The Defiant: A True Story of Escape, Survival & Resistance

by Shalom Yoran

While recuperating in a hospital after World War II, a Polish refugee wrote at length about his remarkable experiences in war-torn Europe. The Defiant , his memoir, is the account of a young man who refused to yield to the German onslaught and chose instead to become a Jewish resistance fighter. Chronicling the bravery of a small group of men and women who carried on a forest war, this extraordinary book sheds light on events that few know of in this country.

Genres: Biography, Holocaust, History, Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Defiant is the story of Shalom Yoran (born Selim Sznycer)

, and his time spent with the partisans fighting the Nazis in Poland. After three years on the run , with his family , from Nazi mobile killing units , the Nazi terror finally caught up with them and in the little town of Kurzeniec , 1 040 Jewish men , women and children where dragged from their homes and hiding places , murdered and burned. Included among those slaughtered where Selim's parents.

Selim and his brother escaped into the woods and joined the partisans , and heeded the last words of their mother to survive and take vengeance for them.

This is the story of the partisan guerilla warfare against Nazi terror.

Although Selim fought among non-Jews , he always fought first and foremost as a Jew - with them but not as one of them. He dreamed of having his own country , of fighting for it and even dying for it-that is what kept him alive. The dream of surviving and living in the Land of Israel as a free Jew and building it.

After the war , his dream was fulfilled , and having escaped the Soviet Army that tried to draft him , and the British blockade that tried to keep Jews out of Palestine , he settled in Israel and joined the airforce , becoming a prominent businessman in Israel.

The Zionists in Europe where always the backbone of Jewish resistance to Nazism.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the war memoir of a Polish Jew who was 14 at the time the Nazis invaded Poland. His story begins at that point and then describes 3 years of his family's flight to escape the clutches of the occupiers. The mobile death squads finally catch up to his family one fateful night in a small town in northeastern Poland. Both Yoran's parents are killed, along with over 1,000 other Jews. Yoran and his brother escape. The last words from their mother was that they needed to survive to bear witness and to also avenge the family. Yoran and his brother, Musi do just that. They escape to the forest and eventually join various partisan fighting groups, suffering hunger, cold and fatigue while participating in guerilla warfare against the Nazis. He, along with other Jewish partisans, were sometimes the object of rabid anti-semitism from their own comrades in arms as well.

The last part of the story documents Yoran's journey after the German surrender through Europe to Palestine and the nascent Israeli state.

Yoran says in the book's foreword how he wished that more Jews had resisted the Nazis. He felt that certainly more people would have survived. I think, though, that this man had an uncommon fierceness and will to survive--some of his exploits are truly amazing (and it's embarrassing when I compare him to my soft, earnest 17 year old self).

Because of the matter of fact nature of the retelling there is an honest, un-embellished flavor to the narrative. This is a refreshing change to many written 'war stories.'

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this extraordinary Holocaust memoir on Google Books... a personal narrative of Jewish resistance and survival. Not all the book is scanned, but begins with the massacre in the Ponari forest and most of the narrative is scanned from then on. The author filled notebooks while in hospital at the end of the war, and rediscovers them decades later. Edited by his wife, the memoir was finally published in 2003.

I found his story because of reading about the Ponari massacre here in June 2016: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-wa...

https://books.google.ca/books?id=et9_...

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read numerous books and articles on the Holocaust, watched Spielberg’s Shoah and other documentaries, and still, I was unprepared for the depth of barbarity and inhumane behavior of the Germans, Poles, and other populations who actively aided and supported Hitler’s campaign against the Jews.
The depravity is brought home on an intimate level in Yoran’s autobiographical tale of how he and his brother escaped, joined the partisans, and exacted some modicum of revenge on the German war machine.
The revelation in the book is the degree to which Jews who had the chance fought back - sabotaging trains, blowing up supplies, causing the deaths of thousands of nazi soldiers and sympathizers. For me, this was a little known sideshow to the horror of the camps, one that shows a different view of how European Jews did what they could to make the Germans pay a price for their crimes.

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up on it

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A raw book about human emotions and conflicts. In times of war, death and destruction are always so vivid and painstaking. Human characters and struggles are brought to the forefront. Sense and perception become awry. Time and faith in the goodness of human beings take on a surreal setting.

[Katrina Bergherm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Samantha Allum · Rating 5 out of 5]

From first word, to last word I literally couldn't breath. I think required reading by everyone..