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The Bravest Battle: The Twenty-eight Days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
In October 1940 Nazis forced all the Jews in the Polish city of Warsaw to live in the cramped squalor of a small ghetto. Despite the starvation and disease that claimed 50,000 lives per year, the Jews were not dying swiftly enough to suit Heinrich Himmler, who ordered in 1942 that the Warsaw Ghetto be dismantled and the 450,000 inhabitants be deported to the gas chambers at Treblinka. On April 19, 1943, the first day of Passover, two thousand German troops, singing confidently, marched into the ghetto to round up the remnant of remaining Jews. Suddenly, a fifteen-year-old girl tossed a grenade in their midst. Within minutes the German army had been routed. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had begin.This is the first full-scale, step-by-step account of the climatic twenty-eight-day struggle of the poorly armed Jews against their Nazi exterminators. The Bravest Battle took more than two years to write and involved interviewing more than 500 people, including most of the surviving fighters. This moving history cannot be matched for its authenticity and drama. The Bravest Battle is a testament to the Warsaw Jews, who fought for survival with dignity and courage.
386 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 1975
29 people are currently reading
669 people want to read
About the author
Dan Kurzman
19 books12 followersDan Halperin Kurzman was an American journalist and writer of military history books. He studied at the University of California in Berkeley, served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946, and completed his studies at Berkeley with a Bachelor degree in political science. In the early 1950s, he worked in Europe and in Israel for American newspapers and news agencies and was then correspondent of the NBC News in Jerusalem.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 19, 2018
In this volume Dan Kurzman produces a comprehensive step-by-step, detailed, stirring, engaging and heartrending account of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprisings.
When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on April 19, 1943, more than 300 000 ghetto inhabitants had already perished in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
As the author describes the 28 day battle of the ZOB and Betarist ZZW ended 2 000 years of Jewish submission to brutal persecution, pogroms and finally genocide, an iron will to survive that five years later would find expression in the reborn State of Israel.
65 years after the valour of the doomed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto echoed across Warsaw, the determination of the Jews to fight back against their murderers, against those who would destroy them, echoes in the Middle East.
Kurzman provides a day by day account of the 28 day struggle for survival.
The book focuses on the sadistic SS-Gruppenführer Jurgen Stroop, who led the attack of the Nazi forces on the Warsaw Ghetto, and on Mordechai Anielewicz, a leader of the Zionist-socialist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair and and Commander in Chief of the Jewish fighting Organization (ZOB).
Other heroes of the uprising included Captain Henryk Iwanski, the Polish Home Officer who gave all to help the Jews, and lost a son during the fighting.
He supported the ¯ydowski Zwi¹zek Wojskowy (¯ZW), the Jewish Military Union, led by such great men as Pawel Frankel and David Appelbaum.
The book details how the ZOB and ZZW fought valiantly to avenge those who had been murdered, and their many surprise attacks on the Nazi forces.
We also learn how the British and American governments refused to help the besieged Jews of the Ghetto in any way.
' Breckinridge Long , the US assistant secretary of state in charge of refugee issues wrote in his diary...reflecting on American Jewish leaders who were trying to pressure their governments to save the Jews: "One danger in it all is that their activities may lend color to the charges of Hitler that this war is being fought on account of and at the instigation and direction of the Jewish leaders who were trying to pressure their governments to save the Jews".
A chilling statement that finds expression today in the anti-Jewish slogan of the violently anti-Israel "Anti War Movement" : "No War for Israel!"
Also of the reluctance of the USA and NATO forces to stop Iran's plans to build nuclear weapons for the express purposes of the genocide of Israel's Jews.
This inaction simply in order to avoid the wrath of world Moslems and the International Left.
Stories of heroism abound such as that of the twelve year old Jewish girl who died shielding her injured ten year old brother from the fires of the burning ghetto. No account of the heroism of the uprising could be complete without the harrowing details of the horrific Nazi atrocities. These include the SS, on the orders of Stroop, taking Jewish infants by the legs and smashing their heads against the wall, or machine gunning masses of Jewish children.
