Sasha Colby, "The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance" (ECW Press, 2023)

Sasha Colby, "The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance" (ECW Press, 2023)

Irina Nikifortchuk was 19 years old and a Ukrainian schoolteacher when she was abducted to be a forced laborer in the Leica camera factory in Nazi Germany. Eventually pulled from the camp hospital to work as a domestic in the Leica owners’ household, Irina survived the war and eventually found her way to Canada. Decades later Sasha Colby, Irina’s granddaughter, seeks out her grandmother’s story over a series of summer visits and gradually begins to interweave the as-told-to story with historical research. As she delves deeper into the history of the Leica factory and World War II forced labor, she discovers the parallel story of Elsie Kühn-Leitz, Irina’s rescuer and the factory heiress, later imprisoned and interrogated by the Gestapo on charges of “excessive humanity.” This is creative nonfiction at its best as the mystery of Irina’s life unspools skillfully and arrestingly. Despite the horrors that the story must tell, it is full of life, humor, food, and the joy of ordinary safety in Canada. The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance (ECW Press, 2023) takes us into a forgotten corner of history, weaving a rich and satisfying tapestry of survival and family ties and asking what we owe those who aid us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Jaksot(1617)

Erika Quinn, "This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

Erika Quinn, "This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

Through the diaries and personal papers of a German woman, Vera Conrad, This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948 (Berghahn Books, 2024) documents her wartime experiences and de...

25 Tammi 35min

Anna Reid, "A Nasty Little War: The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution" (Basic Books, 2024)

Anna Reid, "A Nasty Little War: The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution" (Basic Books, 2024)

In A Nasty Little War: The Western Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution (Basic Books, 2024), award-winning reporter Anna Reid tells the extraordinary story of how the West tried to reverse the Russ...

24 Tammi 53min

Jason Burke, "The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s" (Knopf, 2026)

Jason Burke, "The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s" (Knopf, 2026)

Jason Burke's The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s (Knopf, 2026) is an epic, authoritative, gripping account of the years when a new wave of revolutionaries seized th...

22 Tammi 53min

Alex Wellerstein, "The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age" (Harper, 2025)

Alex Wellerstein, "The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age" (Harper, 2025)

Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was, arguably, the most controversial decision of the 20th century. The responsibility for that “decision” has logically fallen on US President H...

21 Tammi 1h 4min

Michael P.M. Fox et al., eds., " Framing the First World War: How Divergent Views Shaped a Global Conflict" (UP of Kansas, 2025)

Michael P.M. Fox et al., eds., " Framing the First World War: How Divergent Views Shaped a Global Conflict" (UP of Kansas, 2025)

The character of the conflict that erupted in 1914 defied the expectations of many political leaders and military analysts. Despite the mountains of books and articles published on World War I, there ...

21 Tammi 1h 6min

John M. Findlay, "The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

John M. Findlay, "The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

At the end of the 1930s, the West was in peril. A cultural and economic backwater, the Great Depression had all-but wiped out the extractive industries which had fueled the region's economy for decade...

19 Tammi 1h 11min

Gerald F. Goodwin, "Race in the Crucible of War: African American Servicemen and the War in Vietnam" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)

Gerald F. Goodwin, "Race in the Crucible of War: African American Servicemen and the War in Vietnam" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)

When African American servicemen went to fight in the Vietnam War, discrimination and prejudice followed them. Even in a faraway country, their military experiences were shaped by the racial environme...

19 Tammi 52min

Duncan Kelly, "Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Duncan Kelly, "Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Duncan Kelly is a new intellectual history of the many and varied ideas about politi...

19 Tammi 1h 25min

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