Resistance Painter

by Kath Jonathan

Genres: Historical Fiction; World War II; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

An evocative work of historical fiction, examining the little-known story of Poland’s extraordinary WW ll resistance army and the contemporary lives of two artists, grandmother and granddaughter, inextricably linked by a wartime betrayal.

Warsaw 1939. Irena Marianowska’s dreams of attending art school in Paris are crushed when the Nazis invade Poland. Instead, she joins the Home Army and, together with her resistance cell, risks her life guiding people to safety through the sewers of Warsaw. In 1942, after a harrowing mission, she returns home to learn that her sister, Lotka, has been abducted by the Gestapo. In her search for Lotka, Irena encounters a host of characters who lead her into greater danger.

Toronto 2010. Jo Blum lives in Toronto with her beloved grandmother, a lauded painter of WWII and a decorated war hero. Jo has a budding career creating sculptures for grave sites based on the life stories of her dying clients. Her recorded interviews with Stefan, her new Polish client, unveil an heroic wartime past eerily similar to her grandmother’s. But Jo’s quest to uncover the truth about Stefan and her grandmother opens an explosive Pandora’s box whose shockwaves threaten everything she’s known about her family.

The Resistance Painter will resonate with fans of The Berlin Apartment, The Secret History of Audrey James, Woman with the Blue Star, The Book of Lost Names, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The German Girl, and The Dutch Wife, confronting questions about the stories we tell about our lives and whether buried secrets should stay buried.

Release date: March 25, 2025

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Print pages: 448

Sample

Chapter One

One

Warsaw, September 1, 1939

Night—yet there’s movement in the flat across from ours. With my nose pressed between the blackout curtains, I follow the erratic pattern of a torch being carried about—in another flat, a candle blinking as though someone might be signaling. I push on the window to see if it’s real, and it doesn’t give. Far off to the west of Warsaw, the sky erupts in bursts of light.

My toes feel a path to my bedside, and I fumble for Papa’s pocket watch crowning the hill of sketchbooks beside my bed. I peer into its flat white face: five minutes before three.

Hurry, Irena! My mind crashes through drowsiness, yanks open a door to bark at me—They’re here!

I wheel to face my sister, still breathing softly in her bed—“Szarlota!”—shaking her until she rolls onto her back. “The Germans are here, Lotka.”

Bolting upright, she crosses herself before scrambling out of bed.

I open our bedroom door to find Mama in the doorway, eyes wide with terror, her hand clutching her neck as though her head might fall off. My heart softens, but she brushes past me sobbing, her arms reaching for Lotka’s ready embrace.

“There’s no time for crying.” Hardening my voice doesn’t stop my own tears welling. Not now. “Everybody, get dressed. Gather your bags and be quick.”

Lotka ushers Mama back to her bedroom, cooing comfort while our mother whimpers. Ever since my father’s death, our mother’s suffered from nerves. Months riddled with rumors of war made things worse for her, and while I struggle with impatience, my sister’s only been kind.

I tug the gray skirt of my Girl Guide uniform over my nightdress, throw on the blouse, not bothering with the lower buttons. I think of our Guide leader, Marysia, who’s been reminding us that Poland’s Scouts and Guides have a long military heritage and hinting at what’s ahead.

“Young women,” she said, in a tone much softer than her usual commands, “if the Germans attack, we Guides will have the serious work of helping Polish citizens. Some of you may be called on to do even more for our country.”

Fired by her words, I memorized her speech, sometimes reciting it to myself as I lay in bed. Now I take a deep breath and reach for Papa’s woolen scarf, which I’ve put aside for this occasion. If I’m going to face death, I want to be in uniform, with something of Papa’s close to me for courage.

Morning shadows lay themselves across our beds as light filters through the window. There’s little point swearing at the sun, rising beautifully even as the Luftwaffe wings toward us. But what a horrible thing it is to be waiting for the devil to arrive. I grab a sketchbook from the pile and wedge it into my rucksack. Not for the first time, I wish I were a man. Men are welcome soldiers in Poland’s fighting army—flying planes and firing artillery guns, while sixteen-year-old girls like me must scurry into cellars without even a rifle.

With my rucksack poking my back, I march into the kitchen, sidestepping the sand pails and the water pails Marysia instructed us to have ready. At the table, my sister’s fastening the straps on her first-aid bag, her jaw set in concentration.

“Got everything?”

She nods, adding a bundle to an already bulging pillowcase. “I made everyone’s favorite sandwiches.”

That means chopped egg with wild chives for me, plum jam for Mama, cheese for herself, and extras for our old neighbor, Mr. Godlewski. I can’t help beaming at my sister.

Glancing down the empty hallway, my smile turns to impatience. “Where’s Mama?”

“In the bathroom.”

The air-raid siren begins its rising, ebbing wail. Lotka clutches my arm, and we rush to the bathroom, where I rap on the door. “The bombing will start any second, Madame Iwanowska. There’s a bucket in the cellar for your convenience. Please come out now!”

“Don’t shout at her, Irena.” Lotka switches to a caressing tone. “Mama, Mr. Godlewski will be waiting for us. He’ll be so worried.”

When my mother comes out, her hat’s angled, lipstick perfect, her one remaining silk scarf tucked into her Sunday blouse.

Where does she think we’re going? But there’s no time for petty frustrations. My hand flies to my hammering heart, my whole body in thrall to the sound of planes drilling close by.

Instinctively, we all dive for the tight space under the kitchen table.

Mama prays in a breathless voice: “Our Father, who art in heaven.”

Lotka slips an arm round her shoulders: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

A scream like a child in pain drowns out their prayer. It’s followed by a piercing whine. I screw my eyes shut, dig my nails into my palms. For the space of two heartbeats, our lives hang in deathly silence before the ground shudders from the impact of a bomb.

Mother Mary, protect us.

Explosions from shattering glass echo in my Mokotów neighborhood. Another bomb, and a moment later, another just north of us.

To dampen my panic, I crowd my mind with questions: How many German planes are blocking out the sky? If a bomb falls on us, will our coal cellars become tombs? Does it ever make sense to shelter under a kitchen table?

The Sobieski Residences, where we live, are four peeling buildings reluctantly facing a treed courtyard, each with two flats enfolding combinations of mother, father, sisters, brothers, grandparents. While my mind rattles with useless questions, my ears pick up the splattering debris on the roof, the jangling kitchen light swinging slowly to a stop as the roar above us recedes.

Mama’s praying, coming in gasps now, suddenly mobilizes me. I struggle to a crouch, my rucksack scraping the underside of the table. “They’re heading west. Come on.”

Lotka and I grab Mama’s arms and pull her up. We scan each other for blood, then scan the kitchen: no shards of glass, no splintered, smoking ceiling, no need for the pails just yet. We run our mother down the hallway, hat askew, lipstick smudged, out the front door, down the stairs to the courtyard.

Everyone’s heading for the cellars—women carrying crying babies, older children hopping foot to foot, pointing excitedly at the sky—the women’s sharp voices mustering them in, and all the while the chorus of the air-raid siren underscoring our efforts. My gaze travels to the orange flames dancing on the rooftops a few streets away. Like the picture of hell in my old Catholic catechism, black smoke billows across the sky, erasing the steeple of St. Anthony’s.

Inside the main gate to our building, two women are struggling to carry a man toward their cellar door. Blood darkens his trousers. His leg must be broken, yet he’s trying to lift his body to make himself lighter. I could help. Lotka with her nursing skills could stop the bleeding, but the planes are returning, and as we hurry to save ourselves, I feel helpless, hopeless. Seeing our neighbors’ terrified faces, I wonder if there’s anything more absurd than the idea that we can prepare for war. All that running, climbing, bandaging my friend Leah and I have been doing in Guide meetings, smothering fires with pillows, making a meal out of weeds. Have she and her family made it safely into their cellar?

“Good morning, Mr. Godlewski.” Lotka waves at the old man hurrying toward us, cradling a bottle of what I hope is water. Like the children, his eyes shine with excitement.

“Dzien dobry, Pani.”

Mama perks up as he gives her a courtly bow and I worry that a series of formal Polish greetings will prevent us from getting to the cellar before the Luftwaffe returns. He winks at me, and, charging ahead, says, “Come on, Irena. What are you waiting for, a special invitation from Hitler?”

I can’t help but smile as we follow him down the short staircase.

For weeks we’ve known that the German chancellor would send his army to attack us. Stefan Starzynski, the president of our city, has been on the radio constantly—warning Warsaw’s citizens to prepare for a likely invasion. Mr. Godlewski himself, a former journalist and veteran of the Great War, has half-jokingly offered me lessons in strangling a man, with a bonus lesson of how to fire a revolver. Mama and Lotka wouldn’t hear of it. I’d settle for sitting in his kitchen while he listens to his shortwave radio, but I haven’t been invited. The BBC has been keeping him abreast of the Führer’s route to war against us, and, in exchange for a cup of tea and a slice of Mama’s apple cake, we get the latest news from abroad.

