All About Ida, by Clare Mulley

This year’s Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film went to Ida, an extraordinary, haunting, Polish historical drama directed by Paweł Pawlikowski and written by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. The film follows the story of two fictional women. Ida is a young novitiate nun on the verge of taking her vows when she is directed to meet her only living relative. Wanda, her aunt, a deeply-damaged former Communist state prosecutor, curtly informs Ida that she is Jewish, ‘a Jewish nun’. The two then embark on an uncomfortable road trip into the Polish countryside and their own family’s devastatingly sad war-time past. You can watch the trailer here.

Universally admired for its expressive use of stillness and sparse dialogue, its stunning and original cinematography, and understated explorations of anger, grief, guilt, choice and national and personal identity, picked up a host of awards in Britain and Europe, before collecting its Oscar. And yet, the film has also proved to be controversial.

Ida is fictional narrative set in the Poland of the 1960s, and commenting both on the suffering inflicted by the Second World War, and the difficulties faced by those coming to terms with their loss, their actions, and the possibility of redemption. It is at once deeply personal and unavoidably political.

Some Polish critics fear that while the history behind Ida would be known and understood by most Poles, internationally the film might promote false stereotypes of Polish complicity and collaboration in the Holocaust. This is not an unfounded concern. Reports and documentaries sometimes still talk about ‘Polish concentration camps’ when referring to the Nazi German camps set up inside Nazi-occupied Poland, and Polish contributions to the Allied war effort, from providing the first German enigma coding machine, to vital contributions in campaigns in North Africa, Italy and even in the Battle of Britain, are often underplayed in the press, books and films.

At the same time, across the board, whether provoked by Tudor novels or Polish films, commentators are increasingly challenging the seemingly porous boundary between historical fiction and non-fiction, and the debatable responsibilities of authors and directors to convey not just the ‘truth’, but ‘the whole truth’, through their fictions. With painful recent histories such as the events and aftermath of the Second Word War, these tensions are all the more raw.

Me with Rebecca Lenkiewicz
at Saffron Screen, Saffron Walden
(courtesy of Steven Larcombe)

A few months ago I was delighted to interview Ida co-writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz when she visited my local independent cinema, Saffron Screen in Saffron Walden. Previously best known as the author of Her Naked Skin about the suffragettes, the first original play by a female playwright to be performed at the Royal National Theatre, Rebecca is not unknown to either success or controversy.

As well as talking about the powerful minimalism of the script, the casting and cinematography, I asked her about the relationships in the film, not just between the two women, but between innocence and knowledge, honesty and concealment, and Poland and its past. ‘Poland has a complicated history with its past’, Rebecca replied. ‘Ida is the story of the tragic events around one family and its consequences. It is about unearthing knowledge, a meditation about love and loss. It's not a political statement. It questions faith and knowledge and tells a fictitious story that might well have happened.’

More recently, when I asked about the responsibilities film-makers have regarding historical accuracy and contextualisation, Rebecca emphasised that ‘it's important to be informed and to honour the subject, but fiction is not reportage. I would never feel comfortable attempting to write about an era or a real person without as much knowledge as I could garner before trying to recreate them. Research is one of the joys of writing. When you have some grounding then you have more scope to imagine.’

Ida director and co-writer Paweł Pawlikowski’s past work also rests on political themes, such as war, and deportations, but his focus has deliberately stayed personal. ‘Every good film is a bit like a dream,’ he told the BBC recently, ‘that’s what I usually aspire to, rather than some social document.’ 

Rebecca Lenkiewicz
taking questions at Saffron Screen, Saffron Walden
(courtesy of Pawel Komorowski)

Opinion remains divided however. Interestingly, during the discussion after the film screening in Saffron Walden, the Brits and the Poles in the audience focused on quite different aspects of the film, and there was certainly some concern around the depiction of Polish history. Now Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute has criticised the film for being anti-Semitic, and the Polish Anti-Defamation League has set up a petition, already signed by 50,000 people, asking Ida’s producers to state, at the start or end of the film, that:

• Poland was under Nazi German occupation.
• The occupiers conducted a programme to exterminate the Jews.
• Poles hiding Jews risked the death penalty not only for themselves, but for their entire family.
• Thousands of Poles were executed for helping their Jewish neighbours.
• The Polish Underground State harshly punished those Poles who harmed Jews, and 
• The Yad Vashem Institute recognises Poles as the largest group of the "Righteous Among the Nations" for helping Jews.

