Fascinating book with a lot of little known facts. Well written & I enjoyed reading it. The book kept me intrigued & coming back for more.

Thank you to Netgalley & the Publisher for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank You to NetGalley for the free E-ARC.

I couldn't put this book down. It's very interesting. It is the story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg. She was a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of lives in Nazi-occupied Poland by pretending to be a Polish aristocrat. She was so brave and never took the word "no." This is one of the stories that was never published and the use of her memoir is now a part of this book. It is obvious that the author did a lot of research. Janina was very brave and encouraging even during cruelty.

The Counterfeit Countess by Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa is the true story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg, a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of Poles from the Nazis in WW II. This is a little known story from WW II. It's written as a narrative and the detail shows the heavy amount of research done by the authors.

I'm always amazed at the bravery shown by those who stood up to the Nazis. Janina constantly pushed the concentration camp leaders to let her help the prisoners. She never accepted a no and kept asking more and more. Always just a moment away from arrest herself.
She even convinced them to let her bring Christmas trees in one year.

An amazing story.

Honestly, this was riveting and I couldn't put it down. The untold stories of women are important and this one just adds to that canon.

## The Counterfeit Countess
The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust
by Elizabeth B. White; Joanna Sliwa
Pub Date 23 Jan 2024
Simon & Schuster
Biographies & Memoirs| History


Simon & Schuster and Netgalley sent me a copy of The Counterfeit Countess to review:


This is a must read memoir!



This book uses Mehlberg's own unpublished memoir, to reveal the astonishing story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg, a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of lives in Nazi-occupied Poland.


Many stories of resistance and rescue emerged during World War II and the Holocaust, but The Counterfeit Countess stands out. It tells the remarkable, unknown story of “Countess Janina Suchodolska,” a Jewish woman who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by Poland’s Nazi occupiers.The book tells the tale of "Countess Janina Suchodolska," a Jewish woman who saved more than 10,000 Polish prisoners from


Mehlberg operated in Lublin, Poland, the headquarters of Aktion Reinhard, the SS operation that murdered 1.7 million Jews. Under the guise of a Polish aristocrat, she worked as a welfare official and served in the Polish resistance. The "Countess" persuaded SS officials to release thousands of Poles from Majdanek concentration camp with guile, cajolery, and steely persistence. She delivered food, medicine, and even Christmas trees to thousands more prisoners. During this time, she personally smuggled supplies and messages to resistance fighters imprisoned at Majdanek, where 63,000 Jews were killed. Amazingly, she eluded detection and survived the war.


Based on Mehlberg's unpublished memoir and extensive research, Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa have uncovered the full story of this remarkable woman. Mehlberg's sometimes harrowing testimony is woven into a broader historical narrative. Like The Light of Days, Schindler’s List, and Irena’s Children, The Counterfeit Countess is an unforgettable account of inspiring courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty.In a similar manner to The Light of Days, Schindler's List, and Irena's Children, The Counterfeit Countess inspires courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty.


If you are looking for a memoir that is part heartbreak and part hope at a time when if seemed all hope was lost, I highly recommend The Counterfeit Countess'


Five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

I am grateful to everyone that brought this amazing story to light. I cannot imagine how she stood up to the Nazis to force them to let her provide aid. I appreciate that the author explains what went into verifying the memoir and found that there was so much more than what was written in it. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) copy of this book and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg was the best fraud ever. Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa tell her story in their book The Counterfeit Countess and it's nice to be rooting for the imposter. Mehlberg was a Polish Jew who during World War II became "Countess Janina Suchodolska" just to survive. However, she decided surviving wasn't enough and became a resistance member along with the boldest humanitarian I have ever read about. What made her bold? Well, she willingly went to the nearby concentration camp and proceeded to manipulate every single Nazi she could to get food and medicine within the camp. A lot of books try to oversell what their main character accomplished. This is not one of those books.

