The book is beautifully illustrated and edited with some potenitally interesting recipes ideas such as beetroot creme brulee. The main idea behind the book is to provide nouvelle cuisine gloss to the good old traditional Polish cooking. However, the book does not carry through this idea very well, resulting sometimes in strange and extremely costly recipes which cannot be afforded by an average cooking enthusiast. Lussiana recommends many fine ingredients, but the way he combines them suggests that he does not really understand their chemistry. Perhaps the trouble is that he is very new to Polish culture which he needs to understand thoroughly to make his new ideas compatible with it. A reading such as Gary Rhodes' "New British Classics" could serve as an excellent example of new and exciting ideas based on a real understanding of centuries long British traditions and culture topped up with the chef's true talent and passion for cooking.

It is a rare and precious pleasure to read the recipes of a clearly talented Chef without the self-promotion that normally goes with it.

Lussiana's interpretation of the Polish kitchen reveals a fascinating picture of unspoilt lakes and game filled forests. It is clearly not the ingredients which have provided an image of a heavy cuisine, but the cooks who handled them for here the theme is lightness - with a Polish accent.

A truly original and inspiring book, both to cook from and to savour.

Thomas Gross, the author, bases his argument (that the local Poles herded the local Jews into a barn and burned them there)on tenuous testimony. Using the same methodology, I could write a book, largely based on the "testimony' of one SS man, "proving" that the mass gassing and cremations of Jews and others at Auschwitz never took place, and that the smoke and foul odor from the chimneys actually came from the manufacture of leather! Also, Gross' attempts to minimize the extensive Jewish collaboration with the Soviet communists, a major provocation in Jewish-Polish relations (that long preceded the revelation of the genocidal intentions of the Nazis), can also be refuted by large numbers of testimonies (See, for example, the book NEIGHBOURS ON THE EVE OF THE HOLOCAUST, by Mike Paul). The totality of evidence, largely ignored by Gross, all but demonstrates that it was the German Nazis who orchestrated the murder of Jedwabne's Jews. Polish involvement was limited to a few tens of individuals (certainly not the whole town as Gross charges) most if not all of whom were forced to participate in the roundup of Jews, and whose actual involvement (consensual or otherwise) in the barn-burning "aktion" cannot be proved. Then again, this book does fill a need, as evidenced by its popularity. Just as Holocaust-denial literature supports the prejudices of those who would like to demonize the Jews and to deny their sufferings, so also this book serves as emotional comfort to those who would like to demonize the Poles and/or dilute the guilt of the Germans.

On a Summer day in 1941 in the small town of Jedwabne Poland another tale of the holocaust was told. This one however, was not produced solely by the acts of the antisemitic Germans, but by the town's Polish neighbors. It was on this frightful day that one half of the Polish town murdered the other half.
This historical novel is compiled by author Jann Gross. To truly understand what exactly happened on that horrible day in July 1941, Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts and other evidence into an encapsulating horror story. His focus on Jewish-Polish relations opens the readers mind to truths not yet perceived or dwelled upon simply because no one would think it possible. How the small town of approximately 3,200 people could be so influenced by the Nazis totalitarian rule and murder the other half of their town, and to do so by their own will.
The manner in which these assaults were carried out makes the story that much more difficult to comprehend. To think that 1,600 Jewish, men, women and children were murdered by being drowned, gutted, clubbed and mass burned in their neighbor's barn by those they shared conversations with every day and knew well. These innocent people were murdered by their neighbors and this book illustrates how and why.
A National Book Award nonfiction nominee. Jann Gross's Neighbors succeeds to enlighten the reader into another side of the horror witnessed and dispensed onto the Jews of Europe during the second World War. Not only is it a riveting story, but the style in which Gross presents it makes it quite easy for all, young or old, to read and gain a new view of one of the worst catastrophes known to this world.

