Irena Protassewicz wrote the autobiographical witness account of her dramatic wartime journey from landed privilege in Poland to the hardships of life as a refugee.Hubert Zawadzki is an independent scholar, UK. He is the co-author, along with Jerzy Lukowski, of A Concise History of Poland (2nd Ed., 2006), which has been translated into seven different languages. He is also the author of A Man of Honour: Adam Czartoryski as a Statesman of Russia and Poland, 1795-1831 (1993).Meg Knott is an English teacher and freelance editor, UK.

• List of ImagesList of MapsForeword (by Professor Robert Evans)1. Prologue (by Hubert Zawadzki)Part I – 1910-19392. Chapter 1: Wars and Reconstruction (1914-1925)3. Chapter 2: Education, Home, and the Stirrings of Love4. Chapter 3: All Not Quiet in the Distant Provinces5. Chapter 4: Warsaw: Relatives, Love, and a Brush with Dangerous Politics6. Chapter 5: Waclaw Protassewicz: The Last Squire of Borki7. Chapter 6: Before the StormPart II – 1939-19458. Introduction to Part II (by Hubert Zawadzki)9. Chapter 7: ‘The End of Our World’10. Chapter 8: Under Soviet Occupation (1939-1941)11. Chapter 9: Siberia12. Chapter 10: Joys and Sorrows in Central Asia13. Chapter 11: From Persia to the Holy Land14. Chapter 12: From Egypt to ScotlandPart III – 1945-2015 (by Hubert Zawadzki)15. Epilogue: Exile and Settlement in Britain16. PostscriptAppendix A – Guide to Polish PronunciationAppendix B – Family TreeSelect BibliographyIndex

[A] meticulous retelling of the Second World War ... Written from a unique viewpoint ... it shines a light on the particular experiences of a woman during wartime, and through this alone, helps to complicate our understanding of conflict experience and narration.