Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto - by Peter F Dembowski (Paperback)

About the Book

In this remarkable book, which combines both memoir and historical analysis, Peter F. Dembowski describes the fate some five thousand Christians of Jewish origin lived in the Warsaw ghetto during the early 1940s.

Book Synopsis

During the early 1940s, some five thousand Christians of Jewish origin lived in the Warsaw ghetto. In this remarkable book, which combines both memoir and historical analysis, Peter F. Dembowski describes their fate. He also brings to light the little known fact that within the Warsaw ghetto were fully functioning Christian churches, including at first three and later two Roman Catholic parishes.

Review Quotes

". . . the history of the 'Christian Jews' remains unknown in the United States, it is perhaps gradually being forgotten in Poland as well. As there are, in fact, no publications on this subject in English, and only few and scattered chapters in Polish, Dembowski's is the first monograph fully devoted to it." --The Polish Review

"... honest and well researched work.... His personal debt to one family of converts, who were connected by marriage with his father, compelled him to write this study. He draws on personal recollections, archival material and the vast archive of Holocaust literature to shape the book. The author presents us with an honest image of the ghetto during the 1939-1942 turbulent years." --The Jerusalem Post

"In his 'microhistory' of the Holocaust, Romance Languages Professor Dembowski, himself an eyewitness to wartime Warsaw, explores the Jewish Christian communities that existed in the Warsaw ghetto. . . The book is a valuable contribution to Holocaust studies and a worthy memorial to the Jewish Christians of the Warsaw ghetto." --Religious Studies Review

"This informative and well-documented book by a University of Chicago emeritus professor focuses on the lives and fate of about 5,000 Jewish Christians (baptized Jews) from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II... The book is a combination of the author's autobiography (he lived in the Warsaw Ghetto and took part in the Warsaw uprising against the Germans), with scholarly research of archival materials (Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew), as well as other writings, several not translated yet into English." --MultiCultural Review

"There were for a time three functioning Catholic parishes in the ghetto, and the author, a veteran of the Warsaw Uprising and long-time professor of literature at the University of Chicago, describes with care and insight the complicated relations between Jews and Christians caught up in the machinery of death. This is a dimension of the Holocaust that is little known. Thanks to Dembowski, these victims are no longer, or are not entirely, the 'unremembered.'" --First Things

" . . . highly recommended for its informative and gripping content to all non-specialist general readers, particularly students of World War II." --The Midwest Book Review

"A powerful and very challenging work, which confronts the difficult issues surrounding Jewish converts to Christianity in both a scholarly and sympathetic manner. Dembowski's work functions as both micro-history and memorial. It is a challenging social history which adds scholastic value, and it will serve as an aid to all those who have interests in the fields of Jewish-Christian relations and the Shoah." --European History Quarterly

"In the writings about the Warsaw Ghetto, little is made of the some five thousand Christians of Jewish origin, mostly Catholics, who shared this plight. Jewish contemporary observers ignored this small group, or made disparaging comments about them. . . . So it has been left to Peter Dembowski, as an eye-witness, to describe the complexity and perils of their lives and deaths in the Warsaw Ghetto." --The Catholic Historical Review

About the Author

Peter F. Dembowski is Distinguished Service Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. Born and raised in Warsaw, Poland, Dembowski was involved in the underground activities of the Polish Home Army and participated in the Polish uprising. He was twice a prisoner of the Germans--first at the infamous prison known as Pawiak, where comrades bribed corrupt Gestapo officials to win his freedom, and later at Stalag XB Sandbostel, where he remained until the prison was liberated by the British. Upon liberation, Dembowski joined the Polish Army in the West. For his war service, he was decorated twice with the Polish Cross of Valor and the Silver Service Cross with Swords.