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From the Front Line: Stalingrad–Treblinka–Berlin, 1941–45
Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate, was transformed by his experiences as a war correspondent. Following the shock invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Grossman volunteered for front line duty. Declared unfit for active service he was assigned to Red Star newspaper as a special correspondent. In these BBC Radio programmes, Elliot Levey reads three of Vasily Grossman's front line despatches. The first is a heroic and intimate portrait of a sniper, the second deals with the battle for Stalingrad and the final one details the murder of millions of Jews on Soviet an account that was rejected by the military censor and only rediscovered in the late 1990s. Jim Riordan & Polly Zavadivker. Mark Burman.
512 pages, Paperback
Published June 16, 2026
About the author
Vasily Grossman
55 books1,076 followersBorn Iosif Solomonovich Grossman into an emancipated Jewish family, he did not receive a traditional Jewish education. A Russian nanny turned his name Yossya into Russian Vasya (a diminutive of Vasily), which was accepted by the whole family. His father had social-democratic convictions and joined the Mensheviks. Young Vasily Grossman idealistically supported the Russian Revolution of 1917.
When the Great Patriotic War broke out in 1941, Grossman's mother was trapped in Berdychiv by the invading German army, and eventually murdered together with 20,000 to 30,000 other Jews who did not evacuate Berdychiv. Grossman was exempt from military service, but volunteered for the front, where he spent more than 1,000 days. He became a war reporter for the popular Red Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star). As the war raged on, he covered its major events, including the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, and the Battle of Berlin. In addition to war journalism, his novels (such as The People are Immortal (Народ бессмертен) were being published in newspapers and he came to be regarded as a legendary war hero. The novel Stalingrad (1950), later renamed For a Just Cause (За правое дело), is based on his own experiences during the siege.
Grossman's descriptions of ethnic cleansing in Ukraine and Poland, and the liberation of the Treblinka and Majdanek extermination camps, were some of the first eyewitness accounts—as early as 1943—of what later became known as 'The Holocaust'. His article "The Hell of Treblinka" (1944) was disseminated at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal as evidence for the prosecution.
Grossman died of stomach cancer in 1964, not knowing whether his novels would ever be read by the public.
When the Great Patriotic War broke out in 1941, Grossman's mother was trapped in Berdychiv by the invading German army, and eventually murdered together with 20,000 to 30,000 other Jews who did not evacuate Berdychiv. Grossman was exempt from military service, but volunteered for the front, where he spent more than 1,000 days. He became a war reporter for the popular Red Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star). As the war raged on, he covered its major events, including the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, and the Battle of Berlin. In addition to war journalism, his novels (such as The People are Immortal (Народ бессмертен) were being published in newspapers and he came to be regarded as a legendary war hero. The novel Stalingrad (1950), later renamed For a Just Cause (За правое дело), is based on his own experiences during the siege.
Grossman's descriptions of ethnic cleansing in Ukraine and Poland, and the liberation of the Treblinka and Majdanek extermination camps, were some of the first eyewitness accounts—as early as 1943—of what later became known as 'The Holocaust'. His article "The Hell of Treblinka" (1944) was disseminated at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal as evidence for the prosecution.
Grossman died of stomach cancer in 1964, not knowing whether his novels would ever be read by the public.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 2, 2026
A series of detailed, impactful, and moving articles by one of my favourite authors.
July 11, 2026
A collection of some of Vasily Grossman's WWII journalism, including comments showing what had been deleted from previously published versions by the Soviets. The collection includes Grossman's famous early report about Treblinka. His heartfelt account is so disturbing that it may have led to his nervous breakdown. Characteristically excellent reporting from Stalingrad and a final moving imagined piece about the Berlin Tiergarten are other highlights.
June 22, 2026
From the Front Line collects some of Vasily Grossman’s journalism from WWII at key battle scenes. His reports combine eyewitness description, personal reflection, and interviews with soldiers, peasants, military officials, and others he meets along the way. The soldiers are heroic men compelled to perform awful acts—killing, because it is war—in defense of their homes. Vasily Grossman (1905–1964), trained as a chemical engineer before becoming a journalist and novelist. As a correspondent for Red Star, he accompanied the Red Army from Stalingrad to Berlin, producing some of the most important eyewitness accounts of the Second World War.
