History of Poland

Below are selected books dealing with part of Polish history, World War II, that you may find interesting:

First to Fight: The Polish War 1939
Drawing for the first time on Polish, German and Soviet sources, First to Fight is the definitive history of the German invasion of Poland, which opened the war in September 1939. The book explodes many of the myths that still surround the campaign and challenge our understanding of how Britain and France entered the war.









The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz
The incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter’s infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, and his death-defying attempt to warn the Allies about the Nazis’ plans for a “Final Solution” before it was too late.












The Polish 'Few': Polish Airmen in the Battle of Britain 
They came to fight for freedom and their country, they came to fight Germans. Men of the Polish Air Force, who had escaped first to France and then to Britain...














A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II
A Question of Honor is the gripping, little-known story of the refugee Polish pilots who joined the RAF and played an essential role in saving Britain from the Nazis, only to be betrayed by the Allies after the war.












...Stalin could be certain that any revived Poland would be unfriendly. Under those circumstances, depriving it of a large proportion of its military and technical elite would make it weaker...












Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World
Jan Karski’s Story of a Secret State stands as one of the most poignant and inspiring memoirs of World War II and the Holocaust. With elements of a spy thriller, documenting his experiences in the Polish Underground, and as one of the first accounts of the systematic slaughter of the Jews by the German Nazis, this volume is a remarkable testimony of one man’s courage and a nation’s struggle for resistance against overwhelming oppression.







No Greater Ally: The Untold Story of Poland’s Forces in World War II
There is a chapter of World War II history that remains largely untold; the monumental struggles of an entire nation have been forgotten, and even intentionally obscured.













Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw
One of the most dramatic and shameful episodes in World War II was the doomed Warsaw uprising of 1944—an uprising that failed because the Allies betrayed it.