On the Run in Occupied Poland

Fleeing Soviet-occupied Vilnius in 1940, a girl and her parents arrive in German-occupied Poland. This child's-eye account brings wartime and refugee experiences vividly to life.
On the Run in Occupied Poland presents the daily wartime experiences of a Polish-Catholic girl. Written as an adult by Gräyna Gross, née Pötowicz (1931-2022), this collection of vignettes communicates uncannily the perspective of the child Gross was at the time, while also conveying her adult thoughts on the strategies human beings deploy to stay alive as refugees in times of war.
This unusual contribution to the history of Occupied Poland highlights the fates of dispossessed Polish families as a result of both the Russian Revolution and the division of Poland in World War II.
Providing concrete details of lived experience during these monumental events, this "paramemoir" constitutes a type of life-writing that goes beyond a single individual. It is a life story with enhancements in the form of factual footnotes, rare photographic evidence, a map, and contextualizing commentary in the form of essays by Joyce Gross, the author's daughter, Irene Kacandes, a professor and friend, and Aleksandra Szczepan, a scholar educated in Kraków, the city in which Gross spent the longest period of the war.
A compelling source for further research into how the occupation of Poland from both East and West affected non-Jewish Poles, this book will be treasured by historians as well as ordinary readers for its surprising insights into a difficult refugee childhood that overshadowed a whole life.

Gräyna Gross; edited by Irene Kacandes; with Joyce Gross and Aleksandra Szczepan

A Prefatory Note from the Editor Map On the Run in Occupied Poland: Tales of a Refugee Childhood by Gräyna Gross 1. Maria and Mirek 2. Heniu- 3. Maybe Not a Story 4. Letter to an Unknown Man 5. The Shoemaker's Son 6. The Doctor's Daughter 7. The Fortune Teller 8. The Root Canal 9. The Day Papa Left 10. Tereska 11. The Picture Album, Part One 12. Half-Boarders 13. Józefina's Mistress 14. The Psychic 15. The Gloves 16. The Ring 17. A Boy 18. Uncle Kot 19. A Dinner 20. A Christmas Story 21. Letter to Józefina 22. The Sled 23. The Watch 24. Typhus 25. Justyna 26. Mrs. Kraus 27. The Picture Album, Part Two 28. Peace 29. A Night in Regensburg 30. Evhen 31. School 32. EH 33. The Girl from Furth 34. Father Zeisel 35. Mama Afterwords Mothers and Daughters-and Grandmothers, by Joyce Gross What is Historic? What is Heroic?, by Aleksandra Szczepan My Friend the Writer, by Irene Kacandes Appendices Timeline Notes to the Tales Family Photos Extract from the Polish Notebooks Card from Henryk Pötowicz at Gross-Rosen to his daughter Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index