Customer Reviews

The Polski Affair

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About:
The Polski Affair is an engaging novel that quietly drew me into its pages and left me feeling both shock and sorrow.
For a short book, this story packs a punch and is actually hard to review mainly because there are a few different things going on in the storyline.

Anna Adler is a Holocaust survivor living in Israel. The book goes from flashbacks to when Anna was incognito at the mysterious Hotel Polski to present day. Anna's first husband and her children were killed by the Nazi's. She is sent to the Hotel Polski disguised as a Polish maid in order to find out any information she can about what is going on there. There are all kinds of rumors surrounding the hotel.

While at the hotel, Anna meets a man named Chaim. He has also lost his family and the two of them bond quickly and fall in love.
One day, Anna is unexpectedly confronted by a Colonel who in charge of the Hotel Polski. He makes her his personal servant and Anna cannot refuse for fear of her life as well as Chaim's.
The Colonel is named Peter Hauptmann and he treats Anna as decently as can be expected. As the months pass, the two have an illegal affair.
When the Colonel is reassigned, he makes arrangements for Anna and Chaim to be sent overseas with new identities.
Years later after the war is over, Anna has never forgotten the Colonel and one day she is called upon to testify at the International War Crimes tribunal about his role at the Hotel Polski. Anna's past seems to forever haunt her.

An invitation has also been sent out for the 'guests' who survived Hotel Polski to come reunite and perhaps find closure.

My thoughts:
I had no idea what to expect when I began reading The Polski Affair. What I found here is an interesting take on an actual hotel where events were never fully reconciled.
The first part of the book took off a tad slowly for me. I think it was slow mainly because I was getting used to the flashbacks and the main characters. However, once the story took off, I was up late into the night reading.
I was shocked that Anna was made to be a Nazi's mistress. And even more stunned that she began to have feelings for him, especially after how her husband and children were murdered.
At the end of the book she does make a speech to her son where she justifies her actions a bit, as best as she can. I liked that she did that, it made me like her character a bit more.

The characters are interesting and the book is well written. This book is set during an atrocious time in history and I think the author did a good job at bringing these characters to life. The Holocaust survivors wonder why they survived, while so many did not, including their own loved ones.

There is one scene where a group of people, children included, are rounded up by the Nazi's and taken by train supposedly for 'freedom'. While on board, all the windows are covered with sheets so they cannot see where they are going. I found that scene bone chilling, just the thought of being at someone elses mercy like that.

I should mention there are some brief sexual scenes in the plot. I found those unexpected, but they fit in well with the storyline.

I enjoyed reading this one and when it was finished, I did wonder what would happened next.

Special thanks to BookSparks for my review copy.

The Pol­ski Affair by Leon H. Gildin is an award win­ning, fic­tional book about a very weird and bizarre his­tor­i­cal occur­rence dur­ing World War II. The book is the story of one fam­ily of Holo­caust sur­vivors, takes place in present day Israel and Poland as well as through flashbacks.

Rosa Feur­mann found her­self in the Hotel Pol­ski in Nazi Occu­pied War­saw as part of an inves­ti­ga­tion of Jew­ish par­ti­sans as to exactly what is going on in there. Rumors were afloat that rich Jews were able to buy their way to free­dom using false doc­u­ments. How­ever, Rosa is detected by the Gestapo Colonel in charge of the hotel and becomes his per­sonal servant.

Years later Rosa, now liv­ing under her new iden­tity in Israel, is called to be a wit­ness to the Commandant's war crimes trial which causes her to relive her mem­o­ries and rec­on­cile her own conflicts.

The Pol­ski Affair by Leon H. Gildin is a grip­ping, bizarre read and an emo­tion­ally provoca­tive book. I have read many books about World War II, heard many strange sto­ries but this one is one of the stranger ones, the fact that it actu­ally hap­pened bog­gles my mind.

I have never heard of The Hotel Pol­ski and the bizarre scheme the Nazis were run­ning there. The more I read about the whole issue, the more bizarre it became. Basi­cally the Gestapo used the hotel to house Jews who had exit visas from Poldand. But, the visas of dead Jews were sold to ones who man­aged to escape the roundups and hide in the Aryan side of Warsaw.

After the Jews came out of hid­ing, the Gestapo col­lected the money but many of the peo­ple were sent to their deaths. What makes the issue even strangers is that many of the visas were for South Amer­i­can coun­tries which would have refused to rec­og­nize the pass­ports anyway.

The char­ac­ters are well writ­ten and the story moves along in a fast pace. There is many aspects to this book, promises bro­ken, betrayal, heart­break and sev­eral enlight­en­ing and happy moments. A page turner and a great pick for a book club.

Disclaimer: I got this book for free.

