensuring that her facts are correct, and in 'Citizen Lord' she has stripped away many of the romantic layers that have concealed the true story of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. These were myths that had been spread by Lord Edward's family following his death, and have coloured his story since. The stripping away of these layers makes this book no less interesting, indeed the true story still very much romantic and tragic.

A younger son of the first Duke of Leinster and his wife Emily, a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, Lord Edward was born into privelege and influence. Tillyard traces his gradual move from this life, to one of revolutionary in Ireland of 1798 without descending into either pathos or into judgement.

I was first introduced to Tillyard's writing with her first book, 'Aristocrats' which is also available at Amazon. I would recommend this book as also worth reading, and gives marvellous background to 'Citizen Lord' - it is about his mother, Lady Emily Lennox, and her three sisters.

I think Tillyard is a "Must Read!"

You'll have to look elsewhere for a full picture of the catastrophic Irish rebellion of 1798, but Ms, Tillyard paints a lovely picture of its most romantic leader. I first heard of Lord Edward as a teenager, dipping into Yeats and reading Lord Edward's name linked to Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet..."that wild delirium of the brave...". I have read numerous accounts of '98 since, but found little about Lord Edward in them, save for the melodrama of his arrest and death-an extra-judicial murder, if ever there was one.

So I am grateful for Ms. Tillyard's rendering of the man himself. She gives ample proof of the sweetness of his character, showing how his inborn beauty was nurtured and how it blossomed under the doting care of his formidable and unconventional mother. Their tenderness for each other lights what otherwise is a stark and tragic story. More significantly it gives the lie to the masculinist theory that maternal love weakens and "feminizes" male children. True, young Lord Edward had a "strong male role model"-his tutor, who was also his mother's adulterous lover!-but every step of Mr. Ogilvie's tutelege was directed by the attentive and indulgent Duchess of Leinster. The letters between Lord Edward and the Duchess make lovely reading for any mother concerned with the making of boys into men.

Of course, Ms. Tillyard includes the apparently obligatory expressions of horror about "political violence" a phrase used only in reference to Lord Edward's revolutionary enterprise, not to the ongoing repression and dispossession of the native Irish. Taken against the whole of the book, however, this is only a minor stupidity, one so ubiquitous in books about Ireland published since 1969 that Republican readers can pass over it without undue offense.

The main thing is that Lord Edward Fitzgerald lives on these pages as a beloved and loving human being, worthy of all the praise heaped upon him over the centuries. How often does a shining name in history still shine under close inspection?

Anna Bradley

My address Mr.Ronarong Kaewkanta

This book is very good for me and one likes to read.

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 1999-08-17

My address Mr.Ronarong Kaewkanta