'A fine and deeply affecting work of history and memoir' Philippe Sands Decades ago the
historian Bernard Wasserstein set out to uncover the hidden past of the town forty miles west
of Lviv where his family originated: Krakowiec (Krah-KOV-yets). In this book he recounts its
dramatic and traumatic history. 'I want to observe and understand how some of the great forces
that determined the shape of our times affected ordinary people.' The result is an exceptional
often moving book. Wasserstein traces the arc of history across centuries of religious and
political conflict as armies of Cossacks Turks Swedes and Muscovites rampaged through the
region. In the Age of Enlightenment the Polish magnate Ignacy Cetner built his palace at
Krakowiec and with his vivacious daughter Princess Anna created an arcadia of refinement and
serenity. Under the Habsburg emperors after 1772 Krakowiec developed into a typical shtetl
with a jostling population of Poles Ukrainians and Jews. In 1914 disaster struck. 'Seven
years of terror and carnage' left a legacy of ferocious national antagonisms. During the Second
World War the Jews were murdered in circumstances harrowingly described by Wasserstein. After
the war the Poles were expelled and the town dwindled into a border outpost. Today the storm
of history once again rains down on Krakowiec as refugees flee for their lives from Ukraine to
Poland. At the beginning and end of the book we encounter Wasserstein's own family especially
his grandfather Berl. In their lives and the many others Wasserstein has rediscovered the
people of Krakowiec become a prism through which we can feel the shocking immediacy of history.
Original in conception and brilliantly achieved A Small Town in Ukraine is a masterpiece of
recovery and insight.
