The courage of soldiers in danger is expected but the courage that Countess Karolina Lanckoronska portrays in her account titled Michelangelo in Ravensbruck is beyond and above anything I have read before. In her telling of the WWII struggle in Poland to hold freedom, she lays bare the agony suffered from the impossible force that destroys her beloved homeland.

Now in the comforts of the 21st Century, it is hard to understand how so many people could have been killed and no action taken to stop it. I have read many different accounts of the Jewish treatment and acknowledge that it was horrible, but I did not realize that it was not the only inhuman action on a massive scale. The world of Countess Lanckoronska split from high culture to the depths of hell in a matter of a few months as she mastered the courage needed to deal with this bitter reality. She not only withstood the cruelty around her, she found ways to correct and improve situations which called forth her strong character and beautiful spirit.

The story begins at the outbreak of conflicts in September, 1939, as Countess Lanckoronska holds the post of professor in Renaissance Italian art, the first Polish woman to achieve this rank. Her story is told as she lived it and we share in the immediacy of all that happens. It is to our benefit that we get to know this brave woman and hopefully she and her story will become a major part of the teachings that surround WWII history.

Check out Michelangelo in Ravensbrück: one woman’s war against the Nazis by Karolina Lanckorońska

Reviewed by Mary Lou Stein

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