Maria's Code

Maria's Code consists of two related biographies, the one, an account of the research into the other - a memoir written in Berlin immediately after WWII by a Polish survivor, a memoir that contained a complex mixture of intrigue, romance, imprisonment and survival.

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A naïve English farmer’s wife travels alone to Poznan, Poland, to visit the Zachodni Institute; an archive that holds records of the wartime Polish Resistance. It is the start of an adventure into history, and all that had been hidden since the Nuremberg Trials where Stalin and dismissed all evidence submitted by the Poles and the ensuing 45-year Russian occupation of Poland ensured their silence.



On a quest to distinguish fact from fiction, Cynthia Engelmann investigates the truth of an unpublished manuscript bequeathed to her upon the death of Maria Weychan.



Maria’s memoire had revealed an extraordinary tale of intrigue, romance, imprisonment and survival, as told a by a young Polish dancer in Berlin after the end of World War II. She had survived life in a camp with her mother for longer than had previously been thought possible. Had they collaborated with the Germans to protect themselves?



Finding herself part of a movement to collate events of history previously hidden and silenced, Cynthia uncovers the leads of the evidence to share the truth of Maria’s memoire.