Bieta Hörbuch

Saved from the Warsaw Ghetto, the youngest child, rescued thanks to Irena Sendler. Daughter of two mothers, one Jewish and one Polish. By profession a teacher, willingly deceived. Wife of the poet Jerzy Ficowski. An activist in the anti-communist opposition. In free Poland, an advisor and spokesperson for Minister Jacek Kuroń.

This is the rebellious Elżbieta Ficowska (born in 1942), portrayed in the book by Cezary Harasimowicz, who had many fascinating conversations with his heroine. However, Bieta is not a biography. Bieta is a novel. A tender yet unsympathetic novel; dramatic, but also humorous. A novel about a woman whose fate or destiny, however you call it, is shaped by the history of two nations forever intertwined, the Jewish and the Polish.