Dąmbski joined the Home Army, the anti-German resistance movement in occupied Poland, at the age of 16 and soon volunteered to carry out death sentences on both Nazi enemies and colluding Polish compatriots.
The publisher describes the book as “a moral tale filled with self-accusation and guilt," as Dąmbski "morally struggles and questions notions of heroism, patriotism and the very act of war itself.”
According to prominent historian Norman Davies, the book "reveals not only what men can do in war but also what war can do to men.”
After the war, Dąmbski was spirited to the West, eventually settling in the United States, where he remained until his death in 1993.
After his death, his memoirs came into the possession of his niece and nephew before eventually arriving at the Warsaw-based Karta Centre, an NGO that aims to document the recent history of Poland and Eastern Europe.
Image: Polish Cultural Institute in London/instytutpolski.pl/london
Initially published in the original Polish in 2010, the book has had four editions since.
The English-language edition of Dąmbski’s memoir has a foreword by Roger Moorhouse, an expert in modern German and Polish history.
Moorhouse's publications include Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital 1939-1945; The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941; The Third Reich in 100 Objects; First to Fight. The Polish War 1939; The Forgers; and The Forgotten Story of the Holocaust's Most Audacious Rescue Operation.
(mk/gs)