LAWYER-TURNED-PUBLISHER SHEDS LIGHT ON ‘HUMAN DRAMA’ OF WAR-TORN POLAND
By MIKE BOONE
Montreal Gazette
+turned+publisher+sheds+light+human+drama+torn+Pol and/2770879/story.html
April 7 2010
Quebec
Second World War stories are being depleted faster than oil reserves.
Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Three months and two atomic bombs
later, Japan’s capitulation brought the war to an end.
Through the 65 years since, the horrors and heroics of the Second
World War have inspired a cornucopia of fiction and non-fiction:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer, Winston
Churchill’s monumental history of the war, The Naked and the Dead –
a complete list of war literature would fill this column’s space.
Hollywood’s output has ranged from The Bridge on the River Kwai
to Inglourious Basterds, by way of From Here to Eternity and Saving
Private Ryan. The Holocaust sub-section includes Night and Fog, Shoah,
The Last Métro, Schindler’s List.
What’s left to say?
A lot, says Terry Tegnazian.
A 58-year-old entertainment lawyer turned publisher, Tegnazian will
be in town tomorrow to talk about The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt
at the Polish consulate, at 1500 Pine Ave. W. The memoir, by Rulka
Langer, is a first-person account of the 1939 German attack on Poland.
Tegnazian is not Polish and does not read or speak the language. She’s
of Armenian ancestry, grew up in New Jersey and resides in Los Angeles,
where I reached her by phone to talk about her fascination with the
Polish war effort.
She likes untold stories. And the aforementioned output
notwithstanding, there is still much to tell – especially about Poland.
The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt is the first publication by Aquila
Polonica, Tegnazian’s company. She and her London-based partner,
Stefan Mucha, have scheduled 30 more titles: out of print-books
in English, works in Polish that are being translated, new stuff –
"the greatest stories never told."
Tegnazian burned out as a lawyer and decided she wanted to be a film
producer. She made an action thriller "you’ve probably never heard
of" before deciding her favourite aspect of film production was
story conferences.
She began to write a novel in which one of the characters would be
an expatriate Polish fighter pilot flying for the RAF in the Battle
of Britain. She began researching primary-source material on Poland’s
involvement in the Second World War.
"It’s an inspiring story that I had never heard anything about,"
Tegnazian said.
She said her knowledge increased through Internet chat groups and a
visit to Poland. Her tour guide had been taught the war was won by
communist resistance to the Nazis. "I got goosebumps," Tegnazian said.
"She didn’t know her own history because of propaganda. It was like
1984 come to life."
Poland’s postwar communist government wasn’t keen on celebrating the
heroism of Poles, including 300,000 in the resistance, who fought
the Germans and thought they’d be liberating their country. In her
research, Tegnazian became "caught up in the whole human drama"
taking place in Poland from 1939 to ’45.
The Canadian Foundation for Polish Studies arranged Tegnazian’s visit
to Montreal. She will take her presentation to the Polish embassy
in Ottawa on Friday. The multimedia show includes slides of war-torn
Warsaw, narrated by Tegnazian, and dramatizations of The Mermaid and
the Messerschmitt by actress Yaelle Wittes.
"Most war histories have been written by soldiers and statesman,"
Tegnazian said.
"Rulka Langer was a career woman and the mother of two. The book
is her journey from normalcy to survival. Our goal is to bring this
story to a wider public."
Tegnazian’s talk tomorrow is free at 7 p.m. at the Polish consulate,
1500 Pine Ave. W.