Since Ida won its Oscar I have been asked several times whether I think it is an ‘anti-Polish’ film. I do not. And, as an independent work of art, I do not think that it should have contextual facts imposed on screen before it starts, or after it finishes. A film, like any work of art, is always open to interpretation by its audiences, but it must remain independent if it is to have an authentic voice. Its own voice.

Ida may not explicitly state the loss of a fifth of Poland’s population, including three millions Jews, during the war, or the appalling dilemmas forced onto the surviving population. However, the pain and conflicts are built into the atmosphere and locations, and embodied within the characters, and the story encompasses both fear and courage, crime and compassion. This is a film stripped down; a film that implies far more than it says, and shows just how much more, less can sometimes convey. At the heart of Ida, both the film and character, is the question of how to deal with the past when it is uncovered and laid bare. That it has provoked such controversy around this very issue should be seen as a compliment. While I regret that many British people may not know the full historical context behind the film, I feel that Ida adds greatly to that conversation, and does so in the most elegant, thought-provoking whisper.

Jan Karski, messenger from the past, by Clare Mulley

When we think about the Holocaust today, we mostly remember the victims, perpetrators, bystanders and collaborators. We should also think about those who risked their lives to protect individuals, families and groups, or even in the attempt to end the genocide altogether. Last month, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, I attended an event at the London Central Synagogue organised in tribute to the Polish Catholic, Jan Karski, who attempted just that. After Rabbi Barry Marcus, Cantor Steven Leas and Polish Ambassador Witold Sobków had welcomed guests, Martin Smith’s short film Messenger from Poland was screened, in which Jan Karski told his own story. 

Rabbi Barry Marcus opens the Jan Karski tribute evening
at the London Central Synagogue. 

In the winter of 1943, Karski was selected by the Polish Underground State to alert the international community to the mass murder of the Polish Jews by the Nazis. The young former diplomat was already a veteran of clandestine war-work. Taken prisoner by the Russians in the early weeks of the war, Karski had been released in a prisoner exchange, thereby avoiding death in the Katyn forests. In August 1940, having escaped from a second detention, this time by the Gestapo, Karski served as an underground courier with the Polish resistance, smuggling information out of the country. 

Jan Karski, 1943

Eighteen months later he was chosen to bring news of the genocide to the outside world. It was felt that his diplomatic credentials, along with the fact that he was not Jewish himself, made him a strong emissary. To give him even greater authority, Karski was smuggled into the Warsaw ghetto where he watched two boys from the Hitler Youth 'shooting mindlessly' into the miserable scene of ‘poverty, hunger and death’. Then, disguised as a Ukranian militiaman, he was taken to Izbica, a Nazi ‘sorting station’ where he watched ‘masses of Jews’ being sent to the Treblinka death camp for ‘liquidation’. 

Karski reached London in November 1942, where he put a simple plan to the Polish Government-in-Exile. Germany should be leafleted with details of the camps, Karski began, 'so the German nation could not say that they did not know'. The Nazi government should be directly lobbied to stop the genocide, and if they failed to do so the Allies should respond by bombing key sites in retaliation until action was taken. ‘In the name of common values’, the Pope should be called to publically intervene, calling on German Catholics to find their consciences. 'Who knows', Karski argued, perhaps if the Pope threatened to excommunicate those who did not protect the Jewish population, enough Germans might take a stand. Karski also wanted blank passports and hard currency to bribe Nazi officials, and the Polish resistance to operate a strict policy of execution for those who betrayed their Jewish neighbours. 

Republic of Poland report for the United Nations, 1942

Karski’s was not the first report of mass killings to reach the West but it was one of the most detailed, an eyewitness account, and considered very reliable. But despite his testimony, the Allies remained largely indifferent to the fate of the Jews in Poland. All those who met Karski gave various reasons why nothing could be done. The Pope took six weeks to respond, and then only stated that he had already done all he could. In Britain Lord Selbourne, who met Karski in place of Churchill, told him that no political leader would comply with the idea of providing hard currency to bribe Nazi officials, which would effectively mean subsidising the enemy regime. Roosevelt ‘looked like a master of humanity’, Karski felt, but seemed more interested in the fate of Polish horses than Polish Jews, and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, possibly the most influential Jewish man in the USA, simply said he could not believe Karski’s report. When asked if he was suggesting that Karski was lying, Frankfurter replied only that not being able to believe was not the same as doubting the reliability of the source. 