The first part of the book focuses on Stalingrad’s 200-day siege by the Germans in 1942. Grossman combines eyewitness testimony with his own observations, reinforcing the credibility of the conditions his sources describe. Supreme sacrifices, astounding bravery, acts of vengeance and kindness—extreme times bring out extreme abilities, for good and ill. Grossman’s descriptions of various stages of the battle will conjure memories of his eponymous novel for those who have read it.
The second section of the book occurs during 1943, following the Red Army's westward advance after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad. The horrors the Nazis committed were everywhere in evidence as the Soviets repelled them back to Germany. Among the survivors he encounters are eight men trapped inside a coal mine the Nazis had sealed—eight of an original group of twenty-seven.
“Ukraine without Jews” recounts the millions of Ukrainian Jews murdered by Nazis and their collaborators. Grossman’s two-page list of the occupations and ages of these murdered millions is affecting and awful. It reveals the ongoing selective slaughter by Nazis and their ideological reasons for the mass murder.
Grossman’s prose can reach levels of hyperbolic patriotism, most of which the Chandlers have excised to limit redundancies and eye-rolling purple prose. But what they’ve kept at least exemplifies excellence in the rhetoric of uplifting patriotic address, such as this passage from “Thoughts on the Spring Offensive” about a convoy of military vehicles stuck in axle-deep mud:
"And thousands of wiry, skinny, sweating men gritted their teeth to haul these vehicles forward. Day and night, under eternal rain and eternal, thrice-cursed sleet, they hauled along the vast weight of the armies’ rear support units. They hauled with their sinews, with the sheer force of their will, with their iron strength of character; they hauled with thirst for victory, with the fire of vengeance, and with infinite endurance."
In the third section, Poland is liberated, and the Nazis are repelled to Berlin. But what Grossman has seen so far, over 18 months—deaths from starvation, bombs, bullets, bayonets, and worse—has not prepared him for what he encounters at Treblinka.
“The Hell of Treblinka” is a 40-page essay on Treblinka based on Grossman’s interviews with eyewitnesses who described to him how the camp was arranged, the number of people crammed into cattle cars (150-200), and the various steps the prisoners were taken through, each designed to strip them of both their humanity and their capacity to resist before the gas chamber doors closed.
Grossman discovered that the Germans had developed an elaborate system for collecting, combing through, and collating by type the clothing and goods Jews brought with them, separating “worthless” from saleable or reuseable (including “about 25 carloads of hair packed in bales, 248 carloads of men’s suits, about 100 carloads of shoes,” etc.).
Grossman wrests emotional impact from facts and figures—the “facts” usually some group of humans and the “figures” categories of their miseries and abuses quantified. Although he often overestimates the numbers of people killed, Grossman was scrupulously accurate given what was known at the time, his accuracy in other matters he reports on corroborated by independent contemporary sources.
Grossman’s final report in this volume—largely taking place inside the Berlin Zoo—written during the final days of the war and Hitler’s life, couldn’t be published by the Soviet press, since Grossman’s comparisons between freedom and cages and treating humans as animals could have easily been read by Russians as alluding as much to life under the Nazis as it did life under Stalin. (Grossman also omitted from these essays the mass rapes committed by Soviet troops against German women, though he recorded them in his notebooks.)
That said, From the Front Line confirms Grossman as a major figure in 20th century literature, able in both fiction and nonfiction to recreate in palpable words the experiences of millions of people coping during the worst of times. His ability to find composure or clarity of mind in what he witnesses—often horrific—is astounding. Thanks again to translators Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler for the ongoing efforts to restore and champion Grossman’s works.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
The first part of the book focuses on Stalingrad’s 200-day siege by the Germans in 1942. Grossman combines eyewitness testimony with his own observations, reinforcing the credibility of the conditions his sources describe. Supreme sacrifices, astounding bravery, acts of vengeance and kindness—extreme times bring out extreme abilities, for good and ill. Grossman’s descriptions of various stages of the battle will conjure memories of his eponymous novel for those who have read it.
The second section of the book occurs during 1943, following the Red Army's westward advance after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad. The horrors the Nazis committed were everywhere in evidence as the Soviets repelled them back to Germany. Among the survivors he encounters are eight men trapped inside a coal mine the Nazis had sealed—eight of an original group of twenty-seven.
