The Right to Resist: Childhood Agency in Julian Kulski's World War II Diary

Abstract:The World War II diary of Julian Kulski, first published in 1979 and reissued in 2014 as The Color of Courage: A Boy at War: The World War II Diary of Julian Kulski, is one of few English-language primary accounts of the German occupation of Warsaw. Kulski's record merits investigation both as a historical record and as a literary and cultural document that gives voice to the children and teenagers who participated in the Polish resistance. This article considers the ways in which Kulski's agency converges with and diverges from that of the adults around him as he participates in and even leads individual and communal acts of resistance to the German occupation of Poland. Kulski's account helps illuminate a larger understanding of child soldiers as well as the revolutionary potential of children's engagement in the political process, even—or perhaps especially—under the extreme circumstances that Kulski faced.