Karski was horrified by the lack of action, despite his reaching the highest authorities. ‘I swore to them’, he told film-maker Martin Smith at the end of his interview, ‘as long as I will live, I will speak about it’. Karski was true to his word, but Smith felt that he seemed ‘weighed down by doubt and death’. Karski died in July 2000, believing to the end, Smith told me, that he had achieved nothing. In fact his constant lobbying had helped lead to the development of the USA’s War Refugee Board, an important achievement but not the goal he had set himself. In 1982 Yad Vashem recognised Karski as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. In 2012 he was honoured with the USA’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and this year, 2014, has been designated Jan Karski year by the Polish parliament. 

Film-maker Martin Smith talks with a member of the audience.

Important though such recognition is, Jan Karski has been honoured as a hero too late. Over drinks after the film, I asked why Karski’s testimony had been so largely ignored. The responses were diverse. Some felt that Karski had been treated by suspicion because he was known to be a socialist. Others, that the Western powers were fearful of giving too much weight to the Jewish question when there was so much general suffering caused by the war. Certainly there was also the refusal to believe, as expressed so starkly by Felix Frankfurter. Above all, however, the feeling was that no government felt justified in diverting any resources from the ultimate goal of defeating Nazi Germany. What everyone seemed to agree, however, was that if we remain silent, then we too, in a sense, are tacit.

During the Second World War, despite Karski’s unceasing meetings with journalists, authors, officials and MPs, and his own writing, the vast majority of people did not know the truth about the genocide until July 1944, when the first Nazi death camp was liberated. Those who did know had other priorities. Today the world has changed. Courageous reporters, and members of the public armed with mobile phones and internet access, have taken the place of brave couriers like Jan Karski, and there are few conflicts around the world where atrocities, state-sponsored or otherwise, go unreported. If anything people feel overwhelmed. General knowledge is not lacking, and nor perhaps is public conscience; what is lacking is clear solutions to these complex situations. What is certain, however, is the importance of constant vigilance and repeated challenges to those who abuse human rights. Perhaps the most significant lesson from Karski’s story is that without knowledge nothing can be achieved, but with knowledge comes both collective and personal responsibility.  

Singing History with Anglo-Polish songsmith Katy Carr, by Clare Mulley

Sometimes art and music provide a much more immediate and powerful connection with the past than history books, or the biographies that I write. This month I would like to dedicate my blog to another wonderful ‘History Girl’: the truly original and talented Anglo-Polish singer-songwriter Katy Carr. 

Singer-songwriter Katy Carr

I first met Katy when she came to the National Army Museum to hear me lecture about Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the Polish-born countess who was the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent during the Second World War, and the subject of my biography 'The Spy Who Loved'. Sporting a retro-chic 1940s look, topped by felt hat and red lipstick, Katy stood out among the audience, like an elegant ghost straying in from the post-war London streets. (The only other time I have been so struck by an individual member of an audience, was when WinStan Churchill, aka Stan Streather, professional Churchill doppelgänger, once turned up in a polka-dot bow-tie to hear me talk at the Imperial War Museum’s Churchill War Rooms.)
You can watch my National Army Museum lecture here: Clare Mulley talking about Krystyna Skarbek at the National Army Museum

Over lunch in the pub afterwards with our mutual friend, Paweł Komorowski, who is a distant cousin of Krystyna Skarbek, I began to learn what made Katy tick. Raised in Nottingham, Katy’s East Midlands accent belies her knowledge and passion for Poland, her mother’s country. This is a woman with a mission to communicate not just the culture and history of Poland, but the individual, and very personal stories, that compose and reflect the nation’s character.

Katy has released four indie-folk music albums, the last of which, the hauntingly brilliant Paszport, was produced in Poland and Britain in 2012. Described as ‘an epic, poetic journey through her past and that of her mother’s nation’, Paszport is dedicated to the Polish experience in the Second World War. Its sixteen songs explore the themes of love and loss, patriotism and resistance, hope and struggle through the prism of Poland’s modern history.

