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The book by Justyna Kowalska-Leder is an important, daring and novel work. This is evident against the backdrop of the many significant publications relating to the Holocaust published in Poland in recent years, or maybe it is precisely because of the context of these works. It constitutes a fantastic and unusually diligent recapitulation, as well as revision, of what had been settled to date. In pointing to the complexity of the aid relationships, the author proposes a research perspective which has previously not been used in Poland. She highlights the ambiguity of epistemological categories and ethical qualifications usually used to describe limit situations. The author unearths the, keenly evaded, moral ambivalence seen in the attitudes and testimonies of victims, witnesses, and rescuers. She also considers the consequences of omitting the tangle of ambivalence which is active in constructing a critical reflection on individual memories, on collective memory, embroiled in historical events, and, finally, on the political debate on the Polish experience of the war and the Holocaust. These devices lead to a critical study of the notions used to conceptualise the approach of the Jews to the Poles (and vice-versa), and of the emotional intensity of both the journalistic and academic debate. It is not without significance that the author flags the role of the (up to now) neglected factors differentiating the experiences relating to the Holocaust, such as gender, age, marital status, level of education, class, or the personal and psychological elements: that is, she emphasises the importance of the position, from which the testifying/witnessing subject speaks and acts. (Prof. Marek Zaleski)

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