In the small Polish city of Jedwabne, a stone monument notes that some 1600 Jedwabne Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II. Professor Jan Gross' concise and convincing monograph, "Neighbors," marshalls direct historical evidence and a creative historiography to prove "beyond reasonable doubt, and as Jedwabne citizens knew all along, it was their [Polish] neighbors who killed them." Gross, with excruciating detail, dissects the July 10, 1941, murder of practically every Jewish man, woman and child in that small Polish city. What makes Gross' research important is that this slaughter was not Nazi-inspired, but initiated, orchestrated and celebrated by Poles themselves. This direct indictment of Polish involvement (not mere complicity or helpless bystanding) shatters a half-century of Polish myth-making about that nation's alleged victimhood during World War II.

Professor Gross does not sensationalize the actual murder itself. A day-long orgy of violence, which was at once primitive and comprehensive, featured the climax of burning alive those Jews who had not perished in the mayhem of the day. In fact, not only did the non-Jewish Poles of Jedwabne participate; participants from other nearby Polish communities, themselves veterans of other pogroms, journeyed to Jedwabne to commit depredations on the Jewish population. Instead, Gross focuses on the impact this research may have on Polish national identity. In this sense, Gross simultaneously adds to and departs from standard interpretations of the Holocaust.

His research is the least creative in his reaffirmation of the now widely-accepted thesis that those involved in the destruction of European Jewry did so volitionally. Jedwabne's murderers are "willing executioners" in the purest sense of the word. "Everybody who was in town on this day and in possession of a sense of sight, smell or hearing either participated in or witnessed the tormented deaths of the Jews of Jedwabne." Yet "Neighbors" will not leave its mark on Holocaust historiography as a mere reaffirmation of the Browning/Goldhagen thesis of uncoerced genocide. Professor Gross' monography deserves praise for the questions it poses and the new directions it stakes out.

More important is Gross' investigation of how thoroughly Jew hatred has saturated Polish society and how that vicious prejudice found outlet through the Nazi policy of annihilation. His research disabuses theorists who propound a "modernist" interpretation of the Holocaust. His analysis of the Jedwabne massacre asks for a "heterogeneous" interpretation of the event; one which acknoledges that many participants acted with the most primitive of instruments, without bureaucracy to direct their efforts and from a myriad of purposes and motivations. He challenges future historians to accept and cherish the accounts of survivors instead of treating them with skepticism. "The greater the catastrophe the fewer the survivors. We must be capable of listening to lonely voices reaching us from the abyss."

Finally, Professor Gross may make his greatest contribution to the future of a genuinely free Poland with his invocation to an inclusive history of Poland's involvement in the destruction of its own population, its own Jews, during World War II. Eschewing collective responsibility, Professor Gross nonetheless warns Poles of the danger of ignoring this extraordinary event in its past. To ignore involvement in mass murder vitiates future claims to moral coherence. It is this call to conscience that makes the terse "Neighbors" a critical additition to Holocaust historiography.

This is a very personal book -- and at one time it would have begun to fill a small niche in the military history of World War Two -- not there weren't plenty of books available on the invasion of Poland, but there were for a time very few in English. Now, however, this gap has begun to be filled, and admirably, by qualified historians such as Richard Watt. This book adds nothing to the mix.

This book is a neat little introduction to Poland's participation in World War II. It begins with a quick, six-page overview of Polish history prior to WWII, and then launches into the war. This book is quite short, being a mere 106 pages when the bibliography and index are not counted (in the hardcover, 2000 edition). However, it contains many excellent black-and-white pictures, but no maps at all.

Overall, I liked this book, but did find it a little too short to be of much value. It would make a good book for younger readers, who need a (very) short overview of Polish activity during the war. But, I would not recommend it for adult readers.

"Poland in World War II: An Illustrated Military History" by Andrew Hempel is a great overview of the Polish military effort in the second World War. This book is a concise outline, and not a lengthy volume, so it makes a great introduction to the topic. With more than 50 black-and-white photographs, the people and events described are brought to life.

As this book is concise and written in a straightforward manner, it makes great reading for young people or even postgraduates like me interested in the topic.

