Wow! eBook
Don't Run! Walk!: A Father and Son in the Shoah
Author(s): Roman Polanski (Author)
- Publisher: RatPac Press
- Publication Date: June 9, 2026
- Language: English
- Print length: 192 pages
- ISBN-10: 1964219310
- ISBN-13: 9781964219318
Book Description
As part of the major heritage interview program conducted in 2006 by the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) in collaboration with the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, Roman Polanski recorded his account of his childhood in Poland during the war. It was while writing that he remembered asking his father, in 1973, to write his memoirs. He recently rediscovered his father’s account, which he had never read before. It now forms the second part of this unique book, Letters to My Son by Ryszard Polanski, bringing together a father and son in two moving and enlightening testimonies of historical memory.
Editorial Reviews
Review
This is not a memoir shaped by hindsight or consolation. It is the remembered world of a child thrust into catastrophe—too young to understand what was happening yet forced to endure it. The author was six years old when the war began and twelve when it ended. What marked him was not hunger or fear, but abandonment, loneliness, and the relentless hope of finding his parents.
This book is drawn from many hours of recorded testimony, originally given for major Holocaust archival projects. The narrative preserves the texture of spoken memory—its digressions, hesitations, and breaks—refusing the false clarity that distance and editing can impose. It is a singular, subjective account, yet inseparable from the unprecedented historical crime of the attempted extermination of European Jews.
About the Author
Roman Polanski is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the history of cinema. He was born in Paris in 1933. Winner of the Academy Award for directing and numerous prizes at Cannes, Venice, and Berlin, Polanski has directed over thirty films, including Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Tess, The Pianist, The Ghost Writer, and An Officer and a Spy. In 1984, he published his autobiography, Roman by Polanski.
