The Panic-Proof Parent: Creating a Safe Lifestyle for Your Family

Book Description

From injury prevention to food safety concerns, from environmental hazards to childproofing advice, The Panic-Proof Parent is the essential reference book for every parent. In a text that is both empowering and reassuring. Debra Smiley Holtzman uses her personal and professional experiences to present the nuts and bolts of creating and maintaining a safer family lifestyle. "An excellent reference guide for parents and caregivers on about every safety and health issue and topic imaginable that concerns children." -- Patricia Pulte, MS, ED, manager, Youth Safety Programs National Safety Council "A significant addition to the literature covering child safety and precautions. The Panic-Proof Parent can save your child's life! Buy it! Read it! Keep it on hand for easy reference." -- Lawrence Lottenberg, MD, FACS, director, Trauma and Critical Care, Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital; chairman, Florida State Committee on Trauma "Parenting is a tough job, but The Panic-Proof Parent is a friend in your corner." -- Elizabeth Hauge Sword, executive director, Children's Health Environmental Coalition (CHEC) "An extraordinarily practical reference that will be of inestimable value to anybody responsible for the care of small children." -- J. J. Tepas III, MD, pediatric trauma surgeon, chairman, Department of Surgery, University of Florida Health Science Center "A must for every parent's reference library. . . . A comprehensive guide that provides important information that will help you keep your children safe and healthy." -- Wendy Mast, PhD, associate dean, Family and School Center, Nova Southeastern University Debra Smiley Holtzman is a nationally recognized safety advocate, an attorney, and a safety and health consultant. She has a master's degree in occupational health and safety and has been featured in print and on radio and television. Holtzman lives in Hollywood, Florida, with her husband and two children.

Customer Reviews:

Everything A Parent Needs to Know.......2003-11-08

The Panic-Proof Parent is an exceptional resource for parents. Compared with any other book about child safety, Debra Holtzman has done an unprecedented job researching all the details that parents need to know, and she presents the information in a clear, concise, and effective way. This is not a simple repeat of the basic information you can find everywhere. It is an extremely thoughtful piece of work that reflects both her educational training as well as her deep caring about children. In an effort to thoughtfully address the safety needs of my family, I have looked through countless books on the subject. If I had it to do all over again, I need only have purchased one book - this book.

EVERY PARENT SHOULD READ THIS BOOK.......2002-02-12

If you read only one book on parenting ever, this is without a doubt the book you should read. Let's face it, your kids will be fine if you do not pick the perfect baby-mobile for them (as is the sort of topic included in most parenting books). However, it is too often that we see children severely injured or even killed because parents, intelligent and educated parents, were not made aware of the often quite simple safeguards that must be in place for our children to stay healthy and safe. As the mother of two very busy boys, I have found it overwhelming to think of every possible danger my boys may encounter. The news reports of children choking to death on everyday foods or strangling themselves with household items jolts our attention. We make the simple adjustments to safegauard our children from those particular hazards. However, most parents do not have the time to think of every possible danger or the information needed to keep our kids safe from them. Debra Smiley Holtzman has done this for us and done it well. Ms. Holtzman has tackled a huge amount of information and made it all easy to read, easy to retain and easy to implement. This is the most important parenting book I have read and I have read many.

A guide to eliminate the "Panic" in parenthood........2001-11-05

Ms Holtzmans common sense approach to child saftey, offers a step by step check list on how to get it right.
She teaches the parent, how common sense organization can help prevent an everyday accident from becoming a tragedy.
Her suggestions on preventing dangerous situations for your children, make parenting safer and easier.

BabyLounge.com rates Panic-Proof Parent as a 5-pacifier book.......2001-06-13

Did you know that you should never give honey to a baby under the age of one year? Or that lead may be present in your drinking water? How about the fact that you should make sure your water heater thermostat should be set at 120 degrees Fahrenheit or lower? If any of these items comes as a surprise to you, then you need the "Panic-Proof Parent."

Chock full of information that will help you create a safe lifestyle for your family, this book is one you should not be without. I was amazed to read about how many every day dangers are lurking in my house, car, in the air, and even in the food I feed my family.

I have read other safety books, but no other book is so comprehensive and well organized. The chapters are broken into a logical format, starting with recommendations that expectant mothers should do to guard their fetus.

Drinking water, pesticides, babyproofing, preventing burns, and pool safety are just a few of the crucial chapters that you will pour over when you get your hands on this terrific book.