Adam Szechter vel Michnik - an ateist and communist with international ties, former member of Communist Party (PZPR), son of Helena and Ozjasz Szechter (both communists). Anti-Polish as his father Ozjasz who was a Soviet spy and collaborator and enemy of Poles. *source of information: Polish history book "Rzady Zbirow 1940-1990" by H.Pajak, S.Zochowski, 1996 edition

I am sure that people who searched for this title are familiar with the author and know at least something about the book. Thus, they will simply disregard the other "review" so full of invectives and right wing propaganda. However, there may be a person or two to whom Adam Michnik and his work are foreign. They should know that Adam Michnik is a well-known and respected historian, essayist, and journalist. He has spent most of his early adult life in active opposition to the communist regime in Poland (a great deal of it in communists prisons). He contributed greatly to the collapse of communism. After the changes and a short stint as a deputy to Poland's parliament, he devoted his time to the largest Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza which he helped to establish and now is its editor-in-chief. One can find much more on Adam Michnik by simply entering his name in just about any search engine (e.g., Google).

As for the book, having read it a long time ago, I may not be the most qualified to critique the work. It seems that after the collapse of communism the book would have mostly a historical significance. It does talk about the uneasy but important alliance of the Left and the Catholic Church in Poland during the communist years. And yet, it could also help to explain the present ideological and political divisions in Poland. I would suggest reading it (if one is interested in Polish affairs and anticommunist movement). But even more so I would recommend Letters from Prison and Letters from Freedom (especially the second one).

Despite the best of intentions, and despite the horrifying experiences the author endured, in my opinion this book fails to add anything substantial to the body of Holocaust literature. If the author wrote "I don't remember" once, she wrote it a hundred times. Most events are fragmentary, confused or curtailed with "I don't remember..." The author herself apologizes for the "chaotic" telling of events. One of her experiences as a physician that weighs most heavily on her conscience most naturally was being forced to administer lethal doses of morphine to children and the sick, to give them the gift of "going gently into that dark night", rather than being shot or worse by the Nazis. In another instance she was forced to euthanize a Jewish woman in hiding who had lost her mind and was jeopardizing the safety of the other Jews in hiding with her and the courageous Gentiles who were hiding them, by running in the streets and screaming in Yiddish. Even this story she does not tell - "I don't want to write any more. Not a sentence more. About anything." Well, what's the point of writing a memoir? There are many other, more detailed accounts of similar experiences in the literature.

While she was also a self-described "courier girl" for the ZOB (acronym for the Jewish Fighting Organization, in Polish), the Jewish Resisitance fighters whose stories she tells have written accounts of their own about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which are much more complete; some other accounts were written by the actual leaders of the ZOB (Marek Edelman's "The Ghetto Fights" is an example). The main point the author seems to be trying to make is that the Jewish Resistance Movement went on with its activities after the "official" end of the Uprising, that is, after the total destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto by burning lead by Nazi General Jurgen Stroop (who thankfully was caught and hanged in 1952). Though it is true that the few surviving Jewish resistance fighters were transported to the partisan strongholds in the forests surrounding Warsaw, almost all perished in the Uprising, either by Nazi destruction or by their own hand. The few who survived were not given any assistance by Allied powers, nor by most of the Polish Resistance Home Army; in fact, they had to be removed from the forests and hidden in Aryan Warsaw in order to prevent their execution by anti-semitic partisan Polish "patriots". One of the most shameful tales is the fact that though hundreds of thousands of United States dollars were raised for the Jewish Resistance fighters by Jewish organizations in America, the funds were funneled through the Polish Home Army and less than half the funds actually ended up in the hands of the Jewish Resistance. Read Dan Kurzman's "The Bravest Battle" for an excellent compilation of the known facts of the Uprising.

I wish no disrespect to the author, but she herself repeats many times that she is "old and sick" and trying to unburden herself of her story before "it is too late". I'm sure listening to her remininiscences in person would have been valuable, no matter how fragmentary her memory; rather like listening with love to your elderly parent or grandparent's stories. However, it makes for a frustrating read.

