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PRAISE FOR NINE LIVES

‘An unforgettable book ... one of the most tragic and horrifying memoirs to emerge from the Second World War.’

Neal Ascherson

‘Reveals a major hidden episode in Europe’s bloody history of ethnic violence .... The parallels with recent events in the Balkans are striking.’

The Observer

‘An exceptional book ... it tells a story from a perspective we rarely, if ever, are able to see.’

Anne Appelbaum, Literary Review

‘Vivid and disturbing ... Ably reconstructed with the help of Julian Preece, Lotnik’s memoir sheds lights on a relatively unknown conflict waged within the larger drama on the Eastern Front, and hence on the topical theme of how neighbours can turn on each other with terrifying savagery, as we have recently seen in the Balkans.’

Times Literary Supplement

Waldemar Lotnik was born in 1925 near Lublin, where he was brought up on his grandfather’s farm until the age of seven. His parents then fetched him to live in Kremenets, a garrison town in the Polish part of the Ukraine. After the events described in his book, he settled in London. He is married with two children and four grandchildren and has not returned to Poland since leaving the country in the summer of 1945.

Julian Preece was born in Birmingham in 1962 and brought up in Somerset. He studied German and French at Oxford University and is now Professor of German at Swansea University. His books include The Life and Work of Günter Grass and, as editor, The Cambridge Companion to Kafka.

NINE LIVES

Ethnic Conflict in the Polish-Ukrainian Borderlands

Waldemar Lotnik

with

Julian Preece

Serif

London

First published 1999

This e-book edition first published 2013

by

Serif

47 Strahan Road

London E3 5DA

www.serifbooks.co.uk

Copyright © Waldemar Lotnik and Julian Preece, 1999, 2013, 2015

Foreword copyright © Neal Ascherson, 1999, 2013, 2015

Copyright © Serif, 1999, 2013, 2015

The moral rights of Waldemar Lotnik, Julian Preece and Neal Ascherson have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ePub ISBN: 978 1 909150 14 0

e-book produced by Will Dady

Cover design by Pentagram