2013

2013 News, Reviews & Events

November-December 2013 - Military Review reviews The Auschwitz Volunteer - In its November-December 2013 issue, Military Review, the Professional Journal of the U.S. Army, reviews The Auschwitz Volunteer in an extensive piece by Daniel Paliwoda, Ph.D. — "This exceptional book's value is obvious...The Auschwitz Volunteer is truly a gift." Read the review...

November 22, 2013 - Boston, MA - The 2013 Aquila Polonica Prize is awarded to Dr. Katherine Lebow, for her article "The Conscience of the Skin: Interwar Autobiography and Social Rights" (Humanity 3:3 [Winter 2012] 297-319. The biennial Aquila Polonica Prize is administered by the Polish Studies Association and awarded at the ASEEES convention in alternate years. For more info...

IMG 1049-r November 21-24, 2013 - Boston, MA - Aquila Polonica was one of the exhibitors at the 2013 Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Conference, which was held in Boston at the Marriott Copley Plaza. Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian was joined in Boston by colleagues Justine Jablonska, Ewa Wojciak and Jarek Garlinski. This was one of the best-attended ASEEES conferences—Boston is always a favorite venue! It was a great opportunity to see old friends and make new ones. All our titles released through that time were on display and available for sale.

NatlCouncilSocialStudies November 22-24, 2013 - St. Louis, MO - Polish Perspectives at National Council for Social Studies - Aquila Polonica titles were showcased at the Polish Perspectives booth at the 2013 Annual Conference of the National Council for the Social Studies, held November 22-24, 2013 in St. Louis. MO. As in past years, the Polish Perspectives booth at NCSS was beautifully coordinated and run by Cecilia Glembocki, from Virginia, who volunteers her time every year to organize the booth and attend the conference. At right, Aquila Polonica titles displayed at NCSS.

PosterforEvent-2013-10-30-R DSC01344-Speakers-R November 3, 2013 - Toronto, Canada - The Auschwitz Volunteer was the focus of one of the kick-off events of Holocaust Education Week, sponsored by the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. The well-attended event was held at the George Ignatieff Theatre, Trinity College, University of Toronto, and featured University of Toronto Professors Piotr Wrobel and Tamar Trojanowska together with Auschwitz survivor Natan Leipciger, past member of the International Auschwitz Council. Dramatic readings from the book were done by actor/director Rafal Sokolowski, a clip from the film The Death of Captain Pilecki and numerous slides of photos and other illustrations were shown. For more info, see the Aquila Polonica press release...

October 29, 2013 - Aquila Polonica Press Release - "Acclaimed Eyewitness Report of Undercover Mission in Auschwitz Focus of Nov. 3 Holocaust Education Week Event in Toronto" announcing the upcoming program at the University of Toronto focusing on Witold Pilecki's secret undercover mission at Auschwitz. His most comprehensive report on his Auschwitz mission has been published in English for the first time by Aquila Polonica under the title The Auschwitz Volunteer. Read the press release...

Fall 2013 - Portuguese edition of The Auschwitz Volunteer - Portuguese publisher Vogais, an imprint of 20/20 Editora, which licensed Portuguese-language translation rights for The Auschwitz Volunteer from Aquila Polonica, releases its edition under the title O voluntário de Auschwitz.

October 21, 2013 - Warsaw, Poland - Witold Pilecki posthumously promoted to Colonel - In a ceremony at the Polish Ministry of Defense on October 21, 2013, Minister of Defense Tomasz Siemoniak presented to Pilecki's son and daughter the formal order promoting their father from Captain to Colonel in the Polish Army. The order was signed by the Minister of Defense on September 6, 2013. Pilecki's most comprehensive report on his secret undercover mission as a prisoner at Auschwitz, written in 1945, was published in English for the first time by Aquila Polonica under the title The Auschwitz Volunteer. English translation of the article on the Ministry of Defense website in pdf, OR read the article online in its original Polish...

October 21 & 23, 2013 - Los Angeles, CA - Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian taught a class with multimedia elements about The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt by Rulka Langer, for two sections of Professor Patricia Oliver's course on "The Rhetoric of Women" at Loyola Marymount University. In addition to a PowerPoint of photos and maps, Ms. Tegnazian also showed Aquila Polonica's Siege DVD, which illustrates with contemporaneous film footage from the Siege of Warsaw in September 1939 what author Rulka Langer describes in The Mermaid. She was joined by the author's daughter, Barbara Langer, who flew in from her home in Northern California.

October 12, 2013 - Gordonsville, VA - Alice Waydenfeld Faintich gave a presentation about the World War II Soviet deportations of Polish civilians to Siberia, including the experiences of her father as described in his book The Ice Road: An Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom, to an enthusiastic group of the Montpelier DAR at a well-attended luncheon meeting.

