Joe's War: My Father Decoded
Books / Hardcover
Books › Biography & Autobiography › Military
ISBN: 0375411844 / Publisher: Knopf, March 2004
Chronicles the author's search into her father's secret life during and after the Second World War, recounting her discovery of his flight from the Nazis, imprisonment by the Russians, service with Polish forces, daring escape, and work as a Russian message decoder for Allied forces.
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A mesmerizing and dramatic memoir of the author’s search for her father’s secret life during and after World War II as his homelands were taken over by the Nazis and then the Soviet Union.For Annette Kobak, there was always something mysterious about her father, something dark. But for forty-five years the reasons for his silence–the sources of his hidden pain–were left unspoken. _ With astonishing bravery and clear-sightedness, Kobak delves into her father’s past, hoping to find answers that will in turn set her free. His story is gripping: born on the border of Czechoslovakia and Poland, he fled east from the Nazis when war broke out only to find the Red Army moving in. Arbitrarily imprisoned by the Russians, he ended up fighting with the Polish forces in France before finally escaping to Britain, where he spent the rest of the war listening to Soviet messages for the Allies in London. In uncovering this story, Kobak also lets us reexperience, close-up, the shocking history of what the Allies did–and didn’t do–for the small countries of Europe that were desperate for their help. _ Written from her own travels in her father’s footsteps, and from extended conversations with her father and others whose lives were also touched by this odyssey, Joe’s War is about the inner costs of conflict and the redeeming power of truth telling. It is the work of an immensely gifted writer.
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