Every parent worries about their children (it comes with the blessing) and some things are out of a parents hands. However, there are many precautions that you can take if you're armed with the appropriate information. This book will help empower you to do what you can to help ensure a happy, healthy environment for you and your loved ones!

A must for all parents!

Excellent resource for children's safety!.......2001-02-08

A book geared toward child safety, "The Panic-Proof Parent" offers a wealth of information to its readers. Numerous categories of safety cover everything from bicycle and community safety, to art supplies and food safety.

There are informative and detailed checklists and helpful tips in each category, and a list of resources (including websites), so readers can find out more information. Parents will love the room-by-room safety checklists -- we can never be too safe!

We recommend "The Panic-Proof Parent" -- it's detailed, informative, and easy-to-read. Every who cares for a child should own a copy!

Customer Reviews:

A Solid, Detailed History of Events Surrounding the Katyn Massacre.......2007-04-17

Very seldom do we encounter a book such as this--where a non-Pole has such a thorough and relatively factual understanding of Polish history. Allen Paul not only discusses the genocidal Katyn massacre itself in considerable detail, but also gives a thorough review of Polish history in WWII and the immediate aftermath.

German-Soviet collaboration and mutual military assistance had long predated Hitler's coming to power in 1933 (p. 57). Paul is perceptive in his repudiation of oft-repeated canards regarding Polish conduct during the German-Soviet attack in 1939. He realizes that the Polish Air Force was not destroyed on the ground in the first days of the war (p. 23). (Functional Polish airplanes had earlier been scattered throughout secret airfields for this very contingency). He knows that Polish cavalry did not charge German tanks (p. 30). It was simply a canard from German propaganda that became "true" through retelling.

Paul provides graphic detail on the massacre itself. It was not just a cold-blooded shooting of captive enemy officers, but a systematic destruction of the very cream of Polish society. (Being part of a nation-destroying program, it was clearly a genocidal act). Some Poles valiantly resisted getting shot point blank, as indicated by the tied-up corpses (p. 353). Forensic evidence alone put the blame for this crime squarely on the Soviets (p. 229). There is riveting testimony provided by Stanislaw Swianiewicz, one of the few surviving eyewitnesses (pp. 103-on).

Paul provides a good description of the "airplane accident" that claimed the life of Wladyslaw Sikorski on July 4, 1943: "Coming when it did, only weeks after the discoveries at Katyn, Sikorski's death seemed too convenient. Evidence of sabotage was not found, but conclusive proof of an accident was not found either. Continuing doubts persisted. On November 12, 1952, Sumner Welles, who was U. S. under secretary of state at the time of the crash, told a House committee investigating the Katyn murders, `I have always believed that there was sabotage.' Welles noted that Sikorski had narrowly escaped death in a similar incident the year before in Montreal. `To put it mildly, it would be an odd coincidence,' Welles concluded." (pp. 239-240).

Paul discusses many of the heart-wrenching difficulties faced by the remaining Poles, released from Soviet captivity as part of the Sikorski-Maisky pact. (My mother, aunt, grandmother, and biological father were among them).

Unfortunately, there is an undercurrent of blame-the-circumstances thinking behind Paul's depiction of the sellout of Poland by Churchill and Roosevelt in the events leading up to and including Teheran and Yalta. Yes, the Soviet Union had done the largest share of the fighting. But the Soviet Union was also heavily dependent upon western Lend-Lease aid, which could have been judiciously dispensed to force Stalin to recognize Poland's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Yes, the west feared the possibility of a Soviet-Nazi separate peace. But Stalin was saddled with an identical fear of a western-Nazi separate peace.

Paul also implies that the Polish government-in-exile should have been more flexible, and more willing to compromise with Stalin. But what evidence is there that Poland's postwar fate would have been any different had it in fact been more "realistic"? With Hitler in 1939, the real issue had not been Danzig and the Polish Corridor, but the existence of Polish sovereignty. Likewise, with Stalin in 1941-onwards, the real issue had not been the location of the Soviet-Polish border but the existence of Polish sovereignty.

Paul has a mistaken understanding of Poland's prewar eastern half (the Kresy) (p. 248). He says that, in principle, the Soviet Union had just as much right to the territory as Poland because it "had been neither Polish nor Russian". That is utter nonsense. The Kresy had been part of Poland for centuries before the Partitions, and some parts of them (eastern Galicia) had never once been part of Russia until the Soviet-German conquest of Poland in 1939. The prewar Kresy had a 20-40% ethnic Polish minority (depending upon whose figures one believes). The percentage of Russians, outside of western Byelorussia (if one counts Byelorussians as Russians), was negligible. Nor is it correct that the non-Poles of the Kresy had "chafed under Polish rule." This was true only of some of them. In any case, few of them willingly preferred to be part of the Soviet Union. Ironically, Paul demolishes his own argument when he cites Sikorski, who, in retort to Maisky's assertion about Poland needing to be strictly limited to so-called ethnographic frontiers, pointed out that the Soviet Union was itself a multiethnic, multinational federation! (p. 158).

