Holocaust memoir about the Jewish resistance in WWII Poland. David Landau was one of the few survivors of an uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943 that forced the SS and the German Army to retreat for three days. He went on to join the Polish Underground Army and lived in hiding with his wife until the Red Army marched on Warsaw in early 1945. Includes black-and white-photographs, suggested reading, maps and index.
As mentioned clearly in the beginning this was not originally intended as a book to be published for the public as a written testament and witness to author's family of he went through as a survivor of the holocaust. It is important I think for the reader to remember this, a legacy for childen's children to read.
This is the true story of David Landau in his struggle surviving in Poland as a Jew during the German occupation in WW2 and subsequent systematic cleasing and annihilation of his people, culture and hope.
I am sincerely now more wiser and knowledgable after reading this book. Sincerest thanks must go the David's Landau's family for its publication and release.
At times I was thoroughly gripped with the pace of the story, other times I purposefully tried to not imagine too deeply the scenes of gut wretching violence described. I also felt conviction that along with christians who hid and protected Jews, there were also christians who betrayed and actively cooperated with the Nazis against them.
Overall I think book has added valuable insight in trying to understand and rationalise one of the most horrendous chapters in world history.
This book is an attempt to set the record straight, to address the prevailing erroneous belief that there was no Jewish resistance against the Nazis. In the Warsaw Ghetto there was, for three days, which was an heroic effort for an unarmed civilian population against the might of the German army. Landau was a resistance fighter, but oh dear, he's written a boring book. I'm still not sure how he accomplished this, but he seemed to me to have written 300-odd pages of padding. He managed to make it confusing, and even sabotaged his own defence of the Jews with recollections of in-fighting amongst the resistance groups. I'm not saying he should fiddled with the truth to make it 'interesting' but I only finished it because I would have felt guilty if I didn't.