Even the suffering and cruel death of children could not move the hearts that were hardened by hate.
Photographs in the volume include a heartbreaking photo of Jewish children crying for food in the ghetto, as they starved to death, the humiliation and defeat on the face of a young Jewish woman being stripped by Nazi soldiers ,Jewish men, women and children being rounded up the Nazis, and the piles of Jewish corpses.
Moist of those Jews who survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, including some of the key resistance leaders, moved to Israel, were their descendants still live today.
Let that be a reminder to those sick and evil people who try to equate the Israeli Jews with the Nazis.
The 16 year old ZW fighter Jurek Plonski, immigrated to Israel, where at the time of the writing of this book, he lived on a kibbutz. His son was killed in the Yom Kippur War.
Other surviving fighters founded the Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot (Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz) in Western Galilee.
Uprisings.
When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on April 19, 1943, more than 300 000 ghetto inhabitants had already perished in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
As the author describes the 28 day battle of the ZOB and Betarist ZZW ended 2 000 years of Jewish submission to brutal persecution, pogroms and finally genocide, an iron will to survive that five years later would find expression in the reborn State of Israel.
65 years after the valour of the doomed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto echoed across Warsaw, the determination of the Jews to fight back against their murderers, against those who would destroy them, echoes in the Middle East.
Kurzman provides a day by day account of the 28 day struggle for survival.
The book focuses on the sadistic SS-Gruppenführer Jurgen Stroop, who led the attack of the Nazi forces on the Warsaw Ghetto, and on Mordechai Anielewicz, a leader of the Zionist-socialist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair and and Commander in Chief of the Jewish fighting Organization (ZOB).
Other heroes of the uprising included Captain Henryk Iwanski, the Polish Home Officer who gave all to help the Jews, and lost a son during the fighting.
He supported the ¯ydowski Zwi¹zek Wojskowy (¯ZW), the Jewish Military Union, led by such great men as Pawel Frankel and David Appelbaum.
The book details how the ZOB and ZZW fought valiantly to avenge those who had been murdered, and their many surprise attacks on the Nazi forces.
We also learn how the British and American governments refused to help the besieged Jews of the Ghetto in any way.
' Breckinridge Long , the US assistant secretary of state in charge of refugee issues wrote in his diary...reflecting on American Jewish leaders who were trying to pressure their governments to save the Jews: "One danger in it all is that their activities may lend color to the charges of Hitler that this war is being fought on account of and at the instigation and direction of the Jewish leaders who were trying to pressure their governments to save the Jews".
A chilling statement that finds expression today in the anti-Jewish slogan of the violently anti-Israel "Anti War Movement" : "No War for Israel!"
Also of the reluctance of the USA and NATO forces to stop Iran's plans to build nuclear weapons for the express purposes of the genocide of Israel's Jews.
This inaction simply in order to avoid the wrath of world Moslems and the International Left.
Stories of heroism abound such as that of the twelve year old Jewish girl who died shielding her injured ten year old brother from the fires of the burning ghetto. No account of the heroism of the uprising could be complete without the harrowing details of the horrific Nazi atrocities. These include the SS, on the orders of Stroop, taking Jewish infants by the legs and smashing their heads against the wall, or machine gunning masses of Jewish children.
Even the suffering and cruel death of children could not move the hearts that were hardened by hate.
Photographs in the volume include a heartbreaking photo of Jewish children crying for food in the ghetto, as they starved to death, the humiliation and defeat on the face of a young Jewish woman being stripped by Nazi soldiers ,Jewish men, women and children being rounded up the Nazis, and the piles of Jewish corpses.
Moist of those Jews who survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, including some of the key resistance leaders, moved to Israel, were their descendants still live today.
Let that be a reminder to those sick and evil people who try to equate the Israeli Jews with the Nazis.
The 16 year old ZW fighter Jurek Plonski, immigrated to Israel, where at the time of the writing of this book, he lived on a kibbutz. His son was killed in the Yom Kippur War.
