Joanna Sliwa – författare

Insight into the lives of older Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust.Elderly Jews were among the most vulnerable groups during the Holocaust, yet little scholarly and literary work has focused on their experiences. Not only were they often the first to be murdered by the Nazis but they were also less likely to survive the physical strains of persecution. Editors Christine Schmidt, Elizabeth Anthony, and Joanna Sliwa and thirteen additional scholars center this marginalized group in historical research and counter other narratives in historiography and memory that only recount the devastation and despair associated with older age during the Holocaust. While these chapters explore how age and physical ability made older adults especially susceptible to violence and death, they also illuminate life and moments of agency within devastating circumstances. This volume is a powerful recovery of history and memory that expands our understanding of the Holocaust and the human experience during genocide.

Insight into the lives of older Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust.Elderly Jews were among the most vulnerable groups during the Holocaust, yet little scholarly and literary work has focused on their experiences. Not only were they often the first to be murdered by the Nazis but they were also less likely to survive the physical strains of persecution. Editors Christine Schmidt, Elizabeth Anthony, and Joanna Sliwa and thirteen additional scholars center this marginalized group in historical research and counter other narratives in historiography and memory that only recount the devastation and despair associated with older age during the Holocaust. While these chapters explore how age and physical ability made older adults especially susceptible to violence and death, they also illuminate life and moments of agency within devastating circumstances. This volume is a powerful recovery of history and memory that expands our understanding of the Holocaust and the human experience during genocide.

'Powerful. . . . A heart-wrenching profile of resilience, ingenuity, and heroism.' Publisher's Weekly'A story of courage, compassion, and cunning so profound that it must be included with the greatest Holocaust literature. Janina Mehlberg is a heroine for the ages.' - Larry Loftis, New York Times bestselling author of The Watchmaker's Daughter The Holocaust has given rise to many accounts of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess is unique. It tells the remarkable, untold story of 'Countess Janina Suchodolska', a Jewish woman named Janina Mehlberg who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by their country's Nazi occupiers.Using the identity papers of a Polish aristocrat, she worked as a welfare official while also serving in the Polish resistance. With guile, cajolery, and steely persistence, 'the Countess' persuaded SS officials to release thousands of Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp. Incredibly, she eluded detection, survived the war and eventually emigrated to the USA. Drawing on the manuscript of Mehlberg's own unpublished memoir, supplemented with prodigious research, , historians and Holocaust experts Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa have uncovered the full story of this extraordinary woman. Unsparing yet inspiring, The Counterfeit Countess is an unforgettable account of selfless courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty, and a major addition to the history of the Holocaust.

We are all too familiar with the stories of Jews who were tortured and killed in concentration camps throughout the Third Reich. But less is known about the persecution of Polish prisoners housed in Majdanek, a concentration and extermination camp on the outskirts of the city of Lublin in south-eastern Poland. The Counterfeit Countess tells this story through the lens of the efforts of one remarkable woman, herself a Jew, who passed as Polish aristocracy, became a lead official in a Polish relief organisation and an officer in the underground resistance movement known as the Polish Home Army. Using the false identity of Countess Janina Suchodolska, Josephine Janina Mehlberg persuaded the SS and other Nazi authorities to give her access to prisoners, bringing them soup, clothing, medicine and tending to their needs, and on many occasions having them freed from the camp. This is her story, based upon her own unpublished account.

The Holocaust has given rise to many accounts of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess is unique. It tells the remarkable, untold story of 'Countess Janina Suchodolska', a Jewish woman named Janina Mehlberg who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by their country's Nazi occupiers. Janina Mehlberg operated in Lublin, headquarters of Aktion Reinhard, the SS operation that murdered 1.7 million Jews in occupied Poland. Using the identity papers of a Polish aristocrat, she worked as a welfare official while also serving in the Polish resistance. With guile, cajolery, and steely persistence, 'the Countess' persuaded SS officials to release thousands of Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp. She won permission to deliver food, clothing and medicine for thousands more of the camp's prisoners. At the same time, she personally smuggled supplies and messages to resistance fighters imprisoned at Majdanek, where 63,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers and shooting pits. Incredibly, she eluded detection, survived the war and eventually emigrated to the USA. Drawing on the manuscript of Mehlberg's own unpublished memoir, supplemented with prodigious research, Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa, professional historians and Holocaust experts, have uncovered the full story of this extraordinary woman. They interweave Mehlberg's sometimes harrowing personal testimony with broader historical narrative. Unsparing yet inspiring, The Counterfeit Countess is an unforgettable account of selfless courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty, and a major addition to the history of the Holocaust.

Winner of the 2020 Ernst Fraenkel Prize from the Wiener Holocaust Library​Jewish Childhood in KrakÓw is the first book to tell the history of KrakÓw in the second World War through the lens of Jewish children’s experiences. Here, children assume center stage as historical actors whose recollections and experiences deserve to be told, analyzed, and treated seriously.Sliwa scours archives to tell their story, gleaning evidence from the records of the German authorities, Polish neighbors, Jewish community and family, and the children themselves to explore the Holocaust in German-occupied Poland and in KrakÓw in particular. A microhistory of a place, a people, and daily life, this book plumbs the decisions and behaviors of ordinary people in extraordinary times.Offering a window onto human relations and ethnic tensions in times of rampant violence, Jewish Childhood in KrakÓw is an effort both to understand the past and to reflect on the position of young people during humanitarian crises.

Winner of the 2020 Ernst Fraenkel Prize from the Wiener Holocaust Library​Jewish Childhood in KrakÓw is the first book to tell the history of KrakÓw in the second World War through the lens of Jewish children’s experiences. Here, children assume center stage as historical actors whose recollections and experiences deserve to be told, analyzed, and treated seriously.Sliwa scours archives to tell their story, gleaning evidence from the records of the German authorities, Polish neighbors, Jewish community and family, and the children themselves to explore the Holocaust in German-occupied Poland and in KrakÓw in particular. A microhistory of a place, a people, and daily life, this book plumbs the decisions and behaviors of ordinary people in extraordinary times.Offering a window onto human relations and ethnic tensions in times of rampant violence, Jewish Childhood in KrakÓw is an effort both to understand the past and to reflect on the position of young people during humanitarian crises.