At the time this book was written, the Soviet Union had finally acknowledged blame for the Katyn Massacre. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national-security advisor to then President Carter, said in December 1990: "Recently, several direct participants in the mass murder of the defenseless Polish officers in Katyn and elsewhere--15,000 of them [now known to be 22,000] shot one by one in the back of the head--have been identified. If Gorbachev has totally broken with Stalinism, why has not a single one of them been put on trial? The Eichmann of the operation, a former NKVD major by the name of Serepenko who was in charge of the `logistics' of the operation, lives comfortably in Moscow." (p. 340).

Numerous Nazis have been found and punished for their crimes, but not a single Soviet Communist has been punished for his crimes. THAT is perhaps the greatest, and cruelest, legacy of the Katyn massacre.

A Chilling Indictment.......2003-05-05

Fifty eight years after the end of WWII, the holocaust remains under constant public scrutiny while most other of the almost innumerable atrocities of that great conflict continue to be either ignored or pooh-poohed by those who continue to rationalize them for personal political reasons. Because of the incessant yowling about the holocaust, people tend to forget that many people suffered on all sides during the war. Jews were neither the only victims, nor were they even the war's chief victims.
Of the belligerents, Germany, Russia, and Poland suffered the greatest human and material losses. Of the three, only Poland was blameless in the end for the death and destruction wrought by a war which passed over its territory twice in five years.
Most of us have at least heard about the massacre of Polish officers, professionals, and intelligentsia by the Soviets at Katyn Forest. Had it not been for a fortuitous find by German forces occupying that part of the Soviet Union and the meticulous way in which they handled it, we might today be saying that Katyn was just another one of Hitler's monstrous crimes.
In Katyn:The Untold Story Of Stalin's Polish Massacre, Allen Paul puts human faces on the victims by introducing us to some of them and their families before the war begins and then following the odyssies of the families and their men as both are arrested and deported as war begins and the invading Communists seek to purge Poland of class enemies and those who might in the future oppose them. (One family lives out the war in the German General Government, but the man of the house had been arrested in Lwow by the Soviets and eventually became a victim of the murders collectively known as the Katyn massacre.)
Particularly grim are the chapters which recount how the (male) victims are led to believe they are being repatriated, are prepared a feast, then led away afterwards to their horror and dismay to the killing fields at Katyn. The methodical and inhuman way of dispatch is almost sickening but the real shock comes when the bodies are discovered by the Nazis after they invade the Soviet Union. Most are virtually fused together and partially mummified by being tightly packed at burial, many stacked in the burial pits like so much cordwood.
Shocking, but not surprising given Stalin's treatment of his own people, is the way Polish women and children are literally dumped in the steppes and in Siberia and expected to fend for themselves in the harsh, unforgiving climate.
The families of Paul's focus do eventually make it out after suffering the greatest hardships. The author has met these survivors, of course, and their narratives put some meat on the dry bones of history. Millions of other Polish deportees never made it home.
Allen Paul's book is a chilling indictment, not only of Stalin and his murderous NKVD, but also of US and British diplomacy which failed to take any steps to ameliorate the conditions of Poles who had been arbitrarily arrested and summarily deported. The weakness of Churchill and Roosevelt in the face of Communist demands began with the suppression of evidence of Soviet culpability for Katyn and their failure to support postwar Polish territorial integrity at the Teheran and Yalta conferences. It then continued with tacit support for the postwar dispensation in Poland in which hundreds of thousands more were murdered by Stalin's henchmen, leading ultimately to the Iron Curtain and forty-five years of the Cold War.
You can tell by the tiny number of in-print books on this subject how little historical relevance the Katyn murders are given. I invite you to read this book. It may give you a whole new perspective on WWII and the moral dangers of alliance with the devil.

moving, emotional, striking images.......2000-03-30

I must admit that I skipped some of the chapters about the politics of war so I could focus on the stories of the families. These are the untold stories of WW2: a little Polish girl running up and down the railway station searching for her father; a family sent to a labor camp, doing the most humiliating arduous work. These families suffer, but there are stories of hope and love written in, keeping you interested. The pictures put some faces with the stories too.

