Word: zubrzycki
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...inheritor of possibly the world's greatest private fortune, end up on a sheep farm in Australia-and then lose it? This particular tale, however, is true-and it's the subject of a fascinating new book, The Last Nizam: An Indian Prince in the Australian Outback, by John Zubrzycki...
...Back home, his neglected palaces were turning into ruins. He had left his business affairs in the hands of friends and advisors, but Zubrzycki suggests he was a poor judge of men. Large parts of his treasure vanished amid allegations that some associates were stealing from him. His legal troubles grew fantastically complicated. Each time he tried to sell his jewels, someone obstructed him-either the Indian government or one of the numerous relatives who apparently wanted a share of the booty. With many of his assets frozen in India's courts, Jah could no longer bail himself...
...Zubrzycki writes that Jah, who is still alive, blames fate for his woes; and it isn't hard to feel sorry for this childlike, inquisitive man, lost in a whirlpool of historical change and legal tangles. Yet if Jah had used even a fraction of his money and status, he could have transformed the lives of millions of poor people in Hyderabad. At the least, he should have been able to make a farm in the outback turn a profit. Instead, after losing one of the greatest fortunes in history, the last Nizam retired to Turkey, where, we are told...
That was risky enough, but young Wojtyla was also active in the anti-Nazi resistance. Jerzy Zubrzycki, a high school classmate of Wojtyla's who is now a sociology professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, says of those years: "He lived in danger daily of losing his life. He would move about the occupied cities taking Jewish families out of the ghettos, finding them new identities and hiding places. He saved the lives of many families threatened with execution." Meanwhile he helped organize and acted in the underground "Rhapsody Theater," whose anti-Nazi and patriotic dramas boosted Polish...
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