17/11/2025

Private War by Eugene Slawomir Lazowski

Private War by Eugene Slawomir Lazowski – Memoirs of a Doctor Soldier 1933-1944 – is a book I found as a pdf online. I can share it with anyone wanting to read it, just mention that in a comment and I can email it. Lazowski was a Polish doctor in pre-WWII Poland, and then during WWII and the brutal German and soviet occupations of Poland, alongside the massacres both carried out.

I only recently found out about him, when a friend shared his story – that he was one of 2 doctors who faked typhus epidemics to keep the Germans away from some villages, thus saving countless lives. I am so glad that I could read his memoir. He was funny and kind and that shows in the book. He is not attempting to whitewash his choices and I liked that. He wrote about life and death and everyday life. There are a couple of “what ifs”, which are natural and scary.

Lazowski, in his short book, only 136 pages long, wrote about 11 years of his life, from when he was starting his studies and until the end of the war. There are many chapters, some shorter than a page, which makes the book very easy to read, as one can stop at any point and continue from there. His stories about his pets are just as engaging as his stories about patients or underground work. He did not shy away from presenting the real events, with gruesome details, when he encountered them. Overall I think it is a 5 stars book, which I think most people would enjoy reading.