Valuable but uneven ... Moorhouse’s subject thus encompasses a double mystery: how the operation worked and succeeded, and why it seems to have disappeared from the historical record. The author does better explaining the former than the latter ... As important as Mr. Moorhouse’s story is, his writing can be so clotted and his attention to detail so minute that the timeline of the larger story begins to blur. Yet he has relatively little to say about the role played by postwar communism and Cold War politics in the rescue mission’s decadeslong disappearance into obscurity. And he reveals almost nothing about how the rescue operation came to light again ... Incomplete.
A well-constructed and agreeably concise book with a clear narrative drive and fascinating detail ... Most of the book instead deals with the familiar ground of Nazi atrocities. But perhaps that doesn’t matter. This story is told with considerable grace; it’s a worthy introduction for those unacquainted with the crimes done to Poland.