“Ukraine without Jews” recounts the millions of Ukrainian Jews murdered by Nazis and their collaborators. Grossman’s two-page list of the occupations and ages of these murdered millions is affecting and awful. It reveals the ongoing selective slaughter by Nazis and their ideological reasons for the mass murder.
Grossman’s prose can reach levels of hyperbolic patriotism, most of which the Chandlers have excised to limit redundancies and eye-rolling purple prose. But what they’ve kept at least exemplifies excellence in the rhetoric of uplifting patriotic address, such as this passage from “Thoughts on the Spring Offensive” about a convoy of military vehicles stuck in axle-deep mud:
"And thousands of wiry, skinny, sweating men gritted their teeth to haul these vehicles forward. Day and night, under eternal rain and eternal, thrice-cursed sleet, they hauled along the vast weight of the armies’ rear support units. They hauled with their sinews, with the sheer force of their will, with their iron strength of character; they hauled with thirst for victory, with the fire of vengeance, and with infinite endurance."
In the third section, Poland is liberated, and the Nazis are repelled to Berlin. But what Grossman has seen so far, over 18 months—deaths from starvation, bombs, bullets, bayonets, and worse—has not prepared him for what he encounters at Treblinka.
“The Hell of Treblinka” is a 40-page essay on Treblinka based on Grossman’s interviews with eyewitnesses who described to him how the camp was arranged, the number of people crammed into cattle cars (150-200), and the various steps the prisoners were taken through, each designed to strip them of both their humanity and their capacity to resist before the gas chamber doors closed.
Grossman discovered that the Germans had developed an elaborate system for collecting, combing through, and collating by type the clothing and goods Jews brought with them, separating “worthless” from saleable or reuseable (including “about 25 carloads of hair packed in bales, 248 carloads of men’s suits, about 100 carloads of shoes,” etc.).
Grossman wrests emotional impact from facts and figures—the “facts” usually some group of humans and the “figures” categories of their miseries and abuses quantified. Although he often overestimates the numbers of people killed, Grossman was scrupulously accurate given what was known at the time, his accuracy in other matters he reports on corroborated by independent contemporary sources.
Grossman’s final report in this volume—largely taking place inside the Berlin Zoo—written during the final days of the war and Hitler’s life, couldn’t be published by the Soviet press, since Grossman’s comparisons between freedom and cages and treating humans as animals could have easily been read by Russians as alluding as much to life under the Nazis as it did life under Stalin. (Grossman also omitted from these essays the mass rapes committed by Soviet troops against German women, though he recorded them in his notebooks.)
That said, From the Front Line confirms Grossman as a major figure in 20th century literature, able in both fiction and nonfiction to recreate in palpable words the experiences of millions of people coping during the worst of times. His ability to find composure or clarity of mind in what he witnesses—often horrific—is astounding. Thanks again to translators Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler for the ongoing efforts to restore and champion Grossman’s works.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
July 12, 2026
There are many books that chronicle the Second World War, but few possess the immediacy found in Vasily Grossman's From the Front Line: Stalingrad–Treblinka–Berlin. Written while the conflict was still unfolding, these dispatches preserve history before it could be refined by hindsight or shaped into retrospective narrative. That proximity to events gives the collection an unmistakable vitality, allowing readers to experience not simply what happened, but how those moments were perceived by someone standing within them.
What I found especially compelling was Grossman's remarkable instinct for recognizing significance in places where others might have overlooked it. His attention is drawn as naturally to a sniper waiting in silence, a miner returning underground, or civilians rebuilding shattered communities as it is to commanding officers or major offensives. By following the lives of ordinary people with such care, he demonstrates that the defining story of war is not confined to military victories or defeats but is equally found in the endurance, resolve, and dignity of those living through it.
The collection is equally distinguished by its extraordinary sense of atmosphere. Grossman does not rely on constant action to communicate the reality of combat. Instead, he constructs scenes through subtle observations that linger in the imagination long after they are read. The silence before an engagement, the changing color of smoke drifting across ruined streets, the weight of winter settling over the Volga, or the faint sound of plaster falling from a damaged building all become essential parts of the narrative. These seemingly modest details transform devastated landscapes into fully realized places, allowing the reader to appreciate how profoundly war alters not only lives but the environments in which those lives unfold.