Children of the Katyn Massacre: Accounts of Life After the 1940 Soviet Murder of Polish POWs

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The Katyn Massacre in Broad Historical Context

Children of the Katyn Massacre: Accounts of Life After the 1940 Soviet Murder of Polish POWs
Teresa Kaczorowska
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786427566

Product Description

World War II wasand remainsone of the bloodiest wars in history. Not only did millions of soldiers die in combat but millions of civilians lost their livessome for no greater crime than their religious heritage or their nationality. The Soviets, at first allied with the Germans, incarcerated thousands of Polish military officers and reservists in the pre-established Soviet camps of Ostashkov, Starobelsk and Kozelsk. On March 5, 1940, Joseph Stalin and his lieutenants signed an execution order for 25,700 Polish prisoners of war. After months of hardship and interrogation, 14,700 prisoners from these camps were taken to remote areas, murdered with a shot to the back of the head and buried in mass graves. Later, when Germany turned its sights on the Soviet Union, the USSR allied itself with the West. With the discovery of the first of the mass burials by the Germans in the Katyn Forest (the area from which the entire massacre gets its name), the Soviets attempted to place the blame for the atrocities on the Germans in spite of a plethora of evidence to the contrary. Only in 1990, with the fall of communism, did President Mikhail Gorbachev admit Soviet responsibility for the Katyn murders. Compiled from a series of interviews, this emotionally moving account records the stories and fates of 18 men and women, 16 of whom lost their fathers in the Katyn massacre. The author traveled to Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Canada and the United States to talk extensively with the 18, recording their thoughts, feelings, memories and experiences of the hardships during and after the war. Photographs and maps are included.

Customer Reviews:

The Katyn Massacre in Broad Historical Context.......2007-05-26

In the massacre at Katyn and surrounding locations, some 22,000 members of the cream of Polish society were systematically murdered--all to prevent the Polish nation from possessing the necessary leadership to ever rise again. It was a cold-blooded act of genocide done by the Soviet Union against Poland, and its effects continue today: "Poland would today be a different country if the Soviets together with the Germans had not deprived it of its most enlightened citizens. Their extermination resulted in the next generation being taught and raised by opportunists, traitors, and betrayers. The liquidation of Poland's elite is permanent and irreversible." (Ewa Gruner, p. 49).

The content of this volume goes far beyond the authors' childhood experiences of losing their fathers. In fact, the authors present a good deal of information of historical value. One of the most enduring themes mentioned is the fact that NO ONE has ever been punished for the crime of Katyn (p. 4, 46, 90, 104, 161, etc.). (Then again, this must be contextualized. The ends of the Earth are, to this day, searched for geriatric Nazi criminals, but no comparable effort is ever made to find and punish Communist criminals. Why?)

Wes Adamczyk, who wrote the Foreward of this book, provides more historical detail than just about any other author in this book. (Adamczyk has subsequently expanded his essay into an excellent book: WHEN GOD LOOKED THE OTHER WAY.).

A number of the children of Katyn live (or lived) in Wilno (Vilnius). Witold Swianiewicz personally remembers how the local Jews warmly welcomed the Soviet invaders (p. 203), and how he was nearly betrayed to the Soviets by a Jewish acquaintance who had evidently become an NKVD agent (trying unsuccessfully to learn exactly where the Swianiewicz's were living at the time.) (p. 204). Jozef Wasilewski describes the subsequent murders of several tens of thousands of Jews, and a few tens of thousands of Poles, in the nearby wooded area of Ponary (pp. 140-142). The murderers were mostly German-serving Lithuanian collaborators, notably the "Ypatingas Burys". Halina Kalwajt (p. 130) provides excellent detail on the seizure of Wilno from the Germans by the AK, just before the 1944 entrance of the Red Army, as part of Operation Burza (or Tempest).

Halina Kozlowska describes the entry of the Red Army into Skierniewice in 1944 (pp. 181-182). The Soviets threw Poles out of their homes, broke locks, and stole at will. Those who protested were often shot. Other Poles were shot in the nearby forests. The Soviets also raped Polish women and girls. Later, the Kozlowski domicile was, for a time, confiscated by the new Soviet puppet government of Poland (p. 182). Generations later, some unscrupulous Poles, attempting to take advantage of the unresolved question of the ownership of the home, came to claim it. (This situation shows that it was not only the returning Polish Jews who sometimes experienced resistance to the reclamation of their properties.)