I especially appreciated how White and Sliwa approached the story. They make it clear in the introduction to the book that much of this is pulled from Mehlberg's unpublished memoir, but nothing is taken at face value. There is a lot of scholarship and significant research to make this story both readable but also complete (and verified). There are portions of the book which lag a bit as there is a fair amount of paperwork wrangling or administrative arguments. These sections are short and the story inevitably picks up immediately after with Mehlberg descending into the lion's den of Nazis. This is a book that truly does justice to its subject.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Simon & Schuster.)

Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg led an extraordinary life of sacrificing her own safety in an effort to provide solace and sustenance to those locked within the confines of WWII concentration camps. Her efforts, her network of brave resistors, and her liaisons within the camps are all highlighted beautifully throughout the story for their remarkable bravery, cunning, and determination.

The story was well written in an easy-to-comprehend way. My only criticism is the amount of information jammed packed into every single sentence really forced me to re-read to ensure I grasped it all--which explains why roughly the last one quarter of the text was references.

Overall: 4.5 stars (I really liked it!)

I'll tell my students about: abuse, starvation, intimidation, antisemitism/racism, murder/death, language

**Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the free ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.**

Having a teacher in high school obsessed with educating us on the horror of the Holocaust and having a professor in college whose specialty was the same, you would think that I would have come across the story of Dr Josephine Janina Mehlberg aka Countess Janina Suchodolska aka Pepi Spinner aka rather a lot of other names. Yet I had not and I am so grateful now to know it through this book. Janina stands out as one of the smartest, toughest, most ballsy rescuers I have ever read about and, indeed, is one of the most amazing mixtures of logic and emotion that I bet you will ever find. Born a Polish Jew to very well-off parents, she grew up surrounded by comfort and friends and all of the intellectual stimulation her incredibly active brain could want. In fact, for quite a while, she lived the contented life of the upper intelligensia, a respected mathematician and statistician; her and her husband teaching and learning and having parties with clever conversation and the like. Then the Nazis rose to power and invaded Poland and everything changed. So did Janina. First escaping one city for another with her husband, then becoming someone else entirely - an ethnic Polish aristocrate, the Countess Suchodolska - formidable negotiator with the German overseers of the nearby prison camp, Majdanek, and diminutive but determined do-gooder out to save as many lives as she could.

While this book is definitely scholarly, it does not come across as cold. Yes, there are a lot of dates and numbers and the purely overwhelming figures of prisoners and food and the logistics of getting everything together. Janina was a master of calculation and risks and probability. This book is based on her personally written memoir, bolstered by a lot of research and first hand sources by the authors. You get the sense that she almost had to focus on the numbers at times to keep safe. Plus she used her brain to calculate the risks and work the numbers towards as high a success rate as she could. In the end, though, Janina always held her own life at a lower risk value than any of the thousands of Polish prisoners, dozens of Underground Army colleagues, her husband, and the city citizens. Repeatedly through the book, you come up against her personal motto - if her single life can save multiple others, then that is the best thing she could do. It is/was worth the risk.

She took many risks indeed and narrowly escaped captured a few times. One of her comrades even lost his life saving her, not regretting the action one bit - something that clearly stayed with her throughout her life and drove her even harder to save as many as she could. Outside of the amazing feats she managed in offering hope and succor to the prisoners, Janina also managed to observe humans at their bet and worst and come to the conclusion that, where there is evil, there is also a chance for grace - often in the same person. Time and again, she was faced with kindness from a cruel tormentor. While you never feel that she excused such people from their actions, you feel her underlying grasp of the hope such lights represented.

Even if Janina did not think she did saved enough people, helped enough, and it clearly bothered her that she could not single out the Jewish inmates as she wished... Many people would argue that every single thing she did was a mark in the column of good and worthy. Please read this book for both hope and horror and to learn about a truly amazing woman.

"The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust" by Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa is a poignant and inspiring exploration of a lesser-known hero during the Holocaust. The book stands out for its meticulous research and the compelling narrative that sheds light on the incredible acts of bravery carried out by a remarkable individual.

One commendable aspect of the book is the authors' dedication to uncovering and sharing the story of the Jewish woman who rescued thousands of Poles. Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa's thorough research brings to light the remarkable actions of this unsung hero, offering a tribute to her courage and compassion during a dark period in history.

