The most recommended books about Warsaw

Who picked these books? Meet our 20 experts.

20 authors created a book list connected to Warsaw, and here are their favorite Warsaw books.
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Book cover of From the Realm of a Dying Sun: IV. SS-Panzerkorps and the Battles for Warsaw, July-November 1944

Arthur W. Gullachsen Author Of Bloody Verrières: The I. SS-Panzerkorps Defence of the Verrières-Bourguebus Ridges: Volume II: The Defeat of Operation Spring and the Battles of Tilly-la-Campagne, 23 July–5 August 1944

From my list on the First and Second World Wars.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have a lifetime interest in military events of the First and Second World Wars, and my current status as an Associate Professor teaching military history within the Royal Military College of Canada’s RMC History Department allows me to live my dream of exploring past conflicts for a living. I am currently also a contracted author at Casemate Publishing of Havertown, PA, and I am very lucky to have this company support me and publish my work.

Arthur's book list on the First and Second World Wars

Arthur W. Gullachsen Why did Arthur love this book?

This book is an excellent summary of the WWII Eastern Front battles from July to November 1944 near Warsaw, Poland, through the lens of the Germans defending the front there, specifically the IV. SS-Panzerkorps, an armored (tank) corps consisting of two Waffen-SS Panzer Divisions (The Waffen-SS being the military arm of the Nazi Party in wartime Germany).

Author Douglas E. Nash’s analysis is excellent, and his experience as a retired US Army armored officer allows him to provides insights few others can regarding Eastern Front combat in 1944.

On top of this, his German language skills allowed him to carry out a higher degree of historical research than other books on the Eastern Front, utilizing primary German wartime documents to delve into events.

This book provides the reader with a clear understanding of how the June 1944 Russian Operation Bagration offensive was stopped by desperately fighting German units attempting to…

By Douglas E. Nash, Sr.,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked From the Realm of a Dying Sun as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

During World War Two, the armed or Waffen-SS branch of the Third Reich's dreaded security service expanded from two divisions in 1940 to 38 divisions by the end of the war, eventually growing to a force of over 900,000 men until Germany's defeat in May 1945. Not satisfied with allowing his nascent force to be commanded in combat by army headquarters of the Wehrmacht, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS, began to create his own SS corps and army headquarters beginning with the SS-Panzerkorps in July 1942. As the number of Waffen-SS divisions increased, so did the number of corps…


Book cover of Empowering Revolution: America, Poland, and the End of the Cold War

Sarah B. Snyder Author Of Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network

From my list on the end of the Cold War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been fascinated by Russian history and American-Soviet relations since high school. Now at American University’s School of International Service, I teach courses on the history of U.S. foreign relations, the Cold War, as well as human rights and U.S. foreign policy. I have written two books on the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy, including Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network and From Selma to Moscow: How U.S. Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy. When I’m not working, I love a good Cold War TV series (Deutschland 83 or The Americans).

Sarah's book list on the end of the Cold War

Sarah B. Snyder Why did Sarah love this book?

Domber details how Americans aided and supported the Polish trade union movement Solidarity in the 1980s and the ways U.S. assistance was effective in aiding Poland’s democratic transition. Importantly, in Domber’s account, it was the Polish opposition, leading by moral example, who became heroes to Americans inside and outside the government, and American officials in Washington and Warsaw who looked to Solidarity for guidance on U.S. policy rather than the reverse.

By Gregory F. Domber,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Empowering Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As the most populous country in Eastern Europe as well as the birthplace of the largest anticommunist dissident movement, Poland is crucial in understanding the end of the Cold War. During the 1980s, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied for influence over Poland's politically tumultuous steps toward democratic revolution. In this groundbreaking history, Gregory F. Domber examines American policy toward Poland and its promotion of moderate voices within the opposition, while simultaneously addressing the Soviet and European influences on Poland's revolution in 1989. With a cast including Reagan, Gorbachev, and Pope John Paul II, Domber charts American…


Book cover of Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto

Antony Polonsky Author Of The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History

From my list on Jews of East-Central Europe during the Holocaust.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to England on a Rhodes Scholarship from South Africa in 1961 and have been a Professor at the London School of Economics and Brandeis University. I am the Chief Historian of the Global Educational Outreach Project at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. My interests are the politics of Eastern Europe, the history of the Jews, and the conflict in the Middle East. I have witnessed the transition from communist rule to democracy in Poland and the end of apartheid in South Africa. There are growing threats to democracy and political pluralism, and I very much hope that these can be successfully resisted. 

Antony's book list on Jews of East-Central Europe during the Holocaust

Antony Polonsky Why did Antony love this book?

In 1940, the historian Emanuel Ringelblum established a clandestine organization in Nazi-occupied Warsaw to study and document all aspects of Jewish life in wartime Poland and to compile an archive that would preserve this history for posterity.

As the Final Solution unfolded, although decimated by murders and deportations, the group persevered in its work until the spring of 1943. Of its more than sixty members, only three survived. Ringelblum and his family and the family hiding them perished in March 1944, when their hiding place outside the ghetto was denounced by a neighbor.

Most of the archive was dug up after the war, and, in my view, it is one of the most important sources for the history of the Jews at this tragic time. 

By Samuel D. Kassow,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Who Will Write Our History? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1940, in the Jewish ghetto of Nazi-occupied Warsaw, the Polish historian Emanuel Ringelblum established a clandestine scholarly organization called the Oyneg Shabes to record the experiences of the ghetto's inhabitants. For three years, members of the Oyneb Shabes worked in secret to chronicle the lives of hundereds of thousands as they suffered starvation, disease, and deportation by the Nazis. Shortly before the Warsaw ghetto was emptied and razed in 1943, the Oyneg Shabes buried thousands of documents from this massive archive in milk cans and tin boxes, ensuring that the voice and culture of a doomed people would outlast…


Book cover of The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945

Charles Palliser Author Of Sufferance

From my list on the Holocaust without exploiting it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved history and have written four novels set in the past. Maybe I was drawn to the past because I partly grew up in Bath–a city where you seem to be living in the eighteenth century. But recent history tells us who we are now, and I’ve always wanted to deal with the subject of the Holocaust since, at the age of thirteen, I came across a book about it in my town’s public library. At that time, nobody talked about it, and I was traumatized by it. How could human beings do such things? I think puzzling over that is partly why I became a writer.

Charles' book list on the Holocaust without exploiting it

Charles Palliser Why did Charles love this book?

This is a vivid and gripping true account of how a brilliant Polish Jewish pianist survived by a fluke the Nazi mass-murder of Warsaw’s Jews in which his parents and three siblings died. The author hid in the ruins of Warsaw through two winters without heating and eating only scraps of food he managed to scavenge. Near death, he was, almost unbelievably, found and helped by a German SS officer who had heard him playing a battered piano.

The book shows humanity at both its worst and its best. The film by Roman Polanski is brilliant, but this memoir is even more powerful.

By Wladyslaw Szpilman, Anthea Bell (translator),

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Pianist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The powerful and bestselling memoir of a young Jewish pianist who survived the war in Warsaw against all odds. Made into a Bafta and Oscar-winning film.

'You can learn more about human nature from this brief account of the survival of one man throughout the war years in the devastated city of Warsaw than from several volumes of the average encyclopaedia' Independent on Sunday

'We are drawn in to share his surprise and then disbelief at the horrifying progress of events, all conveyed with an understated intimacy and dailiness that render them painfully close - riveting' Observer

'A book so…


Book cover of From the Realm of a Dying Sun: IV. SS-Panzerkorps and the Battles for Warsaw, July-November 1944
Book cover of Empowering Revolution: America, Poland, and the End of the Cold War
Book cover of Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto

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