In the decades following the Katyn massacre, and especially after the fall of Communism, many Katyn Societies have sprung up all over the world in order to memorialize the victims. In Israel, the Yad Vashem Institute, focusing exclusively on the Jewish victims of the Nazis, has refused to include the Polish-Jewish victims of Katyn in its purview (p. 231).

Many of the children of Katyn victims have, during and since the 1990's, visited the several sites of the murders. Locally, excavations were conducted (pp. 35-37, 44). Some of the graves of the Poles had obviously been looted by Russians: "The local population began to find bones, Polish buttons, and military decorations when they, in need of fuel, were demolishing the fence that, during the war, had still bordered the burial areas. They would dig through this place in pursuit of military accessories and valuables. They destroyed a lot of remains." (Ewa Gruner, p. 41). (Holocaust materials commonly mention that Poles looted places where the remains of Jews were interred--all in search for valuables. The Katyn experience shows, once again, that such looting was a common occurrence. It obviously involved a variety of perpetrators and victims.)

Wanda Wasserman touches on her life in prewar Poland as an assimilated Polish Jew: "She admits that she personally never experienced any anti-Semitic sentiments on the part of Poles. She has even had many Polish friends. However, from other Jews she heard about the negative feelings of Poles toward her people." (p. 222). Her direct experience adds support to the premise that prewar Polish anti-Semitism had been sporadic and intermittent, not constant and relentless. It also contradicts Celia Heller, who, in her ON THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION, would have us believe that assimilated Polish Jews experienced Polish anti-Semitism about as often as their non-assimilated counterparts.

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Literatura Hispanoamericana
Louis Fitzgibbon
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace College Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0030834546

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E.A.Komorowski and Katyn
No Enigma
Blockbuster!
Night Never Ending
An amazing first person account of history's cruelty

Night never ending
Eugenjusz Andrei Komorowski
Manufacturer: H. Regnery
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Customer Reviews:

E.A.Komorowski and Katyn.......2002-08-30

I think that Komorowski could escape from the Katyn grave.In the book "Katyn" by L.Fitzgibbon (New York, 1971, p.135) one can find an English translation of the German documents. In the Final Report of German Police (p.139), dated June 10, 1943,I quote: "With a few exceptions, all the bodies show pistol-shots in the head...". Taking into account that more than 4,000 bodies were exhumated, 13 Komorowski's friends killed during their march from Kozielsk Camp to a railway station, can be the above exceptions.
There are many facts, given by Komorowski, which can be verified:
- Komorowski's life before World War II (Poland, study in
London (Bexley Institute)and Brussels),
- his stay in Scotland, England and in the USA.
No effort was made to verify it.
Komorowski was born in 1901 or 1902. If he is alive, he should be now about 100 years old. If he died, then where is his grave?

No Enigma.......2002-06-03

This book claims to be a "true story".
If you are able to swallow "Komorowski's" fairy tale as far as page 180, can you please explain to me how the thirteen bodies we are supposed to believe were carted around by the NKVD and buried at Katyn seem to have been overlooked during both the Nazi and Soviet exhumations?
"Komorowski", if we are to believe this dramatic fantasy, was one of fourteen Poles shot indiscriminately with machine guns during a riot in a convoy enroute to Katyn from Kozielsk. On page 185 they are supposedly thrown into the top layers of a twenty by ten metre mass grave. No shot body was ever exhumed from Katyn by either Nazis or Soviets with other than pistol shots in the head as the cause of death.
I think nobody "escaped from Katyn", except in so far as some 448 were selected out and not shot by the NKVD but were transferred to other camps.
The politest view I can take of the Komorowski matter is that it was a case of self-aggrandisement by a disturbed person.
I think that "Komorowski" committed one of the lowest of crimes, he stole the laurels properly due to a dead man.
My opinion is that the author based this tale on the experiences of Ivan Gregorovich Krivozertsov, who was often referred to as "the main witness to Katyn". His testimony is extensively recorded in "The Katyn wood murders", Joseph Mackiewicz, London 1951, Hollis and Carter. pages 176-195. It makes fascinating reading and is refer to in later writing on Katyn also. For instance in "Death in the Forest", J K Zawodny, Macmillan 1962, [with various later reprints], and in "Time stopped at 6:30", Thaddeus Wittlin, 1965, pages 276 to 284 of which quote Krivosertsov's testimony as recorded in the record of the Hearings before the Select Committee of the US House of Representatives 82nd Congress, part 4.
Krivozertsov made his way out of Russia with the retreating Nazis and then, via Germany, on to England. He was found hanging in a shed on a farm in October 1947. His Russian "best friend" at the time disappeared. Officially it was listed as suicide, but few with knowledge of either Krivozertsov or Katyn accept that version.
It is a pity Krivozertsov is not around to give his opinion on this book.
In these days of DNA testing "Komorowski's" would be an interesting one to see the results of, but my pick is that you would be wasting your money.
I have noted enthusiastic reviews of the book, but they cut no ice with me. There was a lot around about Katyn in the public arena by the time this book was written, long before in fact.

