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Jewish Lives
Czarne sezony
Nad książką pracowałem przez cztery lata (1993-1997), ale o napisaniu jej myślałem już za młodu. Zadanie, jakie sobie wyznaczyłem, było skromne: postanowiłem zapisać wyłącznie własne doświadczenia czasu Zagłady, przedstawić je tak, jak się utrwaliły w mojej świadomości i pamięci. Nie odwoływałem się w miarę możności do ogólnej wiedzy, nie sięgałem do źródeł i wspomnień innych osób. Ta książka miała mieć - i ma! - charakter ściśle osobisty.
233 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
3 people are currently reading
260 people want to read
About the author
Michał Głowiński
56 books10 followersOne of kids saved by Irena Sendlerowa from ghetto in Warsaw during the Second World War.
Profesor of literature, well known from his articles about newspeak. His studies are mainly focused on contemporary literature.
In 2010 he published his autobiography in which he revealed his homosexual orientation.
Profesor of literature, well known from his articles about newspeak. His studies are mainly focused on contemporary literature.
In 2010 he published his autobiography in which he revealed his homosexual orientation.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 5, 2015
Jedna z ciekawszych wypraw do czasów wojenne Warszawy, 9 latek w getcie warszawskim, dziecko pochodzące z Pruszkowa. Czas w którym strategia przetrwania często sprowadza się do prostego "mieć szczęście", zostać w ostatniej chwili schowanym przed wywózką do Treblinki, nie iść z siostrą zakonną do miasta gdy napadną ją Ukraińcy. Ukrywanie się, rozłąka z rodziną, pomoc Żegoty i Kościoła.
Mocne zdziwienie gdy nagle czytam o księdzu wyrażającym się tuż po wojnie pochlebnie o tym co Niemcy zrobili z żydami, księdzu, który chrzcił część osób z mojej własnej rodziny i uczył ich religii, zresztą w podobnym czasie co młodego Michała.
Mocne zdziwienie gdy nagle czytam o księdzu wyrażającym się tuż po wojnie pochlebnie o tym co Niemcy zrobili z żydami, księdzu, który chrzcił część osób z mojej własnej rodziny i uczył ich religii, zresztą w podobnym czasie co młodego Michała.
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November 21, 2025I've read this book several times -- at least half a dozen -- but all well before I started posting GR reviews. A recent exchange of thoughts about a different book with another GR reader inspired me to jump in to leave a review, since this book doesn't seem to be well known, and it deserves more attention and more readers.
Glowinski is famous as a literary scholar in Poland, but as far as I know, unknown in the Anglophone world. He was born before WW2, a Jewish boy in a Jewish family, but also a Polish boy. And this book helps you understand how deeply "Polish" and "Jewish" it was possible to be, at the same time.
Glowinski survived the Holocaust, mostly in hiding, as a child and shares his memories of his wartime experiences in this book, written in his old age, with all the witnesses dead and gone and no one to help him verify his childhood memories. Indeed, the veil of uncertainty is one of the most spectacular and unusual elements of this book. Most narrators try to convince you that everything they remember is accurate and true -- down to claims to be able to reproduce dialogue. Glowinski takes the opposite approach -- being transparent about what he does not remember, cannot remember. And it can be jarring to read his admission that he isn't sure if a particular person was, say, his uncle or his father, or if something happened before or after someone died, or before or after his family was put in a particular ghetto.
This uncertainty about events that happened when he was small -- decades and decades earlier, and that have to be remembered through unimaginable trauma -- nevertheless strengthen the importance and the power of living witness. Far from making one doubt his reliability, they shine a powerful and unrelenting spotlight on the greater truth of what he survived and what it tells us about human society. It is also, I think, important for people to understand the wide variety of ways in which Jewish people were hunted and murdered during the Holocaust -- it cannot be reduced to Auschwitz -- and to appreciate both the significance of those differences and the fundamental underlying similarities. Some things can be best understood one life at a time (not that they can ever be fully understood).
