Red Shadow: A Physician's Memoir of the Soviet Occupation of Eastern Poland, 1944-1956

by Zygmunt Klukowski, Andrew Klukowski (Editor), George Klukowski (Translator)

On July 6, 1944, the Soviet army drove the German occupying forces from the small town of Szczebrzeszyn in eastern Poland. Sadly, it soon became clear that this "liberation" was simply the beginning of a new occupation. As the Polish people struggled against the Soviets, Dr. Zygmunt Klukowski, superintendent of the county hospital in Szczebrzeszyn, was in the thick of the action, meeting with partisan fighters and helping to plot and record their activities. All the while, he kept a meticulous secret diary of life under the Soviet occupation, which for him included two prison terms for "crimes against the people." Many of his friends died, and his own son Tadeusz was executed for antigovernment activities. Dr. Klukowski's diary - located in 1991 after an extensive search and translated by his son George and grandson Andrew - is a vivid recounting of the Polish resistance, marked by tragedy, triumph, and the strong will of the people in the face of brutal occupation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Poland, Diary

181 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this book at first because this diary wasn't nearly as detailed as Dr. Klukowski's Nazi-era one. Klukowski was heavily involved in underground activity under the Communists as well as the Nazis and was, I think, afraid to say too much. He referred to everyone by code names and wrote in a very oblique way much of the time because he knew what the consequences would be if the diary were to be discovered by the Soviet authorities. Certainly I could understand all this, but the result was that I didn't know what Klukowski was talking about half the time and was very frustrated.

Things picked up quite a bit though, when it came to his prison memoirs in the second half of the book. That's what made the book worth reading for me. Klukowski wrote about his prison experience in the manner of a documentary, trying to tell as much as he could, as accurately as he could. He wrote matter-of-factly and without self-pity. I had to admire the inmates and their various methods of coping with the terrible conditions.

This is a valuable book for those interested in post-WW2 Poland and the Soviet occupation. I think I still like Klukowski's Nazi occupation diaries better, though.