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Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44
Zygmunt Klukowski was a physician, surgeon, and supervisor at Zamosc County Hospital in Szczebrzeszyn, Poland, when the Germans occupied his country. A veteran of World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the Polish-Russian War of 1920-21, he also was respected as a historian. From 1939 to 1944 he kept a detailed secret journal, making entries daily at first and then, near the end of the occupation, even more frequently. His observations range from matter-of-fact anticipation of war in 1939 to information about his own and other Poles' underground activities. As a whole, the entries reveal his growing recognition that the Nazis intended to destroy Polish culture and all those who had been its bearers.
When originally published in Polish, the diary won a major award and soon went into a second edition. Now translated by his son and edited by his grandchildren, Klukowski's diary provides a rare picture of how noncombatants coped with life in German-occupied eastern Poland.
Klukowski chronicled births, deaths, deportations, liquidations, partisan actions, and much more. His devotion to detail resulted in an amazingly long list of victims who fell to the German Occupation forces.
When originally published in Polish, the diary won a major award and soon went into a second edition. Now translated by his son and edited by his grandchildren, Klukowski's diary provides a rare picture of how noncombatants coped with life in German-occupied eastern Poland.
Klukowski chronicled births, deaths, deportations, liquidations, partisan actions, and much more. His devotion to detail resulted in an amazingly long list of victims who fell to the German Occupation forces.
371 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1993
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August 22, 2023
This is another book that I'm using for research material and keep putting down and diving back into it again.
Klukowski was a Polish doctor in the General Government area of Poland, during the Nazi occupation. He was also very close to Zamosc and therefore a witness to the German attempt to empty various towns of their Polish population, and then repopulate those towns with German speaking peoples.
As far as being a readable book, that someone might read for "pleasure", I don't think that this is that type of book. But it's not intended to be. If the editor of this edition (the author's son) cared about making the book more readable, he would, I believe, have eliminated a lot of the repetitive litany of daily life that you find in this book, and which quite honestly becomes tedious to read.
BUT!
As a piece of history - as a snapshot of one fascinating corner of the World War II landscape - this is a priceless book. And imagine what Klukowski was doing - day by day he was putting pen to paper and describing his life as a doctor in this tumultuous time and place, sympathizing with the Jews, aiding the Polish partisans, all while under the thumb of the Germans who would wander through his hospital unannounced checking what he and his hospital were doing etc. If his diaries had been found in some search of his house, it may or may not have led to his execution, but surely they'd have taken away many of his relative freedoms that he enjoyed as a doctor.
The most interesting notes from my research perspective are Klukowski's observations of the back and forth attacks between the Polish Home Army units in the area, and the Germans. I shouldn't use the word "observations" though - entirely wrapped up in his own work... Klukowski's reporting is primarily based on what others (patients / friends) tell him about what is going on in neighboring towns and the forests etc.
A useful description of what Klukowski's diary covers is this, from the review by Keith Sword that I cite below:
Klukowski's diary follows events in the Zamosc region from the late summer of I939 up to the point almost five years later when the Red Army crossed the River Bug and the Germans were driven out. Day-to-day life - the effects of the curfew, food shortages, deportations of Poles for work in Germany, house searches, arrests, random executions and beatings, retaliatory strikes by the underground, assassination of collaborators and informers - is recounted on the basis of what the author himself witnessed, or what he was told by friends.
He describes the steady deterioration of the situation of Polish Jews until their final round-up for the extermination camps in I942, the expulsion of Polish villagers from I942 onwards and the steady influx of German colonists (the Zamosc region had been chosen by Himmler as an area of German resettlement). (Keith Sword - see citation below)
Anyway - not a book anyone would read for pleasure. But as a piece of history, as basically live reporting from one of the most horrendous times and places in human history - this is an essential book.
Very good and full review can be found here:
Sword, K. (1994). [Review of Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, by Z. Klukowski & G. Klukowski]. The Slavonic and East European Review, 72(2), 357–358. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211524
Klukowski was a Polish doctor in the General Government area of Poland, during the Nazi occupation. He was also very close to Zamosc and therefore a witness to the German attempt to empty various towns of their Polish population, and then repopulate those towns with German speaking peoples.
As far as being a readable book, that someone might read for "pleasure", I don't think that this is that type of book. But it's not intended to be. If the editor of this edition (the author's son) cared about making the book more readable, he would, I believe, have eliminated a lot of the repetitive litany of daily life that you find in this book, and which quite honestly becomes tedious to read.
BUT!
As a piece of history - as a snapshot of one fascinating corner of the World War II landscape - this is a priceless book. And imagine what Klukowski was doing - day by day he was putting pen to paper and describing his life as a doctor in this tumultuous time and place, sympathizing with the Jews, aiding the Polish partisans, all while under the thumb of the Germans who would wander through his hospital unannounced checking what he and his hospital were doing etc. If his diaries had been found in some search of his house, it may or may not have led to his execution, but surely they'd have taken away many of his relative freedoms that he enjoyed as a doctor.
The most interesting notes from my research perspective are Klukowski's observations of the back and forth attacks between the Polish Home Army units in the area, and the Germans. I shouldn't use the word "observations" though - entirely wrapped up in his own work... Klukowski's reporting is primarily based on what others (patients / friends) tell him about what is going on in neighboring towns and the forests etc.
A useful description of what Klukowski's diary covers is this, from the review by Keith Sword that I cite below:
Klukowski's diary follows events in the Zamosc region from the late summer of I939 up to the point almost five years later when the Red Army crossed the River Bug and the Germans were driven out. Day-to-day life - the effects of the curfew, food shortages, deportations of Poles for work in Germany, house searches, arrests, random executions and beatings, retaliatory strikes by the underground, assassination of collaborators and informers - is recounted on the basis of what the author himself witnessed, or what he was told by friends.
He describes the steady deterioration of the situation of Polish Jews until their final round-up for the extermination camps in I942, the expulsion of Polish villagers from I942 onwards and the steady influx of German colonists (the Zamosc region had been chosen by Himmler as an area of German resettlement). (Keith Sword - see citation below)
Anyway - not a book anyone would read for pleasure. But as a piece of history, as basically live reporting from one of the most horrendous times and places in human history - this is an essential book.
Very good and full review can be found here:
Sword, K. (1994). [Review of Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44, by Z. Klukowski & G. Klukowski]. The Slavonic and East European Review, 72(2), 357–358. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211524
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