Glowinski describes his time in the Warsaw ghetto, in hiding with his mother in Warsaw, and in several convent-run schools or orphanages. He mentions several times the interventions of hte incredible Irene Sendler(owa).
I find Glowinski's openness about his lifelong antipathy for all things German and the incredible generosity of spirit with which he embraces his Polishness fascinating.
A sobering and powerful read that I strongly recommend to anyone interested in how a Jewish child lived through 1939-1945 in German-occupied Poland.
I reread this yet again in November 2025. I see something new every time.
Glowinski is famous as a literary scholar in Poland, but as far as I know, unknown in the Anglophone world. He was born before WW2, a Jewish boy in a Jewish family, but also a Polish boy. And this book helps you understand how deeply "Polish" and "Jewish" it was possible to be, at the same time.
Glowinski survived the Holocaust, mostly in hiding, as a child and shares his memories of his wartime experiences in this book, written in his old age, with all the witnesses dead and gone and no one to help him verify his childhood memories. Indeed, the veil of uncertainty is one of the most spectacular and unusual elements of this book. Most narrators try to convince you that everything they remember is accurate and true -- down to claims to be able to reproduce dialogue. Glowinski takes the opposite approach -- being transparent about what he does not remember, cannot remember. And it can be jarring to read his admission that he isn't sure if a particular person was, say, his uncle or his father, or if something happened before or after someone died, or before or after his family was put in a particular ghetto.
This uncertainty about events that happened when he was small -- decades and decades earlier, and that have to be remembered through unimaginable trauma -- nevertheless strengthen the importance and the power of living witness. Far from making one doubt his reliability, they shine a powerful and unrelenting spotlight on the greater truth of what he survived and what it tells us about human society. It is also, I think, important for people to understand the wide variety of ways in which Jewish people were hunted and murdered during the Holocaust -- it cannot be reduced to Auschwitz -- and to appreciate both the significance of those differences and the fundamental underlying similarities. Some things can be best understood one life at a time (not that they can ever be fully understood).
Glowinski describes his time in the Warsaw ghetto, in hiding with his mother in Warsaw, and in several convent-run schools or orphanages. He mentions several times the interventions of hte incredible Irene Sendler(owa).
I find Glowinski's openness about his lifelong antipathy for all things German and the incredible generosity of spirit with which he embraces his Polishness fascinating.
A sobering and powerful read that I strongly recommend to anyone interested in how a Jewish child lived through 1939-1945 in German-occupied Poland.
I reread this yet again in November 2025. I see something new every time.
March 11, 2024
Głowiński pisze z niezwykłą łatwością. Mimo tak trudnego tematu, płynęło mi się przez tę książkę bardzo przyjemnie.
Tematyka niesamowicie ciężka, ale ważna.
Tematyka niesamowicie ciężka, ale ważna.
June 21, 2024
Przejmujące wspomnienia historyka literatury, który przeżył II wojnę światową w ukryciu, przede wszystkim w Turkowicach, dzięki pomocy Sióstr Służebniczek Najświętszej Marii Panny. Nie wiem, czy wypada się tak wyrazić, ale dla mnie była to lektura nieodkładalna.
July 15, 2024
Ta książka mówi sama za siebie, tu nie ma co pisać
January 22, 2016
Memoirs from the second world war. Nobody would dare to negate the great tragedy of Holocaust, but there is an ample documentation in form of journals, memoirs and novels. However, Glowinski has written a piece that is extraordinary because of three reasons. First, it is the perspective of a child. Second, skilful use of language. Third, it deals with the consequences of growing up during the war.
Although the memoirs are written down almost fifty years later, the perspective of the child is maintained. Most of these are flashbacks rather than memories. This is the incompleteness, together with the striking co-exsistence of reality of Warsaw's Jewish ghetto and fantasitcal products of the child's mind, that makes an ever-lasting impression.
Glowinski is a professional interpretor of literature, well aware of words and their functions. Story is told with use of elegant lexems, a number of vivid metaphors and striking sentences.
