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They Fought Back: The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe
Suhl, Yuri, Ed., They Fought The Story Of The Jewish Resistance In Nazi Europe
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 8, 2022
Buy.
I was lent this book from the family of a close friend following an intellectual discourse. It did not fail to impress, astonish, and horrify. It is a truly remarkable collection of instances in which Nazi victims fought back against their inhuman oppressor.
Important!
I was lent this book from the family of a close friend following an intellectual discourse. It did not fail to impress, astonish, and horrify. It is a truly remarkable collection of instances in which Nazi victims fought back against their inhuman oppressor.
Important!
September 1, 2016
This book is forty years old, and I wish I'd found it that long ago. It puts to death any notion that the European Jews didn't fight back against the Holocaust. Unfortunately, far too many did submit to the ghettoization, deportations and slaughter, but many rose up and fought back against the cruelty. The book details far too graphically for anyone with a weak stomach man's inhumanity to our fellow man.
As an American, something I found so disturbing is the lack of help given to Jews during the years leading up to the war and during the war. Suhl doesn't dwell on this, as his thesis is presenting the heroics of the Jewish people who fought back. But I'm saying it anyway. We didn't bomb the railroad tracks going into the death camps or the ovens/gas chambers themselves even after being given overwhelming proof of what was going on in those camps. We didn't provide arms to the Jewish partisans to help them attack the Nazis. We didn't open our doors to Jewish immigration. I can only conclude that there was de facto anti-Semitism in our political leaders, such as FDR.
As an American, something I found so disturbing is the lack of help given to Jews during the years leading up to the war and during the war. Suhl doesn't dwell on this, as his thesis is presenting the heroics of the Jewish people who fought back. But I'm saying it anyway. We didn't bomb the railroad tracks going into the death camps or the ovens/gas chambers themselves even after being given overwhelming proof of what was going on in those camps. We didn't provide arms to the Jewish partisans to help them attack the Nazis. We didn't open our doors to Jewish immigration. I can only conclude that there was de facto anti-Semitism in our political leaders, such as FDR.
July 11, 2008
This book is a collection of true stories of Jewish people who fought back against the Nazis during World War 2. Even though I took a class on the Holocaust during undergrad, the stories were new to me. I liked the book, but parts of it (certain stories) were more difficult to read than others.
January 1, 2009
i didn't finish this book. the stories were really great, but also really intense and depressing and there's only so much of this that i could put myself thru.
October 19, 2024
This book is cited in a number of other Holocaust memoirs and it took me a while to hunt it down as it is long out of print. I’m glad I did, though. The book is painstakingly researched and composed of interviews with survivors, manuscripts translated from Yiddish and Hebrew, and other primary sources.
Each chapter focuses on the actions of a single partisan or regional resistance movement. It details major events like the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but also highlights resistance in small towns across Europe. You really get a sense for the breadth of Nazi atrocities and the daily struggle of those being persecuted. Not only does the book detail escape attempts from Auschwitz, but it also goes into acts of resistance in tiny towns across Eastern Europe and coordinated sabotage campaigns in Paris and Italy. The bravery of the men, women, and children who fought in the partisan units cannot be understated.
The writing can be dry at times, but is punctuated by horrific scenes of violence. The opening chapter about the revolt in Sobibor was especially striking.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Holocaust and particularly for anyone who claims the Jews went passively to their deaths.
Each chapter focuses on the actions of a single partisan or regional resistance movement. It details major events like the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but also highlights resistance in small towns across Europe. You really get a sense for the breadth of Nazi atrocities and the daily struggle of those being persecuted. Not only does the book detail escape attempts from Auschwitz, but it also goes into acts of resistance in tiny towns across Eastern Europe and coordinated sabotage campaigns in Paris and Italy. The bravery of the men, women, and children who fought in the partisan units cannot be understated.
The writing can be dry at times, but is punctuated by horrific scenes of violence. The opening chapter about the revolt in Sobibor was especially striking.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Holocaust and particularly for anyone who claims the Jews went passively to their deaths.
March 31, 2008
They Fought Back by Yuri Suhl
Most of us have been taught to believe that Jews in Europe willingly went to their death under Hitler. Though much of this did happen, but not because they didn’t care but, because most of them would not believe that babies were being shot along with women and old people. “It’s impossible in this day and age. Civilized people just don’t do those kinds of things.” They did and they liked doing it. What history doesn’t tell us is that many underground units that fought inside the camps and outside against Germany, also had to fight the French, polish, Ukrainian and many more who would turn the Jewish underground into the Germans even though the Jews were fighting the Germany too. They fought back enlightens the world to the many Jewish resistance groups that had to fight everyone in order to stay alive. Even Britton would not supply the Jewish resistance. Because of the ingrained hatred and paranoia, they never had any place to run to. The ones that fought back were mostly killed. And still the Jews said that these stories were lies, no one does these thing anymore. Sadly we have never stopped as we can see by looking around the world. To understand, you must read They Fought Back.
Most of us have been taught to believe that Jews in Europe willingly went to their death under Hitler. Though much of this did happen, but not because they didn’t care but, because most of them would not believe that babies were being shot along with women and old people. “It’s impossible in this day and age. Civilized people just don’t do those kinds of things.” They did and they liked doing it. What history doesn’t tell us is that many underground units that fought inside the camps and outside against Germany, also had to fight the French, polish, Ukrainian and many more who would turn the Jewish underground into the Germans even though the Jews were fighting the Germany too. They fought back enlightens the world to the many Jewish resistance groups that had to fight everyone in order to stay alive. Even Britton would not supply the Jewish resistance. Because of the ingrained hatred and paranoia, they never had any place to run to. The ones that fought back were mostly killed. And still the Jews said that these stories were lies, no one does these thing anymore. Sadly we have never stopped as we can see by looking around the world. To understand, you must read They Fought Back.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews