My love for teaching literature and writing started in Fall 2000.  I began my doctoral education.  Linked with that love for teaching is my passion for writing.  During the final six months of completing my doctorate in American Literature, I realized I was drawn more to Holocaust Studies and War Literature.  I even taught my first Literature of the Holocaust course while I defended my Herman Melville dissertation.  I sensed immediately this course had not only changed me as a scholar but also as a person. 

Although I continued to teach American Literature, I couldn’t ignore the calling I heard in my mind (and conscience) to work on World War II war crimes.  I didn’t know if this calling meant for me to study Holocaust literature and history or investigate other war atrocities and write a book.  Nonetheless, I felt no longer excited about American Literature. 

Moreover, what could have followed writing a scholarly book which focused on Moby-Dick, a massive and ambitious work of art?  I needed another monumental project that excited but also terrified me.   

I was born in New York but felt strong connections with my Polish heritage.  Marrying a Polish woman strengthened those ancestral connections.

Initially, I planned to write a biography on Czesław Miłosz, a Polish born poet who witnessed the horrors of World War II and rescued Jews during the Holocaust.  After the war and years of exile, he eventually landed in Berkeley, becoming an American citizen and then winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980 for both his Polish and English language poetry.

Why Czesław Miłosz?

I saw Czesław Miłosz as a symbol… of myself.  We both possessed simultaneously two identities: Polish and American.  We were university professors.  Additionally, in his poetry, he didn’t ignore the suffering of World War II’s victims; he even shamed his fellow Poles for their indifference and conformity during the Holocaust.  In 1989, Yad Vashem honored him with the Righteous Among the Nations accolade for his efforts to rescue Jews during the Holocaust.      

After teaching that first Holocaust course, I couldn’t return to the American material I had studied and taught.  I had to do something more.  In          2006, I won the New Perspectives on the Holocaust Summer Seminar: Reading, Writing and Teaching the Holocaust from CUNY Graduate Center.  This week-long seminar convinced me to become a Holocaust and World War II scholar.

While drafting twenty-seven pages focusing on Czesław Miłosz’s complicated identity, I then was hired to teach writing and literature at West Point.  Everything changed.  I abandoned the Czesław Miłosz project and fastened upon the Katyn Forest Massacre. 

Stepping foot on that historic military post completed my transformation from an American Literature specialist into a more globally aware and engaged scholar.  Katyn represented that transformation.  The atmosphere… the aura of West Point not only inspired but demanded that I write a book on Katyn. 

And so, I did.  The blog postings you will find on this website will trace the writing process of my Katyn Manuscript and other aspects of my professional academic career.