Memoirs do not stop when the war ends, but we see the consequences. They take a form of a young boy with post-traumatic stress, who learns to live in post-war Poland, affected by anti-Jewish propaganda. Next, we see an adult man who is confronted with his fear and hater when encountering German citizens.
Although the memoirs are written down almost fifty years later, the perspective of the child is maintained. Most of these are flashbacks rather than memories. This is the incompleteness, together with the striking co-exsistence of reality of Warsaw's Jewish ghetto and fantasitcal products of the child's mind, that makes an ever-lasting impression.
Glowinski is a professional interpretor of literature, well aware of words and their functions. Story is told with use of elegant lexems, a number of vivid metaphors and striking sentences.
Memoirs do not stop when the war ends, but we see the consequences. They take a form of a young boy with post-traumatic stress, who learns to live in post-war Poland, affected by anti-Jewish propaganda. Next, we see an adult man who is confronted with his fear and hater when encountering German citizens.
September 21, 2022
Jak komentowac tak tragiczne wspomnienia? Sa napisane przepieknym przejrzystym jezykiem, az chce sie przeczytac wiecej ksiazek tego autora. W tej historii nie ma relacji i opisow wielkich okrucienstw, jest relacja z wielkiego, okropnego porazajacego strachu. Jest zrozumienie postaw i zachowan czesto trudnych, jest wspolczucie dla siebie samego, przeciez autor pisze te wspomnienia z perspektywy 60 lat, wiec widzi siebie juz jako byt osobny. Nie ma potepien jednych czy innych zachowan, takie zachowania sa po prostu opisane sucho i pozostawione bez komentarza. Ale jest swiadomosc ze w pewnym sensie tak historia sie nie skonczyla, ze gdzies w glebi ludzkosci potencjal do powtorki tej historii dalej istnieje i tak iskra nienawisci nie zostala wygaszona. Ciesze sie ze ta ksiazka zostala przetlumaczona na wiele jezykow, dziwie sie ze autor w Polsce jest praktycznie kompletnie nieznany.
July 27, 2021
Read for one of my history classes. This was both moving and informative, and despite my horror, it was hard to put down.
January 13, 2017
A stark, frank, and beautifully written account of Glowinski's experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto and then on the run on the "Aryan" side. This is not a memoir but rather a thoughtful conversation on memory and trauma and how the process of memory changes when experience is shaped by cataclysmic events. Glowinski was an 8 year old child when the Nazis occupied Poland. With both the perspective of an adult and the innocence of a child, shattered in a way that no such innocence should be shattered, Glowinski pulls us into his journey. No child should ever be subjected to such cruelty; no child should ever have childhood so cruelly stolen. And yet. It happens, still, now. Even from such a tome, sadly, we, as a race, seem to learn nothing.
April 22, 2009
In confining myself to what I myself went through, in writing only of my own fate and at times of those who influenced it, I would like to believe that I have avoided repeating what has already been said, what is already known, or what is generally accessible knowledge—and yet I hope that in so doing, I am not depriving these stories of certain, more transcendent meanings. (3)
“the stories of the victims in those years are so often stories of the unburied” (107).
“the stories of the victims in those years are so often stories of the unburied” (107).
October 21, 2014
This was another book on my reading list this year. Glowinski's Holocaust account is different than what I've encountered before, most of the book seen from the Warsaw Ghetto. I enjoyed this account, its not as gruesome as some of the other Holocaust works I've read recently.
Something about going back after all the time and deciding to write about your childhood when you're a grown man is so incredible.
Something about going back after all the time and deciding to write about your childhood when you're a grown man is so incredible.
March 4, 2016
A powerful memoir definitely worth reading. I appreciated this as much as Wiesel's Night, but both memoirs share little in common. Stylistically Black Seasons was a bit boring but it's content made up for that. It did not have an enthralling storytelling element which I feel took a lot away from its potential.
May 9, 2014
very good its a true view of the holocost from a 10year old boys perception
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews