Holy Week ─ A Novel of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

At the height of the Nazi extermination campaign in the Warsaw Ghetto, a young Jewish woman, Irena, seeks the protection of her former lover, a young architect, Jan Malecki. By taking her in, he puts his own life and the safety of his family at risk. Over a four-day period, Tuesday through Friday of Holy Week 1943, as Irena becomes increasingly traumatized by her situation, Malecki questions his decision to shelter Irena in the apartment where Malecki, his pregnant wife, and his younger brother reside. Added to his dilemma is the broader context of Poles’ attitudes toward the “Jewish question” and the plight of the Jews locked in the ghetto during the final moments of its existence.

Best known for his novel Ashes and Diamonds, Jerzy Andrzejewski (1909–1983) gained a reputation as a writer of moral conflict. In 1949 he was elected president of the Polish Writers’ Union, but he resigned in 1957 as a protest against government censorship. Later he was a founding member of the intellectual opposition group KOR.