I shut the wooden door, sliding the recently installed bolt across, and we plunge into dank darkness, coal dust wafting into our noses and eyes. I sneeze; Mama sneezes; Lotka has a coughing fit. While our neighbor navigates his way past the coal chute with the dwindling pile of coal, the three of us huddle close for comfort, letting our eyes slowly adjust to this familiar yet foreign space.

After the frantic faces in the courtyard, I’m suddenly afraid. Not of dying, exactly. I’m afraid we’ll be in this cellar for days, that Warsaw will crumble and I’ll never see Leah or any of my dearest places again. For a brief moment after waking, I imagined I was Major Irena Iwanowska, caught up in a daring mission. Not anymore. I find my torch in my pocket, and when my sister’s eyes meet mine, we bolster each other with little shrugs: What can we do?

“Here we are,” I say brightly, following Mr. Godlewski to the small space where we’ve arranged two dining room chairs, a cot, and a thick living room rug from his flat, which he had Lotka and me drag down here after insisting they were useless to him upstairs.

“Look, Mama,” Lotka smiles, “how sweet and cozy our little hideout is.”

Our mother converts her disagreement into energy, taking off her hat, straightening the cot, the chairs, before producing a blanket from a pillowcase, shaking it out, and laying it across the dusty rug. I cover a sigh. Most often these days, it’s disgruntlement, even anger, that brings her to life.

Our plucky mood shatters when the planes return screeching overhead, the strange whine of the bomb as it falls, then that pregnant stillness followed by a massive blast. Heaven help us! Our building shudders. Heads together, Mama and Lotka clutch each other. Mr. Godlewski grasps the back of a chair, while I pull myself into a crouch, arms hugging my body. From the floor above us, sand filters onto our heads. I touch the grit on my scalp, roll it between my fingers.

“That was close.” Mr. Godlewski pulls up a chair, caking Mama’s blanket with dirt from his boots. When he removes a tin cup from his jacket pocket and pours a drink from his bottle, he doesn’t offer us any, confirming my suspicions that the water is, in fact, vodka.

“Are they gone?” Lotka sounds like a frightened child.

“For now,” Mr. Godlewski says, his cup halfway to his mouth. “But they’ll be back.”

My sister’s grimace becomes a tight smile when she sees Mama’s panicked face. “Are you all right, Mama?”

“How can you ask me that?” Our mother quivers with indignation.

Good point.

Despite her trembling, my sister manages to light a candle she’s inserted in an empty bottle. The glow spreads a warm circle around our group. Mama’s eyes narrow when she sees my yellow nightgown protruding from my Girl Guide skirt, and she turns despairingly to Lotka. I make a show of tossing Papa’s scarf smartly over my shoulder, but the ache in my heart mocks any claim to indifference.

Lotka and I settle awkwardly on the bouncy cot. We don’t need to be quiet with all that ruckus going on in the sky above us, but I can’t help whispering. “I hope Hitler isn’t marching through Pilsudski Square right now.”

“Do you think they bombed the hospitals?” Lotka sinks her head into her hands.

“No, they wouldn’t. They probably bombed Okecie Airport.” I pat her knee. “Don’t worry, Poland’s never giving in to these filthy dragons.”

“They call it a blitzkrieg,” Mr. Godlewski says, and Lotka, who’s been studying German, nods.

“A lightning war.”

He smiles grimly. “First, they start a big lie to convince us that the invasion’s all our own fault, since apparently, we attacked a few German radio stations.” He snorts. “Of course, the German people expect their army to retaliate, so what could be more natural than invading our peaceful country?” Raising his arm, he dives sharply for my right leg. “First come the bombers destroying our barracks, railroads, and airfields; then they have a little fun, paralyzing ordinary citizens by bombing us in our beds. You’ll see, they’ll even bomb our churches and schools.”

Mama makes the sign of the cross.

He wags his finger. “If you really want to avoid a headache, Agata, don’t even think about their pact with the Russians. All this will make it nice and easy for the tanks and troops to march in and conquer Poland for the German Reich.” He pauses for another sip.

How I hate hearing this matter-of-fact news. “We’ll fight back,” I say calmly, as though he hasn’t thought of that. “We’ll shoot down their planes with our own planes.”

“Dear Irena, our old P7s are no match for their Stukas. They have the newest weapons and thousands more soldiers than we have.”

His certainty galls me. How can he be so willing to give up? “That doesn’t matter,” I say, trying not to shout, but catching the dismay on Mama’s face. “Warsaw will fight to the death.”