Blockbuster!.......2000-12-23

Some who have read "Night Never Ending" understandably find the story unbelievable. Fortunately, I got to know the author well (not Col. Komorowski, but Joe Gilmore). Joe was as skeptical of the Colonel's story as any of us, but met with him and grilled him much as the FBI or CIA might have done.

In summary, it is the story of a Polish officer imprisoned by the Russians and shipped with the others to the Katyn Forest where -- even the Russians admit today -- they were dispatched by the NKVD (KGB). But this one man manages to escape.

I did much research on Katyn for my historical (some called it hysterical) novel, FOR THIS ONE HOUR, published before NIGHT NEVER ENDING. My fictional hero, Jan, escapes similarly (but at the time there was no evidence that ANYONE survived). So, when NIGHT came along, I was most interested and it started a rewarding correpsondence with Mr. Gilmore (who also has West Virginia connections). One thing that pretty much proved to me NIGHT's authenticity was the fact that Readers Digest offered big bucks for the story but Komoroski refused (still fearing for his life). Gilmore was, naturally, very disappointed.

It's a most exciting story as the Col. comes tothe USA and escapes repeated further attempts on his life. One wonders if he is still alive (or to what end he came?)

Night Never Ending.......2000-04-27

This book provides a chilling account of a Polish POW who claims to have survived the Katyn forest massacre in Poland in 1941. Evidence suggests, however, that the author obtained his information about Katyn from historical accounts rather than first-hand experience. Read this with caution - the story of Russia's annihilation of 10,000 Polish officers during World War II is true, but Komorowski's account might not be.

An amazing first person account of history's cruelty.......1998-04-03

This story of "Night Never Ending", is in itself incredible reading, but the fact that it was written almost 20 years ago during the height of the cold war is sensational. More current offerings of literature on this subject hauntingly confirm the detail of horrors described by Eugenjusz Komoroski, the sole survivor of the Koselsk prison camp and Katyn mass murder. Please read "The Murderers of Katyn" after you read "Night Never Ending" you will be amazed at the accuracy of his description of events during 1940.

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Time stopped at 6:30
Tadeusz Wittlin
Manufacturer: Bobbs-Merrill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Death in the Forest The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre

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Death in the Forest The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre
J. K. Zawodny
Manufacturer: University Of Notre Dame Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MMKPO2

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Death in the Forest - The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre
J. K. Zawodny
Manufacturer: University of Notre Dame Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GRK8Q8

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Anatomy of a Little-Known Atrocity

Death in the Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre
Janusz Kazimierz Zawodny
Manufacturer: Hippocrene Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Anatomy of a Little-Known Atrocity.......2004-05-20

This book, though now somewhat dated, provides a good summary of the murder of tens of thousands of Polish POW officers by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) in April 1940. These Poles, the flower of Polish society, had been captured by the Soviets after the joint Soviet-German conquest of Poland (September-October 1939). After Nazi Germany unexpectedly attacked its erstwhile Soviet ally in June 1941, the Soviets ostensibly had switched to the Polish side. Some, but by no means all, of Polish prisoners and exiles were released from Soviet prisons and gulags. The conspicuous absence of the previously captured Polish officers became obvious. The Polish government-in-exile at London never got a straight answer about their fate. In fact, Stalin made absurd lies about their whereabouts ("They must have all escaped to China"). The west never called Stalin for his transparent mendacity.

When the invading Germans brought the atrocity to light in 1943, the Polish-government-in-exile requested the Red Cross to investigate. At once, Stalin blamed the Germans and accused the Poles of having fallen for German propaganda. He then conveniently used this unexpected turn of events as an excuse for severing ties with the rightful Polish government-embodied in the government-in-exile-in favor of a puppet Communist government that Stalin had previously hand picked. All this time, Churchill and especially Roosevelt were not particularly interested in the truth about Katyn. To the contrary, blame was placed on the victims (Poles) for being too emotional, too unwise, too chauvinistic, etc., for pressing their case.

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