Warsaw Boy A Memoir of a Wartime Childhood

Poland suffered terribly under the Nazis, and they waged a ferocious guerrilla war. In August 1944,15-year-old Resistance volunteer Andrew Borowiec lobbed a grenade onto German soldiers. "I felt I had come of age. I was a soldier and I'd just tried to kill some of our enemies." The Warsaw Uprising lasted for 63 days. The insurgents were mostly poorly equipped locals, some younger than Andrew. Over that summer he faced danger at every moment. Wounded the day after his 16th birthday, he was captured in a makeshift hospital. From one of the most harrowing episodes of World War II, this is an extraordinary tale recounted by one of the few remaining veterans of Poland's bravest summer.

Andrew Borowiec left Poland after the war and attended Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.