Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter

"an exceptional job bringing this complicated and compelling history to light"

Clare Mulley, historian and author specializing in World War II, does an exceptional job bringing this complicated and compelling history to light. Elzibieta Zawacka, known as Agent Zo, fought her entire life for women's military worth to be recognized, first in the Polish Home Army fighting the Nazis, then under the Soviet dominated rule in post-war Poland, finally as an archivist and historian in a democratic Poland. This book is one Zo herself would be proud of, modest though she was about her own impressive achievements.

The amount of research Mulley did is truly staggering, especially given that almost all of it had to be done with the aid of translators. She manages to tell Zo's personal story as the gripping adventure it was while also providing the bigger canvas of her lifetime. Mulley lays out the broader histories such as the little-known aspects of Poland's post-war history, the Soviet domination and repression that resulted in the arrest and torture of people, including Zo.

All this was done in service of the revisionist history imposed on the country to erase the resistance army that had fought so long and so hard to free Poland, the people knowing the history had to be erased, along with any documentation. Besides that, Mulley weaves in the history of women in the military and Poland's unique recognition of the valuable role women could play, granting them the same military status as men long before any other country in Europe.

The history of the Polish resistance and women's military status are closely linked. As Mulley writes:

"Around 40,000 women would eventually be sworn in as members of the Polish Home Army, making it the largest resistance force in occupied Europe. Initially, they served in liaison, as messengers and couriers, as paramedics and in logistics; the day-to-day functioning of the early underground resistance would have been impossible without them."

Women went on to more dangerous assignments. Zo herself risked death many times to get crucial information to the Allies. She ferried cash, weapons, and information, zigzagging across enemy territory, once even parachuting back into Poland, a first for a woman. She was involved in so many high-level missions, she developed quite a reputation and ended up with the rank of brigadier general (retired).

"Resourceful, determined and courageous, for many of her colleagues Zo had become a 'true legend of the Home Army' as soon as she had crossed wartime borders for the hundredth time.'  'She is a courier of extraordinary self-reliance,' one report recorded. 'She is decisive and steady, which is why she was capable of escaping by jumping from a train.'"

Zo was instrumental in getting women the recognition they deserved from the Home Army, advocating for a decree that would grant them equal status.

"The more Zo had seen of the women's auxiliaries in Britain, the more convinced she had become that the Home Army needed their own distinct service model. . . . The main problem, as she saw it, was 'how best to present the difficult matters that were so completely ignored or misunderstood by men.'"

Zo's many achievements during the war are well summed up:

"For four long years she had organized and run an intelligence network, crossed wartime borders over a hundred times as a courier and, as an emissary, challenged and changed military policy and practice at the highest level. Along with her colleagues, she had helped grow the Home Army into an organisation that could wreck over a thousand enemy train engines in a single week, and supplied the intelligence that paved the way for many of the Allied bombing raids. She had also seen her entire family arrested, and the execution of many of her friends."

The Nazi surrender should have brought Zo the peace she had fought for with so much courage. Instead, "she felt that her country's occupation by one hostile foreign power [Nazi Germany] had now been replaced by another [Soviet Russia], and Poland was still not free."

Zo herself would was sent to prison, arrested for being part of a network spying on the communist government. She wasn't part of any such group but looked guilty simply because of her past. Like many of her compatriots in the Home Army, her real crime lay in telling the story of Poland's resistance, a story that contradicted the official Soviet version. Tortured and put in prison for years, Zo was finally freed, determined to collect even more stories of the Home Army, especially the part played by women.

Zo was officially recognized with many awards and medals, but to her what really mattered was the history she had lived through. She created a vast archive, hoping to educate a new generation about their country's history. This book serves her mission well.