Some of the book's most powerful pages come not from descriptions of battle but from Grossman's unwavering commitment to bearing witness. His account of Treblinka is particularly affecting because it is written without embellishment or rhetorical excess. Rather than attempting to amplify horror through dramatic language, he presents events with clarity, restraint, and moral conviction, trusting the documented reality to speak for itself. That approach gives these chapters a quiet force that is difficult to forget.
What ultimately distinguishes From the Front Line is the balance Grossman achieves between the responsibilities of a correspondent and the insight of a gifted writer. His dispatches preserve the historical record while simultaneously revealing the emotional, cultural, and human dimensions that official accounts often leave behind. The result is a collection that deepens one's understanding not only of the Second World War but also of the individuals whose experiences shaped it.
This was my first time reading Vasily Grossman's work, and it certainly will not be my last. I found his prose exceptionally perceptive and deeply absorbing. What impressed me most was his ability to illuminate dimensions of war that are so often left unexplored, revealing that history is shaped as much by moments of stillness, observation, and ordinary human experience as it is by the battles that define it.
What I found especially compelling was Grossman's remarkable instinct for recognizing significance in places where others might have overlooked it. His attention is drawn as naturally to a sniper waiting in silence, a miner returning underground, or civilians rebuilding shattered communities as it is to commanding officers or major offensives. By following the lives of ordinary people with such care, he demonstrates that the defining story of war is not confined to military victories or defeats but is equally found in the endurance, resolve, and dignity of those living through it.
The collection is equally distinguished by its extraordinary sense of atmosphere. Grossman does not rely on constant action to communicate the reality of combat. Instead, he constructs scenes through subtle observations that linger in the imagination long after they are read. The silence before an engagement, the changing color of smoke drifting across ruined streets, the weight of winter settling over the Volga, or the faint sound of plaster falling from a damaged building all become essential parts of the narrative. These seemingly modest details transform devastated landscapes into fully realized places, allowing the reader to appreciate how profoundly war alters not only lives but the environments in which those lives unfold.
Some of the book's most powerful pages come not from descriptions of battle but from Grossman's unwavering commitment to bearing witness. His account of Treblinka is particularly affecting because it is written without embellishment or rhetorical excess. Rather than attempting to amplify horror through dramatic language, he presents events with clarity, restraint, and moral conviction, trusting the documented reality to speak for itself. That approach gives these chapters a quiet force that is difficult to forget.
What ultimately distinguishes From the Front Line is the balance Grossman achieves between the responsibilities of a correspondent and the insight of a gifted writer. His dispatches preserve the historical record while simultaneously revealing the emotional, cultural, and human dimensions that official accounts often leave behind. The result is a collection that deepens one's understanding not only of the Second World War but also of the individuals whose experiences shaped it.
This was my first time reading Vasily Grossman's work, and it certainly will not be my last. I found his prose exceptionally perceptive and deeply absorbing. What impressed me most was his ability to illuminate dimensions of war that are so often left unexplored, revealing that history is shaped as much by moments of stillness, observation, and ordinary human experience as it is by the battles that define it.
August 20, 2026
The audiobook is only 40 minutes long. It is three accounts of wartime in USSR. The first is a description of the life of a sniper in Stalingrad. The next describes soldiers' lives fighting Germans. The third describes the aftermath of Ukraine once their many 1000s of Jewish residents have been slaughtered by Germans (it's known as "Holocaust by bullets"). I'd say this last chapter is quite poetic and moving. I listened to parts of this book a few times to really absorb it. If you are interested in human stories of this nature, read this book.
July 3, 2026
Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler bring us key selections from Vasily Grossman’s WWII reportage in FROM THE FRONT LINE from NYRB. Some thoughts from me in Asymptote Journal on their gripping translation from the Russian.
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
August 24, 2026
Is 5 stars too high? I thought some of this reportage was excellent. Really putting you there. I can't believe they continue to mine more material from Grossman. Just great, super gripping and at times, harrowing. 49 restored articles written for the Red Army newspaper Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda), offering uncensored eyewitness accounts of the Eastern Front.
October 9, 2026
The story about the animals and the zoo in Berlin was wonderful. All really great stuff.
July 1, 2025
A short collection of three dispatches written by Vasily Grossman during WWII. The last one was especially powerful.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews