Recommendation

[Lynn]

The story of Irena/Magdalena a medical student at the outbreak of war in 1939 Warsaw, who experiences the impact of Nazi occupation, the fear and the atrocities committed during same. The choices she makes to survive, the lives she saves the lives she cannot, the friends and family she loses are so well narrated. The narrative pulls you in and it is unexpected in many ways, Irena escapes to Britain and finishes her training but she remains determined to go back to Poland despite the ties she has found and then being caught up within the communist regime behind the Iron Curtain and her story appears lost but the modern character manages to dig away at the history and her own personal connection with Irena. It is clearly well-researched in regards to incidents relating to the Polish doctors who faked a typhus epidemic to hide Jewish and others at risk in the Polish districts of Warsaw as well as the Polish Hospital in Scotland, and the Polish airmen in Britain during WWII. A really good read.