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| The Entertainment Review |
| By: Karolina Lanckoroñska Publisher: Da Capo |
Karolina Lanckoroñska was an aristocrat, member of an elite Polish family, but she never let her heritage prevent her
from doing the right thing. During World War I, Karolina, a teenager, nursed wounded soldiers. After the invasion of
chose instead to work with the resistance movement. She was appointed head of a governmental organization
responsible for providing food to Polish prisoners. While visiting nearly every jail in Poland, she not only got food
packages from desperate relatives to the incarcerated but created and reinforced communication lines within the
underground. It wasn’t long before she was arrested.
The Garmans were never able to find Karolina guilty of these specific crimes, but they knew that she was involved;
she was not freed until a few weeks before the end of the way. Even though she had no idea of what may happen,
she prepared to be executed. Polish prisoners were noted for their courageous resistance to the Nazis as they didn’t
buckle under the pressure of being tortured. Karolina was very annoying to the Nazis because of her extensive
knowledge of languages, her love for her country, her royal and political connections and her intelligence. The only
way that that the infamous SS Hauptsturmführer Hans Kruger was able to torture her was to explain how he tortured
and killed hundreds of Polish intellectuals. Eventually the Nazis sent Karolina to Ravensbrück,a women’s
concentration camp.
“Michelangelo in Ravensbrück” provides Karolina’s firsthand descriptions of the horrors of living at a concentration
camp. She recounts that Nazi doctors performed unholy experiments on their female prisoners, removing pieces of
done from the legs, leaving many women crippled for life. Jews, gypsies, Poles, lesbians and prostitute were selected
at random for death on a daily basis. Every evening names would be called and transport trucks would arrive the
next morning. The women were driven to the woods and shot, their bodies were dumped into the camp crematorium
which burned constantly. As more and more prisoners were rounded up, diseases like typhoid and scarlet fever
began to spread and starvation was an everyday issue.
During all of this negativity, Karolina brought books and taught life affirming classes about William Shakespeare and
Michelangelo. She felt that both she and her pupils were enriched by encounters with classical art in the face of “pre-
mortal fear.” Karolina recorded that in her own most dreadful moments, she could still recall visions of the great
works of art that she had seen when she was a child.
As the first Pole released from Ravensbrück, Karolina walked backward out the gate. She never returned to her
country. From Rome, this brilliant, passionate woman led the emigrant preservation of Polish culture and sought
justice against Hans Kruger, who received multiple life sentences for his murders of Poles and Jews. “Michelangelo in
Ravensbrück ” was long-neglected, considered too anti-German or too anti-Soviet, depending on the political fashion
of the times. Now it has been resurrected by Da Capo Press with a release date to coincide with the day Karolina left
Ravensbrück.
from doing the right thing. During World War I, Karolina, a teenager, nursed wounded soldiers. After the invasion of
chose instead to work with the resistance movement. She was appointed head of a governmental organization
responsible for providing food to Polish prisoners. While visiting nearly every jail in Poland, she not only got food
packages from desperate relatives to the incarcerated but created and reinforced communication lines within the
underground. It wasn’t long before she was arrested.
The Garmans were never able to find Karolina guilty of these specific crimes, but they knew that she was involved;
she was not freed until a few weeks before the end of the way. Even though she had no idea of what may happen,
she prepared to be executed. Polish prisoners were noted for their courageous resistance to the Nazis as they didn’t
buckle under the pressure of being tortured. Karolina was very annoying to the Nazis because of her extensive
knowledge of languages, her love for her country, her royal and political connections and her intelligence. The only
way that that the infamous SS Hauptsturmführer Hans Kruger was able to torture her was to explain how he tortured
and killed hundreds of Polish intellectuals. Eventually the Nazis sent Karolina to Ravensbrück,a women’s
concentration camp.
“Michelangelo in Ravensbrück” provides Karolina’s firsthand descriptions of the horrors of living at a concentration
camp. She recounts that Nazi doctors performed unholy experiments on their female prisoners, removing pieces of
done from the legs, leaving many women crippled for life. Jews, gypsies, Poles, lesbians and prostitute were selected
at random for death on a daily basis. Every evening names would be called and transport trucks would arrive the
next morning. The women were driven to the woods and shot, their bodies were dumped into the camp crematorium
which burned constantly. As more and more prisoners were rounded up, diseases like typhoid and scarlet fever
began to spread and starvation was an everyday issue.
During all of this negativity, Karolina brought books and taught life affirming classes about William Shakespeare and
Michelangelo. She felt that both she and her pupils were enriched by encounters with classical art in the face of “pre-
mortal fear.” Karolina recorded that in her own most dreadful moments, she could still recall visions of the great
works of art that she had seen when she was a child.
As the first Pole released from Ravensbrück, Karolina walked backward out the gate. She never returned to her
country. From Rome, this brilliant, passionate woman led the emigrant preservation of Polish culture and sought
justice against Hans Kruger, who received multiple life sentences for his murders of Poles and Jews. “Michelangelo in
Ravensbrück ” was long-neglected, considered too anti-German or too anti-Soviet, depending on the political fashion
of the times. Now it has been resurrected by Da Capo Press with a release date to coincide with the day Karolina left
Ravensbrück.
