In the Garden of Memory
In the Garden of Memory

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A Family Memoir

Available for the first time in the United States

"Powerful memories from a masterful chronicler of a sprawling family living through the glories and tragedies of Poland over the 19th and 20th centuries."
―John Darnton, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Poland for The New York Times

 

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In The Garden of Memory, part 1

Part One: Overture

This was the first of seven pieces about Joanna Olczak-Ronikier’s book In the Garden of Memory: A Family Memoir, leading to the book’s publication in October.

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In The Garden of Memory, part 2

Part Two: The introduction by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

This is the biography of three generations of a family, a remarkable family, by reason of the place and time in which they were born, but also in terms of character. Joanna Olczak-Ronikier has taken the trouble to investigate their lives and understand their decisions and emotions, resulting in a family saga that is as compelling as a novel.

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In The Garden of Memory, part 3

Part Three: Terror for A Polish Communist in Stalin's Russia

Excerpted from the book: In the mid-1930s, Maks Horwitz-Walecki, a member of the Polish Communist Party, had been living in Moscow for several years, working on the Executive Committee of Comintern, the international organization of Communist parties.

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In The Garden of Memory, part 4

Part Four: Flt/Sgt Jan Ryszard Bychowski

The New York Times, Tuesday, May 30, 1944. New York Flier Is Killed. The Polish Telegraph Agency reported yesterday in a London dispatch that Sgt. Jan Bychowski of 49 East Ninety-sixth Street, New York, had been killed in action last week over Germany.

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In The Garden of Memory, part 5

Part Five: The Count of No Account

In the International Bomber Command Centre’s records, Flight Sergeant Jan Ryszard Bychowski of the RAF was killed in a crash of his Avro Lancaster aircraft on May 22, 1944.

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In The Garden of Memory, part 6

Part Six: John the Savior

Baghdad, 1940. A shabby hotel in a chaotic city. Jozef, Marta, and Robert Osnos arrived, desperate for a place to stay. The proprietor noted their Polish passports and disappeared for a moment.

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In The Garden of Memory, part 7

Part Seven: John Darnton on the Book, the Land and People it Portrays

John Darnton won a Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times coverage of Poland in the tumultuous years leading to the end of the Communist era. He is a bestselling novelist and author of the memoir “Almost a Family.”

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The Substack Series: Audio Versions

Parts 1-3

Parts 4-6

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What People Are Saying...

"Like a great Russian novel bursting with colorful, wildly different characters, In the Garden of Memory presents the human side of the long, rich, poignant, story of Poland from the late 19th century through Partition and two World Wars. Olczak-Ronikier’s relatives are impassioned rebels and patriots; poets, translators, psychiatrists and writers; women struggling to nurture their professional ambitions despite the burdens of gender; and entrepreneurs in publishing and bookselling. We get to know each of them as they navigate the precarious dissonance of being proudly Polish and Jewish. It’s a masterful, multi-generational, portrait of a family that endures even as their world descends into chaos."

Annik LaFarge, author of Chasing Chopin: Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions

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