The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt
About the Book
Winner of the Benjamin Franklin
SILVER AWARD for BEST FIRST BOOK (NONFICTION)
A Selection of the BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB®,
the HISTORY BOOK CLUB®, and the MILITARY BOOK CLUB®
During the opening months of World War II, Vassar-educated career woman Rulka Langer (1906–1993) risked her life and relied on her wits to keep her two small children and elderly mother out of harm’s way.
The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt is a rare eyewitness account of the early, chaotic days of World War II—the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the Siege of Warsaw and the first few months of the Nazi occupation—written by a young working mother.
Langer’s engaging, clear-eyed chronicle sparkles with fresh and lively storytelling and a brilliant eye for detail.
Weaving her story with a masterful use of humor, an occasional bite of sarcasm and a large dose of honesty, Langer paints a vivid picture of this virtually unknown aspect of World War II—and at the same time illuminates universal truths about average, ordinary people faced with war.
“Absolutely one of the best eye-witness accounts of WWII Poland that I ever read.”
— Alan Furst, bestselling author of The Foreign Correspondent and The Spies of Warsaw
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