I Remember Nothing More The Warsaw Children's Hospital and the Jewish Resistance is a book by Adina Blady Szwajger was not published until 1988. The author took over forty years to come to grip with the horror she experienced as s young woman "passing" for a non-Jewish citizen while fighting the nazis, living in constant fear, and relying on alcoholism to deaden pain she faced. Adina Blady Szwajger still lives in her native Poland. The book accounts her experiences as a "nurse" inside a Jewish Ghetto hospital. He eyewitness accounts of Nazi soldiers killing babies, the storm troopers shooting children in the streets like fish in a barrel. she worked in the hospital not to heal the sick, but soften the blow of death, sometimes offering her patients an early release from the suffering of a soldier's bayonet into the serenity of mortal escape.

Adina Szwajger reveals on pages 163-164 the position she was forced to occupy during the holocaust.

"Around the 'Square of Flowers' while Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake, the mob on the street was laughing and dancing. In Warsaw, on Krasinski square, outside the walls of a burning ghetto in that awful Easter of 1943 the merry-go-round went around and jolly music played. And people enjoyed themselves. And that is why the part of my memoirs dealing with the Ghetto Uprising is called "Campo dei Fiori. Because I stood by that merry-go-round, I looked at what was going on behind the walls and I looked at those who were on the merry-go-round. And I too was smiling."

Of all of the books, and movies, and testimonials on this period of history, it is this account -- from this woman's life, that has moved me the most on the subject on man's insane treatment to his fellow man, and her words have forever stayed with me as my favorite book I have ever read. This book is not the feel good book of the century. But it will leave you with a bursting glow of hope and love for the heart and mind that one can truly make a difference in a violent and insane world. Adina Blady Szwajger courage and bravery is proof how much one can endure, and how much one can sacrifice for the promise for a better tomorrow.

I expected an objective tale of a prewar life of Polish Jews in Poland. Jewish writer Tuszynska failed in my opinion. She is one of many Polish Jews who when discovered their roots try to make a living writing about Jewish subjects. Some are better than others, some worst. Tuszynska's great knowledge of Singer is unquestionable but her observations reflect deep anti-Polonizm. Maybe if she tries harder in a future she can create a masterpiece. One star for Tuszynska's book for picking the subject but I believe Singer deserves better.

Agata Tuszynska's book is written with talent, great dedication and sensitivity to tell as much as possible about Singer. The book shows the author's deep honesty in showing Singer as a person the literary world admired. I found it one of the most interestoing books I have read recently.

This book is neither historical or factual, yet it would like to infer such. This is partial, if not complete, fiction. Recognizing this, one immediately loses interest in this dreary subject matter. Disappointing, a complete waste of time.

If you're looking for something real, something disturbing, something to open your heart - you've found it.

This book was my high school required reading and I'll be forever grateful for it. "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

I found Self-Portrait With Woman to be very confusing and very choppy. I read the first hundred pages or so and decided to stop reading because I had no idea what was going on. Kamil, the main character and story teller, is relating his life story to a woman in Switzerland so that she can get a better idea of how life was in Eastern Europe during the communist era. All of his stories are told through his experiences with women he has been involved with. I found this to be confusing becuase it was difficult to tell when these things were occuring in his life and what the women had to do with the story. Overall, I thought this book was choppy and it lacked a point.

An excellent novel that explores one man's soul against the dark backdrop of Poland's history. Though a deep portrait of one person, Szczypiorski is universal, and has universal implications. Above all, Kamil vaules his loves, and uses them as reference points in the depths of his soul, and in the darkness of his history. I recommend this novel! It's enjoyable and important. And I did not find it at all choppy. It's lyrical and beautifully written, the author paints a picture of one man, in all his humanity.

This book is short but gives good insight to the horror that the Jews of Warsaw suffered in the years of Nazi occupation. First hand reports from diaries and interviews make this a good selection.

This book appears to contain a selection of recipes from an earlier book on Eastern European cooking by the same contributors.

It contains recipes for the better known dishes of the region with some introductory prose. An attractive gift as an introduction to the Polish/Russian kitchen but less useful as a reference work for the serious slavophile cook.

I have never prepared any of the recipes and cannot, therefore, comment on their workability.