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A Barbed Wire Refrain: An Adventure in the Shadow of the World
A Barbed Wire An Adventure in the Shadow of the World [Paperback] Kowalczyk, August (trans Witold Zbirohowski-Koscia).
- GenresHolocaust
200 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2001
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 22, 2023
A Barbed Wire Refrain is the autobiography of a Polish teen, August Kowalczyk, who, while trying to reach France to join the Polish Army, was arrested in Slovakia and then taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. While in Birkenau, he survived with the help of local women who risked their lives to give prisoners bread, medicine, and water. One day while out doing slave labor, he and other prisoners planned an escape. He was one of the lucky ones. Again, although the danger was everywhere, he had the help of local men, women, and children to ensure his safety. This is his unforgettable story.
I bought this book after I took a tour of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. I read it while in Poland, and all the stories of the atrocities were still fresh in my mind. After an emotionally draining three weeks (I also visited Sachsenhausen in Germany), it was good to read a story of people who hated the Nazis and went out of their way to ensure some prisoners were fed (although not enough) and had medicine. And it was nice to read about the people on the outside helping someone who escaped, knowing they could have been put in the same place the escaped prisoner was. This book is not an easy read, but it is a must-read.
The one downside, but it doesn't take away from the story, is that this book is translated from Polish and has some grammar mistakes or is missing letters from words (at least my copy did). I was able to understand even when this did happen.
If you are interested in history, like autobiographies, or want to know more so we, as a society, don't go down this path again, this is a must-read.
Content warning: violence, war, Nazis, sexual abuse, racism
I bought this book after I took a tour of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. I read it while in Poland, and all the stories of the atrocities were still fresh in my mind. After an emotionally draining three weeks (I also visited Sachsenhausen in Germany), it was good to read a story of people who hated the Nazis and went out of their way to ensure some prisoners were fed (although not enough) and had medicine. And it was nice to read about the people on the outside helping someone who escaped, knowing they could have been put in the same place the escaped prisoner was. This book is not an easy read, but it is a must-read.
The one downside, but it doesn't take away from the story, is that this book is translated from Polish and has some grammar mistakes or is missing letters from words (at least my copy did). I was able to understand even when this did happen.
If you are interested in history, like autobiographies, or want to know more so we, as a society, don't go down this path again, this is a must-read.
Content warning: violence, war, Nazis, sexual abuse, racism
November 2, 2024
I bought this book in the museum shop of Birkenau, when visiting Auschwitz. Prior to the tour of the camp, I was apprehensive, as the thought of visiting a site of such tragic and insidious human actions felt uncomfortable, invoking almost a sense of guilt. The tour changed my opinion of ‘dark tourism’, as being present at Auschwitz helped me understand the scale of operation that the Nazi’s conducted, and the sheer suffering felt by the prisoners.
This book furthered my understanding, through a personal account of an Auschwitz survivor who had his first years of adulthood constrained by the terrors of multiple military prisons, and then finally the concentration camp.
August Kowalczyk’s prose was brilliant, and I managed to find myself engrossed in the early sections of the book about his time finishing school and living at his Aunt’s house in the Polish countryside, which felt almost like a coming of age story. It was a real juxtaposition when Kowalczyk does begin to recite his time a cross various prisons, where the unknowing of what was to come was especially striking.
The autobiography is short, so his time at Auschwitz is not discussed at length, and the specific hardship is not discussed in detail, but I did find it interesting how the inmates were able to interact with the outside world through bribing their SS officers.
For me, it is difficult to rate an autobiography on topics of this magnitude, however, I found that Kowalczyk told his story very well, in an engaging manner which meant that I read this quite quickly as I didn’t want to put it down.
Unfortunately, my version did have numerous typo’s and grammatical errors that I assume arose from the translation from Polish, but this did not detract from the story whatsoever, they were merely observations.
This book furthered my understanding, through a personal account of an Auschwitz survivor who had his first years of adulthood constrained by the terrors of multiple military prisons, and then finally the concentration camp.
August Kowalczyk’s prose was brilliant, and I managed to find myself engrossed in the early sections of the book about his time finishing school and living at his Aunt’s house in the Polish countryside, which felt almost like a coming of age story. It was a real juxtaposition when Kowalczyk does begin to recite his time a cross various prisons, where the unknowing of what was to come was especially striking.
The autobiography is short, so his time at Auschwitz is not discussed at length, and the specific hardship is not discussed in detail, but I did find it interesting how the inmates were able to interact with the outside world through bribing their SS officers.
For me, it is difficult to rate an autobiography on topics of this magnitude, however, I found that Kowalczyk told his story very well, in an engaging manner which meant that I read this quite quickly as I didn’t want to put it down.
Unfortunately, my version did have numerous typo’s and grammatical errors that I assume arose from the translation from Polish, but this did not detract from the story whatsoever, they were merely observations.
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June 19, 2025It feels odd to rate a memoir on their experiences in Auschwitz out of 5, so I have left it unrated. August’s first hand accounts of the brutality of the camp, coupled with his stories of hope and love within are deeply moving.
In particular the recounts of his nightmares towards the end of the book displays how the camp stayed with him for the rest of his life.
In particular the recounts of his nightmares towards the end of the book displays how the camp stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews