Description

Mietek Sieradzki fled Nazi-occupied Poland to the Soviet Union, from where he was deported to Siberia. Life there was tough and harsh, but he escaped the Holocaust and after the war joined the Polish foreign service. He was posted in Moscow, London, Korea, Cambodia and Canada, in the latter two as head of mission. From the early stages of his career disillusionment with the system set in. In time his reluctance to conform and his Jewish origin made him a target for harassment by the secret services, and eventually the anti- Jewish campaign unleashed in Poland in 1968 ended his career and drove him out of the country. By a Twist of History describes Sieradzki's experiences at the time, and refutes the myth, wide-spread in Poland, that large numbers of Jews had worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and reflects on Polish anti-Semitism. Sieradzki and his family eventually settled in Britain to build a new life.