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In the Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow, possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: she has blue eyes and blond hair. With these, and a set of false papers, she
...(more) has slipped out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo. At times a dark lament, at others a sly and sardonic thriller, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is the story of the thirty-six hours that follow Irma's arrest and the events that lead to her dramatic rescue as the last of Warsaw's Jews are about to meet their deaths in the burning ghetto.(less)
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For the reader seeking immersion in recent Polish history, this intensely Catholic, unabashedly patriotic European bestseller is a rare find. The central incident is the arrest of Mrs. Seidenman, a Jewish widow living under an assumed identity in Warsaw during World War II. She is betrayed by a former acquaintance and arrested by the Nazis, but her friends' determined efforts lead to her release. There are other, equally compelling tales. One is of Sister Weronika, a nun who hides Jewish orphans during the war, fervently training them to accept a new Catholic identity. Another concerns Wladyslaw Gruszecki (formerly Arturek Hirschfeld), one of Sister Weronika's charges, who becomes more anti-Semitic than even the Poles. Still another concerns Henryczek Fichtelbaum, killed in the Jewish ghetto, and his friend Pawelek Kyrnski, a Catholic teenager who finds it miraculous simply that he survived the war. An exceptional storyteller, Szczypiorski passionately re-creates the tumultuous war years for us, also providing insight into the current resurgence of Polish nationalism and Solidarity.
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