The Resistance Painter

An evocative work of historical fiction, examining the little-known story of Poland’s extraordinary WW ll resistance army and the contemporary lives of two artists, grandmother and granddaughter, inextricably linked by a wartime betrayal. Warsaw 1939. Irena Marianowska’s dreams of attending art school in Paris are crushed when the Nazis invade Poland. Instead, she joins the Home Army and, together with her resistance cell, risks her life guiding people to safety through the sewers of Warsaw. In 1942, after a harrowing mission, she returns home to learn that her sister, Lotka, has been abducted by the Gestapo. In her search for Lotka, Irena encounters a host of characters who lead her into greater danger. Toronto 2010. Jo Blum lives in Toronto with her beloved grandmother, a lauded painter of WWII and a decorated war hero. Jo has a budding career creating sculptures for grave sites based on the life stories of her dying clients. Her recorded interviews with Stefan, her new Polish client, unveil an heroic wartime past eerily similar to her grandmother’s.