October 8, 2013 - Aquila Polonica Prize Nominees Announced - Fifty-four nominees—more than any previous year—will compete for the 2013 Aquila Polonica Prize, which is awarded every two years under the auspices of the Polish Studies Association to the author of the best article published in English dealing with any aspect of Polish studies. The winner of this year’s prize, which carries a $500 honorarium, will be announced during the November 2013 National Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies in Boston, MA. More info here... For a complete list of the nominees in pdf...

October 7, 2013 - The Washington Post - General Stefan Baluk, author of our forthcoming book Sikorski: No Simple Soldier, today dedicated a new monument in Warsaw, Poland to the cichociemni, the "Unseen and Silent" Polish resistance fighters who were trained in the UK and parachuted back into Poland to work with the Underground. Read the article in pdf...

October 3, 2013 - Inside Story Review of The Auschwitz Volunteer - A thoughtful, erudite and comprehensive review of The Auschwitz Volunteer by Professor John Besemeres, published in Australia by Inside Story. Read the review online or in pdf...

August 2013 - German edition of The Auschwitz Volunteer - Zurich-based publisher Orell Füssli, which licensed German-language translation rights from Aquila Polonica for The Auschwitz Volunteer, has just released the German edition under the title Freiwillig nach Auschwitz. It has garnered great reviews in major German media, including in Der Spiegel (read online pdf...) and Die Welt (read online pdf...)

July 24, 2013 - Long Beach, CA - Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian gave a multimedia presentation "Extraordinary Heroes, Desperate Times"— about the legendary Polish fighter pilots of 303 Squadron, the highest-scoring Allied fighter squadron in the Battle of Britain—to a packed room of more than 100 people at the Long Beach Rotary Club.

July 18, 2013 - Publisher's Weekly "Behind the Audio" Blog - The Audible.com audiobook of The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery is featured today in Publisher's Weekly's "Behind the Audio" blog. Actor and audiobook narrator Marek Probosz talks about the making of the Audible.com audiobook, which will be released on July 19, 2013.

June 26, 2013 - The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt Audiobook - Audible.com, leading downloadable audiobook publisher, releases The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt in audiobook. Listen to a sample, and for more info...

June 25, 2013 - The Ice Road Audiobook - Audible.com, leading downloadable audiobook publisher, releases The Ice Road in audiobook. Listen to a sample, and for more info...

June 21, 2013 - Santa Monica, CA - Actor Marek Probosz completes recording the audiobook of The Auschwitz Volunteer for Audible.com—soon to be released!

June 13, 2013 - Charlottesville, VA - Alice Waydenfeld Faintich gave a presentation about the World War II Soviet deportations of Polish civilians to Siberia and led a book groupdiscussion on her father's book The Ice Road: An Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom, at the Westminster Canterbury retirement community.

May 29, 2013 - Benjamin Franklin Awards, New York City - We're proud to announce that The Auschwitz Volunteer won the Silver Award for Autobiography/Memoir at the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Awards. Sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association and now in its 25th year, the Ben Franklins are the premier awards competition in independent publishing. More...

Three Extraordinary Things About Pilecki's Report - Yale University Professor Timothy Snyder, in concluding his remarks at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum event honoring Captain Witold Pilecki and The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, sums up three extraordinary things about Pilecki's report in the video excerpt below. FOR MORE INFO ON THIS EVENT...

May 6, 2013 - Aquila Polonica Press Release - Benjamin Franklin Awards Finalist - We're thrilled to announce that our book, The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, by Captain Witold Pilecki, is a finalist in the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Awards in the category of Autobiography/Memoirs! The Benjamin Franklin Awards are given annually by the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), and are regarded as one of the highest national honors in independent publishing. Award winners will be announced May 29th at a gala awards ceremony in New York City. We're very proud that each of Aquila Polonica's titles to date has won one or more Ben Franklin Awards! Read the press release...

May 6, 2013 - Richmond, VA - Alice Waydenfeld Faintich gave a presentation about the World War II Soviet deportations of Polish civilians to Siberia, including the experiences of her father Stefan Waydenfeld (pictured at right) as described in his book The Ice Road: An Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom, to an audience of 50 to 60 people at the Weinstein Jewish Community Center. Marvin Rosman, Corresponding Secretary of the 5400 Mens' Club of the Weinstein JCC, emailed Alice after the presentation, "Your father's memorialization of this tragedy is extremely important and we appreciate your continuing his work."

April 25, 2013 - Los Angeles, CA - Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian joined actor/writer/director Marek Probosz in a multimedia presentation about Captain Witold Pilecki and The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, at the Westwood Branch Library as part of the Friends of Westwood Library Book Talk series.

April 22, 2013 - Ruckersville, VA - Alice Waydenfeld Faintich gave a presentation about the World War II Soviet deportations of Polish civilians to Siberia and led a book group discussion on her father's book The Ice Road: An Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom, to an enthusiastic crowd at the Four Seasons retirement community.

March 27, 2013 - Audible.com acquires audio rights to three Aquila Polonica books - Audible, Inc., the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment on the Internet, will release three of Aquila Polonica's award-winning World War II titles—The Auschwitz Volunteer, The Ice Road and The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt—in audio book form. Read more...

Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA - Alice Waydenfeld Faintich gave a presentation for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at James Madison University, at its Brown Bag Lunch, about the World War II Soviet deportations of Polish civilians, including the experiences of her father as described in his book The Ice Road: An Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom.

March 12, 2013 - Tablet Magazine reviews The Auschwitz Volunteer - Vladislav Davidzon, Tablet's European culture correspondent, writes in an erudite and comprehensive review entitled "Undercover at Auschwitz" that The Auschwitz Volunteer "is a work of supreme importance." Among other things, he notes "the report is a schematic and meticulous accretion of facts charting the camp's transformation....written from an intelligence rather than memoiristic perspective....Pilecki's observations of the fate of the Roma and the Jews are particularly sympathetic, devoid of nationalism or condescension. He understood early on that a campaign of systematic annihilation was being waged....A great part of the literary interest of the book lies in the contradiction between the sensitive, civil, and humane part of Pilecki's character that we glean from the report and the unsentimental methods he and his cohort deployed in the ferocious battle for survival within the camp." Read the review online or pdf...

March 1, 2013 - Cosmopolitan Review reviews The Auschwitz Volunteer - In a thoughtful, extremely well-written review Professor Michal Kasprzak of Ryerson University explores the major themes in Captain Witold Pilecki's report on his undercover mission as a prisoner at Auschwitz. He says Pilecki's report, which "has now been superbly translated and published in The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery" is "an important historical document that will join other first-hand accounts of life in concentration camps such as those of Tadeusz Borowski or Stanisław Grzesiuk." Read the review online or pdf...

February 25, 2013 - Los Angeles, CA - Aquila Polonica president and co-founder Terry Tegnazian gave a presentation at Belmont Village Westwood, Los Angeles, on 303 Squadron, entitled "Extraordinary Heroes, Desperate Times."

February 7, 2013 - PROSE Awards, Washington, D.C. - Aquila Polonica Press Release - We're excited to announce that The Auschwitz Volunteer won the prestigious 2012 PROSE Award for Biography & Autobiography awarded by the Association of American Publishers for excellence in scholarly and professional publishing. Aquila Polonica was the only independent publisher to win a PROSE Award this year. President Terry Tegnazian said, "As a young independent publisher, we were honored to be in competition with major university presses and large established publishing companies. This award is confirmation for us that we are doing something right!" In his remarks at the awards luncheon, John Jenkins, Chairman of the PROSE Awards, said, "If you are one of our winners...you have achieved something that is a very big deal. We have more entries in PROSE this year than in any other point in the history of our awards. We have more publishers than ever participating....if you won this award, you have won an award that really rewards the whole package of the book. Not only the content, but the scholarship, the design, the functionality...." For a complete list of 2012 winners... Read more about Aquila Polonica's PROSE award...

February 7, 2013 - Los Angeles, CA - Westwood Village Rotary Club - Aquila Polonica president Terry Tegnazian was invited to present the Rotary Club's "Merchant Minute" that day, introducing Aquila Polonica, which is based in Westwood, to the members of Rotary. She gave a brief overview of the Polish experience in World War II, talked about why she co-founded a publishing company devoted to that most heroic and tragic of all the Allies, and distributed the company's current catalogue of titles.

Sunday, January 27, 2013 - Washington, D.C. - In commemoration of the 2013 International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in cooperation with the Polish Embassy hosted an event about the incredible story of Witold Pilecki, whose report on Auschwitz has been published in English for the first time as The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery. "It was of tremendous importance for us—Polish diplomats—to see Witold Pilecki being commemorated in such a highly symbolic place... More…

Monday, January 21, 2013, 4 p.m. - Naples, FL - Alice Waydenfeld Faintich gave a presentation at the Heritage Bay Book Club for more than fifty attendees, about the World War II Soviet deportations of Polish civilians, including the experiences of her father as described in his book, The Ice Road: An Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013, 7 p.m. - New York City -The Museum of Jewish Heritage in cooperation with the Polish Cultural Institute of New Yorkpresented "The Auschwitz Volunteer: Historian Timothy Snyder, Yale University, in conversation with Dr. David G. Marwell, Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage." Aquila Polonica publisher Terry Tegnazian joined Professor Snyder and Dr. Marwell onstage to discuss The Auschwitz Volunteer. More...

ritacosby January 9, 2013 - WOR 710 AM, New York City - Journalist Rita Cosby interviews Yale Professor Timothy Snyder about Witold Pilecki and The Auschwitz Volunteer on New York City radio WOR 710 AM prior to the event at the Museum of Jewish Heritage later that evening (approx. 10 minutes)

January 2, 2013 - The Jewish Week, New York City, reviews The Auschwitz Volunteer - "Suspenseful, inspiring, recounting bravery that few of us can imagine. His words are of extreme importance to Jews and to any other community that suffered at the hands of the Nazis." Read the review online OR pdf...