Anna Adler is living in Israel as the book opens. She and her husband Chaim are immigrants and Holocaust survivors. They have a son, Sholom, and a daughter, Tamar, and are a happy family with successful lives. But before this life, they had other lives back in Poland. Anna was Rosa Feurmann and was married to a professor and had two lovely boys. She left the house one day and when she returned they were gone. Chaim was Itzik, and he lost his wife and four children. Drawn together by shared tragedy, they made their way to Israel and started new lives.

But the past cannot be forgotten. They made their way to Israel after staying in the Hotel Polski. It was touted among the Jews as a refuge in the madness, somewhere that families could stay and get visas to other lands. Desperate to escape, it was always crowded with families, although no one really knew if those who left were taken to jail or the camps, or if they did make it to new lives elsewhere. They are willing to give up their entire fortunes for a chance at survival.

Rosa has no money to try to purchase papers. She lives in the hotel, passing as a Polish maid. Then one day she catches the eye of Colonel Peter Hauptmann, the Nazi who is in control of the hotel. He informs Rosa that she will be his personal assistant and companion. Over the weeks that follow, she does that; dressing in the designer clothing of women killed in the camps and doing whatever he asks of her, including a sexual relationship. She is torn and ashamed, but knows she must do whatever is asked of her to have a chance at survival. When the Colonel is reassigned, he makes arrangements for Rosa and Itzik to be sent overseas. The papers he arranges for them gives them their new identities and Chaim and Anna Adler.

Now the past has returned in two ways. Anna is called after the war to testify at the International War Crimes tribunal about Colonel Hauptmann's role at the Hotel Polski. She testifies that he was involved in the departure of many families; some to be saved; some to be killed. The Colonel is given a prison sentence, but Rosa's testimony keeps him from execution. Then years later, a reunion of Hotel Polski survivors is held and she attends. It is another piece in the puzzle of those years that she constantly works and rewords, trying to make sense of her life.

The Polski Affair is the 2010 International Book Awards winner for historical fiction. The hotel did exist, and the mystery of what the Nazis were doing there has never been solved. What is clear and what Gildin portrays so movingly, is what people will do for survival, and how one can move on in later years to a more successful life. The past will never be forgotten but it can be integrated into the present in a way that doesn't destroy the survivor. This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction and for those interested in survival stories.

Okay. Let me take a minute to regroup. *Breathe* Wow. THAT was some GRIPPING reading! Having recently read Thaisa Frank's Heidegger's Glasses and getting somewhat confused but still liking it, I wasn't sure what I would think of this novel, since it centered around much the same time era, with the Jews and Nazis. Leon H. Gildin blew my mind away with this novel. It is emotionally gripping, powerfully captivating and I was shocked at the happenings that took place in this novel.

Leon Gildin did a fantastically phenomenal job at researching this book. Written to be fictitious, this novel of the Holocaust is haunting and felt so real to me. I know it IS a real event in history, but I felt like I was there, in the middle of the ghetto, death camps and among the Jews at Hotel Polski. Again, while written fictitiously, it is based on historical reality and the things the Jews endured in all those places during this horrific ordeal and their hopeful chance of seeking a safe passage to escape out of Poland, makes me shiver with disgust that an event like that, led by the Nazis, ever occurred.

I am truly glad I took the time to review this book. In this small, historically accurate 5 star novel, I became educated a little more on the happening of the Holocaust and the Jews. I literally read this book in ONE day, I became THAT engrossed in the story. This is highly recommended to everyone, but especially those that are interested in this specific era and events in world history. Well done, Leon!

A novel that shows us a new story of the Holocaust and the world that is slowly disappearing into history. The characters and the settings are vivid and unique. The story moves along cinematically and the court room scenes especially are rich and colorful. I couldn't put the book down and wanted to know more about what happened after the books end. If some smart movie producer gets his hands on this book, actors will be fighting to star in the film.

Those who had money made some attempts to try to shelter themselves from Nazi persecution. "The Polski Affair" is the fictional account of Rosa Feurmann, who found her way to survive the Nazi occupation of Poland in the Hotel Polski, a hotel which let Jewish survivors buy their protection from Nazi persecution. Rosa's time was not easy by any means, and events continue to haunt her years later. "The Polski Affair" is an entertaining and moving read.

The POlski Affair written by Leon H. Gildin is a gripping story set in novel form, about the real Hotel Polski which existed outside the Warsaw Ghetto. It was used by the Nazis to lure Jews out of their hiding places outside the Ghetto with promises of visas and safe transportation to countries in south America. A story of trust, betrayal and survival is a real page turner and a must read.
Cecile Schrader, Book Club Reader
Westchester,N.Y.