Review: The Counterfeit Countess by Elzabeth White & Joanna Sliwa

Synopsis: The astonishing story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg—a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of lives in Nazi-occupied Poland by masquerading as a Polish aristocrat—drawing on Mehlberg’s own unpublished memoir.

World War II and the Holocaust have given rise to many stories of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess is unique. It tells the remarkable, unknown story of “Countess Janina Suchodolska,” a Jewish woman who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by Poland’s Nazi occupiers.

Mehlberg operated in Lublin, Poland, headquarters of Aktion Reinhard, the SS operation that murdered 1.7 million Jews in occupied Poland. Using the identity papers of a Polish aristocrat, she worked as a welfare official while also serving in the Polish resistance. With guile, cajolery, and steely persistence, the “Countess” persuaded SS officials to release thousands of Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp. She won permission to deliver food and medicine—even decorated Christmas trees—for thousands more of the camp’s prisoners. At the same time, she personally smuggled supplies and messages to resistance fighters imprisoned at Majdanek, where 63,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers and shooting pits. Incredibly, she eluded detection, and ultimately survived the war and emigrated to the US.

Drawing on the manuscript of Mehlberg’s own unpublished memoir, supplemented with prodigious research, Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa, professional historians and Holocaust experts, have uncovered the full story of this remarkable woman. They interweave Mehlberg’s sometimes harrowing personal testimony with broader historical narrative. Like The Light of Days , Schindler’s List , and Irena’s Children , The Counterfeit Countess is an unforgettable account of inspiring courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty.

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The story of how one Jewish woman took on the Nazis, and came out the other side.

Much of what is written about Dr Josephine Mehlberg - aka Countess Janina Suchodolska - is based upon her own memoirs and what the authors could verify, as her story is without a doubt, fantastic. Here was this fearless Polish, Jewish woman who took on the persona of a Countess, worked for the Resistance in Poland, and then had the audacity and wherewithal to take on the might of the Nazis on behalf of the Jews held at the Majdanek concentration camp. And she survived it all!

"Janina" defied stereotypes - she was so concerned for the welfare of those at the concentration camp, that she took on this alter-ego of the Countess and literally badgered the officials into allowing her to feed the inmates and improve conditions. Along the way we learn of Janina's early life before the war and what became of her after it. A remarkable woman who observed instances of the human capacity to perform logically irreconcilable acts, and whose heroic achievements in the face of all this, became renowned long after they occurred, and set the standard for humanity. I am literally in awe of this woman.

Highly recommended reading - and one of my favourite reads for the year!