The miracle typist : the powerful true story of one soldier's long journey home / Leon Silver.
Publication details: Cammeray, NSW : Simon & Schuster (Australia), 2020.Description: xii, 320 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour), 1 map, portraits, 1 facsimile ; 24 cmISBN:- 9781760854355
- 1760854352
- Klings, Tolek
- Klings family
- Jewish soldiers -- Biography
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish
- Jews -- Persecutions
- Antisemitism
- Typists
- Family history, tracing ancestors
- Military history
- Biographies
- Jews, Polish -- Biography
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Poland
- Australian
- 940 23
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item reserves | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Melbourne Athenaeum Library | Biography | 940 SIL | Available | 062299 |
Conscripted into the Polish army as Hitler's ground and air forces are bearing down on his country, Jewish soldier Tolek Klings vows to return to his wife, Klara, and son, Juliusz. However, when the Luftwaffe's bombs start falling and the Polish cause looks hopelessly lost, Tolek finds himself under fire from his supposed brothers in arms. The Polish army is rife with anti-Semitism and he is relentlessly tormented. As the Germans cross the border, he is faced with a terrible dilemma: flee to protect his family - and risk being shot as a deserter - or ride out the war, hoping rumours of women and children being spared in the concentration camps are true. What follows is an odyssey that will take Tolek from a Hungarian internment camp, where his ability to type spares him from the frontline, on to Palestine, Beirut, Egypt, Tobruk and Italy. A broken telegram from Klara, ending with the haunting words, 'We trouble', pushes him to the brink.