The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust
by Elizabeth B. White, Joanna Sliwa

I received a complimentary copy via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.


Pepi Spinner, a Jewish woman, Janina Suchodolska, a noble countess, and Dr Josephine Janina Mehlberg, a brilliant mathematician, were all the same remarkable individual. But who was this person who stood out as an angel to many during World War II, the most traumatic period of our time?
After conducting four years of research, authors Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa recount the story of Countess Janina Suchodolska, who worked for the RGO organization to provide food, medical supplies, care packages from their relatives, and contraband to ease the suffering of prisoners in Majdanek, a Polish concentration camp. However, Janina felt that her efforts were never enough, and as a member of the AK, a clandestine resistance movement, she pledged to no longer live in fear and to do her part for her queen and country.
Thanks to her husband's translation of the little she wrote about her memoir and his account translated into English, readers now have the privilege of glimpsing into the life of Janina, a woman who always prioritized the well-being of others over her own.


How can one convey the pain and suffering people endured during this period? It is impossible to comprehend. We read examples of incorrigible behaviour from the Nazis, of families having travelled for days in the dark. Men, women and children packed shoulder to shoulder in cattle cars, with no food and a single sanitation bucket to share, whilst the dead piled up around them. Yet this is what Janina witnessed regularly, and she pledged to make a difference.


My interest in World War II began when I found out that some of my relatives died in a concentration camp, which we only learned about years later. We had thought they were Germans, but it turned out that they had concealed their true identity and were Polish Jews. This book was an excellent resource for gaining insights into Polish life before, during, and after the tragic events of the war.
No one can deny what the Nazis did was horrifying, but I was amazed and appalled at the fact that when the war ended, Polish Jews were still persecuted and killed for nothing more than being Jewish. " Estimates of the number of Polish Jews killed in the first year following the end of the war range from 500 to 1500 ", while officials turned a blind eye to this barbarism.

I highly recommend this book; I can't stress it enough. Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa have meticulously revealed the truth about Nazism, the society it built, the world of the Third Reich, and the people who endured it all. The book presents the issues clearly and vividly, which leaves a lasting impression on the reader. As Janina insisted, "We will remember".

A book celebrating the true heroism and chutzpah of a Jewish mathematician, Josephine Janina Mehlberg who fooled the Nazis into believing that she was a Polish Countess ensuring that the inmates in the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp at Lublin in Poland received food and medical supplies and this saving the lives of thousands.

What a story, beautifully researched and told and her bravery takes your breath away. A true heroine.