Author(s): Halik Kochanski

European

'Poland has not yet died, So long as we still live...' By almost every measure the fate of the inhabitants of Poland was the most terrible of any group in the Second World War. Following the destruction of its armed forces in the autumn of 1939, the Republic of Poland was partitioned between Nazi and Soviet forces and officially ceased to exist. Racial violence and ideological conformity were at the very heart of the new regimes. As the war progressed millions of Poles were killed, with each phase unleashing a further round, from the industrialised genocide of Treblinka to the crushing of the Warsaw Rising. Polish Jews were all to be murdered, Christians reduced to a semi-literate slave class. In this powerful and original new book Halik Kochanski has written perhaps the most important 'missing' work on the whole conflict: an attempt in a single volume to describe both the fate of those trapped within occupied Poland and of those millions of Poles who were able to escape. Reviews: "Until Halik Kochanski's "The Eagle Unbowed" nobody had written a comprehensive English-language history of Poland at war.
A British-born historian whose own family's experiences dot her pages, she weaves together the political, military, diplomatic and human strands of the story...Ms Kochanski gives admirably clear accounts of the battlefield. She unpicks other tangles too: the tense relationship between the impatient, ill-informed underground leadership in Poland and the divided, ill-led exiled government in London, sidelined and then dumped by the allies as the Soviet armies marched west. She has a keen eye for the striking quote...She uncovers details that will surprise even history geeks...Ms Kochanski marshals an impressive and comprehensive array of English and Polish material". ("Economist"). "An informative, authoritative and wide-ranging account of the tragedy that befell Poland and its inhabitants, Gentiles and Jews, during the war and its aftermath. The less well-known story of the Poles deported to the Soviet Union is particularly vivid and moving. An engaging and important book". (Hubert Zawadzki (author of "A Concise History of Poland")). About the author: Halik Kochanski read Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford and then completed a PhD at King's College London.
She has taught at both King's College London and University College London and presented papers to a number of military history conferences. She has written a number of articles and is the author of "Sir Garnet Wolseley: Victorian Hero" (1999). She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She has been a member of the councils of the Army Records Society and Society for Army Historical Research and remains a member of both societies. She is also a member of the British Commission for Military History and the Institute for Historical Research. She is currently a judge for the Templer Medal book prize.