Paszport album cover

Paszport is full of wonderful tracks. The bitter-sweet ‘Mała Little Flower’ was inspired by Irena Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic girl who not only saved the lives of twelve Jews by hiding them in the basement of an SS officer’s house, but who went on to join the Polish resistance with the codename ‘Mała’, which means ‘Little’ in Polish. This song is dedicated to the memory of Irena’s fiancé, Janek Ridel, who was killed in action the day before their wedding in May 1944.
Watch the video here: Katy Carr, 'Mala Little Flower'

The song of Katy’s that I find most moving, however, is ‘Kommander’s Car’, which tells the story of Kazik Piechowski. Kazik was imprisoned by the Nazis for being a Polish Boy Scout at the start of the war and sent on the second transport to Auschwitz in June 1940. It would be two years to the day that Kazik and three fellow political prisoners would realize a plan to steal SS uniforms and drive out of the camp in the car belonging to its infamous commandant, Rudolf Höss. The song, beautifully illustrated here by South African born artist and illustrator Galen Wainwright, manages to convey the emotional truths as well as the factual story of Kazik and his friends’ bid for freedom.
Watch the video here: Katy Carr, 'Kommander's Car'

Two stills from the music video for 'Commander's Car'

Katy had no idea that Kazik was still alive when she recorded the song, and she was thrilled when he got in touch, inviting her to meet him in his home city of Gdansk. Kazik had not only survived the war, but also seven years imprisonment by the Soviets afterwards, for his involvement with the Partisans and Polish Home Army following his escape from Auschwitz. ‘It is very difficult to make a film about Auschwitz’, Kazik, now in his 90s, told Katy. ‘But this music video, through the use of the symbols and artwork and music, is bringing something new to the world.’ 

Katy and Kazik’s meeting was documented by British film-maker Hannah Lovell in a short film: Kazik and the Kommander's Car short documentary

Kazik and Katy at a memorial in his local Gdansk park

‘Kazik is my inspiration’, Katy told me earnestly, ‘meeting him changed my life’. This is not just some flip patter. Kazik not only inspired Katy to learn more about her Polish roots, he showed her the importance of memory and reaching out to share stories. Kazik has written two books and many articles about his experiences, inspired by the words of the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, ‘You did not survive simply to live, you have little time left, you must give the world the truth’. Katy now also tours schools and local community groups to bring Kazik’s story to new audiences, and to foster stronger relations with local Polish communities across Britain. It is work that has earned her the prestigious Polish Daily Award for Culture as part of their ‘People of the Year’ awards in 2013.

Last year, when my biography of Krystyna Skarbek was published in Poland, Katy and I flew over to Warsaw together, where Katy is something of a star! Paweł came with us too, to generously help promote the book and to toast Krystyna in her homeland. The launch was held at the wonderful Warsaw Uprising Museum, where Katy has performed in the past with her band, The Aviators. However, for me the night before was just as special. Paweł’s wonderful aunt Joanna had invited us over for dinner to meet family and friends including his mother, Babcia. After some fine barszcz czerwony (Polish borscht) and far too much good Polish liquor, Katy got out her ukulele and treated us all to some traditional songs like ‘Hej Sokoły’ - in which you can hear my faintly ludicrous ‘Hej’s’ towards the end! A camera, balanced on a wineglass, recorded the lot: Katy and Babcia Sing 'Hej Sokoly'

Katy singing with Babcia

There is a lot of talk about immigration at the moment, and this month Polish Foreign Minister, Radek Sikorski, who also came to the Warsaw launch of the Polish edition of my book, blogged that ‘if Britain gets our taxpayers, shouldn't it also pay their benefits?’ I certainly believe that Britain is all the richer, in every sense, for remembering, celebrating and building on our historic connection with Poland during the Second World War. With singer-songwriters such as Katy Carr, I hope that another generation will hear these stories.

I am absolutely delighted to announce that Katy is now working on a song about Krystyna Skarbek for her new album, Polonia. Polonia will mark the 75th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, and the beginning of Poland’s long loss of independence which Krystyna and the Polish Free Forces fought so hard to regain.

Me, with Katy holding The Spy Who Loved

Found in translation? Biographer Clare Mulley considers the importance of language to identity.