The writing style is both informative and engaging, allowing readers to connect with the individuals involved and the historical context of their actions. The narrative is structured in a way that captures the gravity of the events while honoring the resilience and bravery of those who risked their lives to save others. The authors strike a balance between historical documentation and storytelling, making the book accessible to a wide audience.

However, some readers may find the book emotionally intense due to the harrowing nature of the Holocaust and the courageous actions depicted. Potential readers should be aware of the heavy subject matter and be prepared for the emotional impact of the stories shared.

In conclusion, "The Counterfeit Countess" stands as a powerful testament to the extraordinary acts of a Jewish woman who played a crucial role in rescuing thousands during the Holocaust. Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa's dedication to preserving this story is evident, making the book a valuable contribution to Holocaust literature. While the emotional weight of the subject matter may be challenging, the book succeeds in honoring the courage and compassion of those who defied the darkness of that historical period.

Very well written book! It is wonderful that there were some heroes during that horrible time! My grandfather fought in that war and saw the same horrible things described in this book.

This book was absolutely one of my favourite of the year that I got to review for an ARC with Netgalley. This was a story that I had not heard before, and will be something that I absolutely purchase for my collection. I don't want to give anything away, but this was a brilliant recounting of this woman and her amazing rescues. Considering the state of the world currently, everyone should give it a try.

The authors did a wonderful job of writing the story of the counterfeit countess, Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg.

Mehlberg was a Jewish mathematician who hid from the Nazis by assuming the identity of Countess Janina Suchodolska aka the Counterfeit Countess. Mehlberg felt that her surviving the Holocaust was not enough; she had to save the lives of as many Jews as she possibly could. She defied the Nazis by delivering food and medical supplies to the Majdanek concentration camp. Without her efforts so many more Jews would have perished. This is a true account of a heroic woman, not a fiction book.

The Counterfeit Countess is a very interesting and well researched history of what I consider an lesser known part of the Holocaust, the imprisonment of Polish citizens in a concentration camp that had gas chambers and was killing Jews. Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg, who later emigrated to Canada and then the USA was born to wealth in Poland. She was Jewish and was able to get false papers that allowed her to pass as Countess Janina Suchodolska. With her husband Henry, she moved to Lubin, Poland, location of the Majdanek Concentration Camp. The conditions even for those who were not Jewish were bad, with many starving and disease riddling the camp. While she could not do much to help the Jews who were kept alive (barely) for labor or particular skills, she got involved with the official program in the community that provided assistance to prisoners, as distinguished from those interred for other reasons. She managed to establish an amazing food service, was active in the resistance and found ways to communicate with imprisoned members of the resistance and saved many, many Polish lives. It appears that at best, some of the food initially went to central kitchens and may have benefitted some Jews. I cannot imagine how it must have felt to her to not be able to save any of them. And the book definitely touches on the fact that after the war, Poles were less than generous to the few Jews who survived. She managed to leave without ever being detected, even holding some post-war positions that allowed her to continue with her amazing organization skills to serve and help people in need. Both Henry and Josephine had great minds and ended up teaching in US colleges. This is a dark and sad story because what else could it be when people are shot, gassed and starved and allowed to suffer from disease and torture? So it is as usual when one focuses on the Holocaust, a hard read. I recommend it for the different view I got of non-Jewish victims of the Nazis during the war and found more sympathy and understanding of the Polish experience.

The subject of this book cycled through a lot of names during her life, so I’ll just call her Janina, as the authors do. She was born to a wealthy and influential family, knew several languages, earned a Ph.D., and married a fellow scholar. When the Jewish Janina and her husband had to flee Lviv after the German invasion, they moved to Lublin and lived under false papers provided by an aristocrat friend. That friend, Count Andrzej Skrzynski, decided to go big and gave them papers identifying them as a Count and Countess. Clever, really, because nobody would think that a woman swanning about as the Countess Suchodolska in Nazi-controlled Poland could be faking it, let alone that she was actually Jewish.

Janina decided it would be a waste of her privilege if she didn’t do something with her life, so she took full advantage of that Countess identity and went to work to help her fellow Poles. As a practical matter, there was little she could do for Jews caught up in the machinery of the Nazis’ Final Solution. But there was plenty she could do for others. She hectored the Nazis running the Majdanek concentration camp to allow aid organizations to provide better conditions, and she herself brought in food multiple times a week, putting herself at risk each time, especially because she often smuggled in and out information and other material. Though she often had an antagonistic relationship with the Nazi guards and officials at Majdanek, she was able to persuade higher-ups that what she wanted was in their best interests and usually got her way. She was even able to secure the outright release of thousands of (non-Jewish) Poles who were imprisoned only because they’d been ousted from their homes in areas the Nazis wanted to occupy entirely. She was a member of an underground Polish resistance group—whose members were unaware that she was Jewish.

Her immediate postwar life was still dangerous. Poland came under the control of the USSR, which immediately went after members of all Polish resistance groups that weren’t communist, and that included hers. Life for Jews in Poland after the war wasn’t great, either, with an estimate of 500-1,500 Jews being killed by Poles. It’s nerve-wracking to read about the dangerous conditions for her and her husband before they were finally able to escape to the west.

This book details Poland’s history during World War II, when its unfortunate position between the USSR and Germany resulted in its abuse by both countries, and the pitting of ethnic Poles and Ukrainians against each other, and often both against Poland’s Jews. Janina’s story is based on her own written recollections, but with much additional information resulting from years-long research by the historian authors. This additional research is detailed in the lengthy acknowledgements, endnotes, and bibliography.

This is the story of a life that you’d think would have to be fictional, except that so much of what really did happen in World War II is almost unbelievable. This story would lend itself well to a film adaptation.

This is a biography of a Jewish Polish woman, a mathematician, who saved many Polish (Non-Jewish) lives from death and starvation at the concentration camp during WWII. Being a Jew herself, she didn't try to hide like many, neither did she feel bitterness over widespread anti-Semitism among her fellow Poles. Instead she used the cover of an assumed name to go directly into the enemy's lair and played an active role in Polish Resistance. After the war, when Poland was under the communist control and the antisemitism continued, the danger for her and her husband didn't abate. Hers and her husband's dedication to each other and their efforts to escape Poland are another fascinating aspect of the story. The heroism of this woman was not celebrated however; it was forgotten. Her memoir, which became a catalysis for this book, was neglected for decades. There was no publisher or researcher who would be interested enough to take on this project. But the story told in this book is no ordinary war tale, there are many facets to Janina's many lives (even this name isn't her real name, for example) that make her story unique and worth knowing. It deserves to be heard, especially now. This book is a must read for people interested in history of Holocaust as much as for the people who don't know it.

There were Jews who assumed false identities and "hid in plain sight" in Nazi occupied Europe. There were people who participated in underground resistance movements in Nazi occupied Europe. There were people who operated within the death camps of Nazi occupied Europe. But there are few who managed to do all of these things at the same time, let alone continually doing so successfully throughout virtually the entire Second World War.

The Counterfeit Countess tells the story of one such brave person - and one about whom so little has been written. Janina Mehlberg assumed the identity of Countess Janina Suchodolska and as such performed repeated heroic acts providing aid and support to the inmates of the notorious death camp known as Majdanek. White and Sliwa tell her story in graphic detail while also telling the tale of the horrors of one of the largest and deadliest of the camps as well as the subjugation of the Poles.

This is a well-researched volume that tells a compelling story and one that few are aware of. It has a place on the bookshelf of any Holocaust scholar as well as others who seek to understand the human spirit.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa did an excellent job of telling us the story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg. Mehlberg was a Jewish mathematician who hid from the Nazis under the guise of Countess Janina Suchodolska - the Counterfeit Countess. Mehlberg felt that just surviving was not enough; she had to save the lives of as many Jews as she could. She defied the Nazis at every turn by delivering food and medical supplies to Majdanek concentration camp.

The story is taken primarily from Mehlberg's unpublished memoirs as well as the authors own research.

The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust is an inspiring and emotional book to read from one of the most terrible times in our worlds history. A must read. Five stars.

A very interesting account of Janina's life. I had never heard of her before, so this was an engaging read for me. I learned a lot about Poland, where I have some heritage myself, and their role in the World Wars.