{"id":15386,"date":"2023-01-12T10:23:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-12T17:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=15386"},"modified":"2023-01-12T13:26:03","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T20:26:03","slug":"listening-to-chopin-while-fighting-nazis-a-journey-into-my-familys-wwii-polish-past-by-m-alexander-charns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=15386","title":{"rendered":"Listening to Chopin while fighting Nazis: A Journey into my Family’s WWII Polish Past by M. Alexander Charns"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A deeply revealing, intimate account of a family\u2019s Polish history\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a six-year-old boy, Charns came across a book named \u2018I Survived Hitler\u2019s Hell\u2019 by A.P. Gwiazdowski and became curious about his family\u2019s Polish history. As he grows older, he begins to wonder about his family\u2019s claim about risking their lives for their Jewish neighbors in Suwalki, Poland, during WWII and his maternal grandfather Alexander Peter Gwiazdowski\u2019s antisemitic views. Charns took on himself to unravel the truth, throwing himself into meticulous research, which included reading Polish history, interviewing survivors, Internet searches, requesting files under the Freedom of Information Act, and reading FBI memos on his deceased relatives. Soon, it becomes apparent that this story of a family\u2019s role in saving the lives of their neighbors in a small Polish town was not only true but also served as a small-scale version for a considerable chunk of population\u2014rescue efforts ranging from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks both small and large. Charns details his family\u2019s part in the political resistance to Nazi rule, his uncle Richard\u2019s arrest as a teenager (he and his mother Agnes were part of one of the trips to Lithuania with Jewish \u201ctraveling companions, hidden under the hay\u201d while being driven in a horse-drawn wagon, a droshky), his grandfather\u2019s detention, who was later convicted of the preparation of a treasonable undertaking by the Third Reich, and the Jedwabne Massacre among others. Alternating between various timelines, the author\u2019s voice and first-person perspectives of fictional historical characters (both perpetrators and victims), the narrative effectively portrays both the horrific toll of the war on peoples\u2019 lives and how the eruption of white nationalist ideas that are infiltrating U.S. political discourse, are resulting in the explosion of neo-Nazism and White Supremacy. A thorough, affecting account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening to Chopin while fighting Nazis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Journey into my Family’s WWII Polish Past<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M. Alexander Charns<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A deeply revealing, intimate account of a family\u2019s Polish history\u2026 As a six-year-old boy, Charns came across a book named \u2018I Survived Hitler\u2019s Hell\u2019 by A.P. Gwiazdowski and became curious about his family\u2019s Polish history. As he grows older, he begins to wonder about his family\u2019s claim about risking their lives for their Jewish neighbors in Suwalki, Poland, during WWII and his maternal grandfather Alexander Peter Gwiazdowski\u2019s antisemitic views. Charns took on himself to unravel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":15412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7223,91,3328,178,1136176,723769804,723769803,19397,3748,723769805,1473,1008073,856121,309,349],"class_list":["post-15386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-indie-books","tag-kindle","tag-kobo","tag-memoir","tag-non-fiction","tag-nook","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/wp-1673555110262.jpg?fit=717%2C1003&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-40a","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15386"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15413,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386\/revisions\/15413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}