Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The majority of Bohdan Arct’s works are factual accounts of the Second World War written to explain the Polish contribution to the Allied effort. They are illustrated with photographs and the proceeds in large part went to organizations for Polish airmen. This journal on the other hand was put together by Arct purely to amuse his fellow inmates and to provide release and relaxation for himself. Materials were scarce – witness the grev cardboard used in the centre section spare time was precious Arct was often exhausted by hunger and the journal was at all times under threat of confiscation by the guards. Nevertheless in nine months he managed to invent and illustrate something which forty-five years later still has the power to entertain and arrest Arct took his “Log Book” with him when he left the camp and kept it with other mementoes of his war experiences including an extensive diary in Polish covering the whole six years. But there was no thought of publishing it – for several reasons. Firstly he and his family felt it was too personal to have a broad appeal or for them to be happy about its publication; secondly it was written in English (and from 1947 onwards they were living back in Poland); and lastly it was too soon after the events it described. Fourteen years after Arct’s death however and with the increasing public interest in diaries and facsimiles the family decided the time was right to try and bring the journal to a wider audience and they sent it to relatives in England There its merit and interest were immediately recognized