The Counterfeit Countess

"World War II and the Holocaust have given rise to many stories of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess is unique. It tells the remarkable, unknown story of 'Countess Janina Suchodolska, ' a Jewish woman who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by Poland's Nazi occupiers. Mehlberg operated in Lublin, Poland, headquarters of Aktion Reinhard, the SS operation that murdered 1.7 million Jews in occupied Poland. Using the identity papers of a Polish aristocrat, she worked as a welfare official while also serving in the Polish resistance. With guile, cajolery, and steely persistence, the 'Countess' persuaded SS officials to release thousands of Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp. She won permission to deliver food and medicine, ven decorated Christmas trees, for thousands more of the camp's prisoners. At the same time, she personally smuggled supplies and messages to resistance fighters imprisoned at Majdanek, where 63,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers and shooting pits. Incredibly, she eluded detection, and ultimately survived the war and emigrated to the US"--