Last week my biography of Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent in the Second World War, was published in Poland. I think she would have been delighted that, in a way, she was finally coming home. There is no doubt that Poland was always home for her, albeit a home that had sometimes rejected her, and one to which she could not return after the war when the country was run by the Soviet-sponsored Communist regime. By the time of her death, in 1952, this courageous and deeply patriotic woman had adopted British nationality along with her British nom-de-guerre, Christine Granville, of which, she wrote, she was 'rather proud'. However she remained, above all, a patriotic Polish émigré, switching effortlessly between Polish, English and French depending on her audience. In addition to everything else, Krystyna/Christine is a fascinating study in identity. 

Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville

Krystyna's childhood home, Trzepnica, Poland

Of course, biographies are studies in identity too, but when my book was translated into Polish this took on deeper meaning. Would the Christine that I had researched, pictured and tried to present, be the same Krystyna that emerged on the pages of the Polish edition? Would the translation release her from the English idioms that she had never completely mastered, but which she enjoyed playing with for effect, and enable readers to hear her voice more clearly, more directly? Would the 'English sense of humour' she displayed in her letters to British friends, be lost, and, looking back, what nuances had I failed to catch when translating the woman to the page in the first place. Just how defined are we by our language, our nationality, and the nationality of those who aim to describe us?

Interestingly, my Polish publisher has changed the title of the book. Instead of The Spy Who Loved, which refers to Krystyna’s deep-seated desire for adrenalin, danger, men and, above all, freedom - for her country and for herself, the Polish edition is called, The Woman-Spy: A Pole on His Majesty’s Secret Service. Pleasingly there is still a hint of Bond here (Ian Fleming was inspired by Krystyna), but the central intrigue is now not that she was a passionate woman, but that she was a Polish woman working for the Brits. 

The British cover

The Polish cover

Krystyna, and later her lover Andrzej Kowerski, were exceptional in being Polish nationals employed by the British special services during the war. Krystyna’s reasons, however, were entirely pragmatic. She was in southern Africa with her second husband, a diplomat, when Poland was invaded in September 1939. By the time she was back in Europe, Poland had fallen - but had not yet established its Government-in-Exile. Desperate to join the fight against the Nazis occupying her homeland, Krystyna stormed into the British Secret Services HQ and demanded to be taken on there and then. Her plan, soon put into action, was to ski over the perilous Carpathian mountains, sometimes in temperatures of -30 degrees, smuggling money and propaganda to the fledgling Polish resistance, and information, radio codes and microfilm back out. By the time she arrived in Budapest for her first mission, however, the Polish underground was getting organised and were determined to maintain their independence. As a result the main resistance group, the ZWZ, refused to work with Krystyna because officially she was already a British agent. This was a legitimate concern. The two countries might be allies but their interests would not always be aligned. ‘We are the Polish Underground,’ one officer put it colourfully, ‘and we do not wish the British to peek inside our underpants’.

Once in occupied Warsaw, however, Krystyna did join a fiercely independent Polish resistance group: the Musketeers. Unfortunately they would later be disbanded in disgrace; their leader assassinated for having entered into talks with the Nazis regarding the Russian threat. Krystyna would now never be accepted by Poland's exiled government. Putting her life on the line was not enough, being passionately patriotic but not especially political, she had failed to play the strategic game. In her haste to serve her country she had in some Polish eyes betrayed it.

Krystyna Skarbek, in British uniform

When the war in Europe ended, Krystyna was left stateless. She knew she could never return to Poland under the Communist regime. She may not have been aware that the British had at one point traded her name with the NKVD (precursor of the KGB), but being a pre-war Countess and war-time British special agent was enough to guarantee she would not be well-received. Yet the British, for whom she had put her life on the line for six years, the longest tour of duty of any female special agent, dismissed her with only £100. When someone in the British administration suggested she was not entitled to further deployment or citizenship because she had been fighting for Poland rather than Britain, she rightly remonstrated that this was rather 'hard', given that 'I have got into so much trouble with the Poles because I worked for the firm'. The last British memo relating to her stated, ‘she is no longer wanted’. It was not our finest moment.

