When the Summer Ended

98 Books about Poland | Polish War Graves in Britain

It is 1939. A beautiful Polish summer was coming to an end. Young Cecylia Wolkowinska, lying in a sunny orchard, surrounded by her books, had made the most of it. The events of the autumn were to shatter this idyll and she and her generation of young Polish people found themselves involved in a desperate struggle against the Nazi and Soviet invaders of their country. When the Summer Ended tells the story of her wartime activities in the underground army and their climax in the Warsaw uprising of 1944.

Cecylia Wolkowinska in her introduction to the book wrote:

On both sides of my family, generation after generation fought for the independence of poland and endured imprisonment, hardship, and exile for the cause. Our generation inherited a free and independent poland - but we were only allowed to have it for twenty years. Poland then faced an attack perhaps more savage than any in its history. Many years later after the fighting was over and I had settled in England, friends urged me to tell the story - because it was not just the story of my own experiences but was typical of all Poles of the Home Army who ended up as exiles.