Striking Back: A Jewish Commando's War Against the Nazis

by Peter Masters

An Austrian Jew by birth, the author recounts how, following Hitler's takeover of his homeland, he fled to England, where he was recruited into a secret, elite commando unit made up of Jewish refugees and given an elaborate false identity.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, World War II

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 23, 1997

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

After having read “X-Troop”, I reserved this from my library system. The author of X-Troop had relied on Peter Masters’ book a lot in writing her book. While there is much more specific detail in this book, and much was from Masters’ point of view, the two books overlap a great deal. Masters arrived in Europe (again, being Austrian) on D-Day, which lasted 3 months for him. He ends his story much the same way with the amazing story of a soldier, Freddy Gray, who drove through the heart of Europe to find the Tirezin concentration camp where he had heard his parents were. His parents were indeed there. More emphasis is given in this recounting, of how much the thoroughly unauthorized visit had helped the morale of the survivors. Gray also was able to help assist many of the survivors get back to Holland.
If you have read X-Troop, you really won’t get a lot more information from “Striking Back” and vice versa. The emphasis is different, as is the motivation. X-Troop was written by a historian, Striking Back by a participant in history. One of Masters’ motivation was mentioned in the postscript. Apparently many thought that the Commandos, who were able to ignore many of the regulations of the regular troops, would end up with ongoing issues with the law. On the contrary, only 2 Commandos had issues. One Masters wouldn’t name, out of respect I think; the other Masters encountered on a visit back to postwar Britain where his erstwhile fellow soldier had apparently cornered the black market on meat and offered his buddy tons to take to the people he was visiting! Masters had a great sense of humor which shows in many of the stories in here. Having read most of this on Veterans’ Day, I want to thank all of these soldiers for their truly heroic and intrepid service. I highly recommend either this or X-Troop but not necessarily both.

[Kriegslok · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that reminds me of how easy I have it and puts all those petty grumbles about how tough and miserable life may appear to be occasionally to me into perspective. As it says on the dust jacket this is a story that needed to be told. Written by one who took an active part in the events described and in a large part autobiography Peter Masters tells the history of 3 Troop 10 Inter-Allied Commando group of mostly Jewish refugees from mainland Europe an elite group drawn from within the Britsh military. Escaping to Britain, many loosing everything in the process including their families, Jewish refugees found themselves initially reinterned at the outbreak of WWII as potential enemy aliens. Stubbonly fighting British caution and bureaucracy many of the interned were eventually able to fight their way into the fight agaisnt Nazism including enrolling into the forces. From the regular forces some, an elite, were to make it into the Commandos, among them Peter Arany who was to become Peter Masters in his new life. 3 Troop offered an ace in the British military pack, not only did the recruits speak fluent German, they were also familiar with the territory and many had served in either the German or Austrian military at some point. The book effectively conveys the rigors of training and the realities of combat. Along the way many are killed but as Masters points out for these men to die figting their enemy was preferable to have died in one of the Nazi death camps. To survive says Masters was a bonus. Despite the subject matter Masters tells the story with humour from issues of class, colour and rank to the accidental urination in the face of a commando by a senior officer. There is also a nice bit about Masters and a senior officer recovering particularly poor German propaganda leaflets that had fallen in no-mans-land to distribute to their comrades for entertainment! In a final chapter Masters tells how a comrade set off on a mission to the Terezin concentration camp where he successfully found his parents sick and emaciated yet alive and resuced by their son now a British commando. This is a book that amply illustrates mans inhumanity to man but also shows what a determination and will to resist and overcome can achive. The role of 3 Troop demands recognition and this book goes a long way to ensuring and encouraging it.

[Cailean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was unlike any WWII "memoir" type book I've read...partly because of the writing style, but partly because of the richness of detail and vast amount of information compacted in to a relatively-short book, without much background information. By presuming we know the background already, it seems we somehow get more out of it because we just have to keep up with the momentum of his descriptions. I learned a lot about the sentiment in Austria pre-WWII and during, and how difficult it was to leave. It was fascinating to read his life as a commando and all that he went through. I appreciated his sense of humor which often came out of nowhere.

[Linda Chrisman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done! Very interesting book about the author's experiences as an Austrial-Jewish Commando during WWII.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really great memoir about part of the Allied force fighting in WWII that I knew absolutely nothing about. First heard about 3 Troop 10 Commando & Masters in Ambrose's D-Day and was so interested (and astounded that I had NEVER, EVER heard about them) that I actually stopped reading D-Day and found this book at the library.

Pretty well-written for someone who claims to not have any experience or background in writing. It was a fairly self-centered book, which is understandable since it's billed as a memoir and not a history... but I found myself having a hard time placing the action that Masters saw with the war effort at large. Like he was floating on an island with his small troop by himself. Certainly he didn't have the advantage of having this extraneous knowledge at the time, but adding in those details would allow the reader to place Master's war experience into the larger picture of the Allied war effort.

I particularly appreciated the way Masters reminded the reader who his fellow commandos were when he mentioned them throughout the book (i.e. "the master lock-picker", "the brother of the sergeant who I trained cross-country with", etc.). Often when I'm reading WWII memoirs the authors know the timeline and the players so intimately that they introduce their fellow soldier once and then subsequently refer to them throughout the rest of the book by last name only, assuming the reader remembers who the people were, their background, how they became known to the author, etc. It typically takes me a few times through a book to be able to appropriately place all the people mentioned. Masters did a great job of subtly reminding us how the fellow commandos he mentioned had become known to him and what role they played in his life.

[Tim Williamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A true story about a regiment of Jews fighting back against Hitler... these guys were the inspiration for the film "Inglorious Bastards".. well worth reading.