“Of course we will,” he says, holding my gaze. “We’ll have to. They’re moving across the countryside now, marching at great speed toward us. They’ll be here in days.” He sighs. “Thank God my Katya’s not here to see this.”

I shift uneasily and feel Lotka’s hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be so eager to fight, Renka. I wouldn’t want to see you on a stretcher at the hospital.”

I lay my hand over hers. Rising from the precarious cot, I shuffle into the darkness at the back of the cellar, my heart cleaving. I don’t want to die, yet, most certainly, I want to fight.

Unballing my fists, I search the dusty shelves that once held jars of Mama’s ogórki kiszone pickles and Mrs. Godlewski’s jam. With Mama working at the Education Ministry, Lotka at nursing school, and me in my last year of high school, we’ve had little time for pickling or preserving. Since Papa’s untimely death, we eat whatever Mama’s salary buys.

Returning to the yellow glow, I raise a pickle jar triumphantly. “Look what I found!”

Mama briefly glances up; then she turns to Lotka. “You sure you brought the jewelry bag?”

“Of course. Don’t worry, the ring’s safe.” My sister reaches into her pillowcase and removes the sandwiches and a flask. “Is anyone hungry?”

I move to the blanket, and while Lotka pours us sweet, hot, heavenly tea, Mama performs a miracle, lifting an apple cake from her pillowcase. I’m resolving to be more patient with her when she graciously offers Mr. Godlewski my egg sandwiches.

“You’re very kind, Pani,” he says bowing, and I’m afraid he’s going to fall over. It’s a good thing we’re eating because his bottle’s half-empty. I slap the bottom of the pickle jar and twist it open. Smells all right. The carefully packed items in my rucksack are hardly edible: extra torch batteries, Swiss Army knife, nails tied to a length of rope that I plan to hang things on, extra toilet paper, a book on modern painting, my sketchbook, a box of pencils and charcoal.

After we’ve eaten, Lotka and I help Mr. Godlewski lower himself onto the cot like a piece of folding furniture. My cellar mates find ways to distract themselves from the Nazis’ autumn tour of our country. Lotka studies her German textbook by the light of my torch, Mama’s hands play piano on her knees while she absently hums the tune, and Mr. Godlewski—out cold—colors Mama’s waltz with his percussive snoring.

As for me, my ears grow ears straining for the steady sound of the all-clear siren. But as often happens, my mind strays to Leah and her messy, laughing family—her father’s terrible puns as he drives us to our Saturday classes at the Art Academy; her trouser-wearing mother dangling baby Joel on one hip while demonstrating how to feather a brush line on my watercolor. I smother my fears by conjuring a wistful scene in which Leah, her mother, and I are painting together beneath palm trees in the South of France.

Thoughts of painting send me reaching for my sketchbook. I begin drawing Mama’s rigid back, Mr. Godlewski’s head, snoring, Lotka tying her hair in a ponytail. Can I draw without seeing clearly? I let my hands move over the pages as if they were my eyes.

As I work, a low humming strums my throat, and I start to sing, Poland has not yet perished. Lotka adds her pure soprano—So long as we still live. Mama smiles woefully, while a wakened Mr. Godlewski struggles to salute our national anthem. I mute any crying sounds yearning to escape, but I can’t control the tears dribbling down my neck. I need to be strong like my mountain-climbing father, but he’s not here to show me how. I send a hopeful glance toward my mother. It’s her hand I want to clutch, her fingers I need to feel stroking my hair, but she’s too busy brushing crumbs from her blanket.

Lotka pulls me close. “It’s okay. I promise nothing bad will happen to us.”

Exhausted from trying to forge myself into steel, I let my head fall onto her shoulder.

The minutes pass, and we’re all safe in our private shells when we hear the planes returning, seemingly from all directions now. A shelf rattles with the impact of a close hit. I clutch my chest and notice that Mr. Godlewski’s right hand has performed the same involuntary action. For the next hour, we’re maddened by the shrieking of planes, which begins like a hundred out-of-tune violins, accelerates quickly to high-pitched screaming that makes my heart race and my ears ache. Mr. Godlewski says that the German Stuka bombers have wind sirens under the wings and even on the bombs, fiendishly designed to terrorize our ears and minds.

We wait out the raid, each breath held like a tightrope until we make it to the next breath and the next. In the dark, our eyes seek each other, less for comfort, which we have no strength to give, more for confirmation that we’re ready for the next round when it comes. When it all passes, my heart’s left hammering and I’m soaked in cold sweat.

So. This is what survival feels like.