Ultimately Krystyna did gain British citizenship, having at one point refused to accept honours from a country that would not give her residency. When she died, in 1952, she had been awarded the British George Medal and the OBE, along with the Croix de Guerre from France, and an array of ribbons that any General would have been proud of. Yet among her collection, now kept at the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, is one unofficial badge of honour; a silver gorget (designed to be worn at the throat) in the shape of a shield embossed with the Polish white eagle. Because she was a British agent, Krystyna has never been honoured by the Poles, and this badge was perhaps her own private statement of her loyalty to, or token of appreciation from, the country that she served if not on paper, than certainly within her heart.

Krystyna's medals. The gorget is centre top. 

Publically recognised or not, Krystyna was never an exclusively British heroine. In fact despite being honoured officially here but not in Poland, she is probably better known in Poland today. Certainly the book launch at the Warsaw Uprising Museum next week is being organised by wonderfully generous and enthusiastic Poles, and attended by the Polish Foreign Minister several other cabinet members, as well as the British Ambassador and French First Consul. Earlier, during my research, I had also found plenty in Polish archives, and through interviewing Poles both in Britain and Poland who, or whose relatives, had known Krystyna. On the other hand there was even more information in British archives. But how did she view herself, and in what language did she choose to communicate?

Krystyna was born and brought up in an area which is now Poland, but was then part of the Russian Empire. Belonging to a family of patriotic aristocrats, she spoke Polish at home, but French at her convent school. By the time she arrived in London in 1939, via Europe and southern Africa, she spoke some English too, although French remained her default foreign language. As a result, when the British sent her to Hungary it was under the guise of being a French journalist. It was here that Krystyna met her compatriot, soul-mate and partner-in-arms, Andrzej Kowerski, and their language of love was definitely Polish; she was his affectionate 'kotek' or kitten, and he her 'kot', her cat. In Egypt she took classes in English and Italian. She now spoke English charmingly, if not always very accurately, with a lilting accent and similarly seductive turn of phrase. She would often translate idioms literally if she felt it added impact, such as when telling admirers how she loved to 'lie on the sun'. But then even her French was idiosyncratic. She was 'fluent but rather breathy', one friend noted, and her natural manner was to speak in a 'halting... panting fashion'. Always conscious of the power of language, when she felt  her Polish charm could not get her what she wanted, Krystyna would simply petition friends to write on her behalf 'in your King's English'.

All of the letters I traced in Krystyna’s own hand were written in English – although still with the odd Polish endearment and literally translated turn of phrase thrown in. 'Perks kochany' - literally 'Darling Perks' - she boldly opened one 1945 letter to Harold Perkins, her formidable SOE boss. This letter, the rest written in English, is a wonderful testimony to her courage and determination. 'May be you find out I could be useful getting people out of camps and prisons in Germany - just before they get shot', she wrote, 'I should love to do it and I like to jump out of a plane even every day'. So brave, yet she clearly also felt nervous that her English might be letting her down, adding 'Sorry for the spelling!' in a rather jarring ps.

Krystyna's letter to Harold Perkins, March 1945 (TNA, HS9/612)

It seems that Krystyna mostly thought in Polish; this was the language that shaped her and best expressed - possibly even helped to define - her feelings and ambitions. As she learnt more languages she enjoyed collecting other useful turns of phrase, 'quel potron' (what a coward) was a favourite that friends remembered, as was the pleasingly expressive: 'bloody fool'. As with her approach to friendships, it seems that Krystyna would pick and choose her language to suit her mood, intentions and audience.

Wherever I was researching, I tried to get to the truth of this extraordinary woman, but the fact is that there were many truths. Krystyna could be kind and generous, even with her life, but she could also be cruel and self-centred. She was tough and fiercely independent but also rather vulnerable. She lied, exploited and deceived, but she fought for justice, freedom and honour. Her mother was Jewish, her father was anti-Semitic; she was brought up a Catholic but converted to secure a divorce; she was a pre-war beauty queen and a highly-trained special agent fighting among men. She spoke several languages, was known under about twenty names, and she had two nationalities. It was the same Polish Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek that became the British Polish émigré Christine Granville.

The truth is that we can only understand Krystyna in the context of her country, although it often rejected her, and in the context of her times, although I would argue that in many ways she was ahead of them. In life Krystyna was informed by, and let down by, Poland and Britain, but both her birth-country and her adoptive-country seem ready to embrace and honour her now. And if the Polish translation of my biography helps to reframe and present another flavour of this complex woman to the world, then that is certainly appropriate and I am absolutely delighted.

www.claremulley.com