Other surviving fighters founded the Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot (Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz) in Western Galilee.
October 7, 2018
This wasn't an easy book to read, and isn't easy to review.
Dan Kurzman, author & journalist, has written a day-by-day account of the 28-day Warsaw ghetto uprising. In 1940 the Nazis created the Warsaw ghetto, with some 400,000 Jews crammed within its walls, living (and dying) in poverty and disease or being transported to death camps. Not content with that, in 1942 they decided to "liquidise" the ghetto and its remaining inhabitants. But, when the Nazis marched into the ghetto in April 1943 to round up the remaining Jews, they met with armed resistance. For 28 days (some pockets actually held out longer...) the poorly armed Jews fought a desperate and hopeless guerrilla war, preferring to die fighting or by their own hand rather than be captured.
An enormous amount of research has gone into this book. Kurzman interviewed over 500 people including most of the survivors, and there are pages of footnotes and references. The result is an account of almost unbelievable bravery, self sacrifice, cruelty and hatred as the Nazis exterminated the remaining Jewish fighters and civilians. A few notable Poles tried to help the doomed Jews, but most turned their backs or helped the Nazis.
With books like this I often find it difficult to separate the story from the writing. As good as it is, I didn't find this especially well-written, and sometimes I felt the writing (which can be a bit "novelistic") almost detracted from the story - although that's just personal taste. Also, the single map and many photos in this edition were so dark and blurry that they were useless. Might be worth seeking out an earlier edition to see if this is fixed. Despite my nit-picking, this is an essential read.
Dan Kurzman, author & journalist, has written a day-by-day account of the 28-day Warsaw ghetto uprising. In 1940 the Nazis created the Warsaw ghetto, with some 400,000 Jews crammed within its walls, living (and dying) in poverty and disease or being transported to death camps. Not content with that, in 1942 they decided to "liquidise" the ghetto and its remaining inhabitants. But, when the Nazis marched into the ghetto in April 1943 to round up the remaining Jews, they met with armed resistance. For 28 days (some pockets actually held out longer...) the poorly armed Jews fought a desperate and hopeless guerrilla war, preferring to die fighting or by their own hand rather than be captured.
An enormous amount of research has gone into this book. Kurzman interviewed over 500 people including most of the survivors, and there are pages of footnotes and references. The result is an account of almost unbelievable bravery, self sacrifice, cruelty and hatred as the Nazis exterminated the remaining Jewish fighters and civilians. A few notable Poles tried to help the doomed Jews, but most turned their backs or helped the Nazis.
With books like this I often find it difficult to separate the story from the writing. As good as it is, I didn't find this especially well-written, and sometimes I felt the writing (which can be a bit "novelistic") almost detracted from the story - although that's just personal taste. Also, the single map and many photos in this edition were so dark and blurry that they were useless. Might be worth seeking out an earlier edition to see if this is fixed. Despite my nit-picking, this is an essential read.
October 10, 2018
The World War Two group read for October was 1943-44, and several members suggested The Bravest Battle when I asked for recommendations on the ghetto uprising. I previously had read Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, derived from the records of the Ghetto archivist, and the novel Mila 18, about the uprising, but The Bravest Battle is a day-to-day exposition of the horror and valor of those 28 days. It is singularly depressing.
The atrocities of the Nazis, and those who were complicit, have been recounted in any number of books about every occupied country. What is so heartbreaking in this story is the sense of lost opportunities: to get more of the ghetto residents out before the uprising; to coordinate the fighters before the uprising rather than remaining fragmented by politics; to arm and support the fighters before and during the uprising; to provide moral support if not arms. The fighters were unbelievably brave and inflicted on the Nazis a series of stunning blows, for 27 days more than had been envisioned beyond the first day. Yet there is thought that the fighters' fatalism, their failure to conceive of anything but a one-day battle, left them with fewer options at the end.
The atrocities of the Nazis, and those who were complicit, have been recounted in any number of books about every occupied country. What is so heartbreaking in this story is the sense of lost opportunities: to get more of the ghetto residents out before the uprising; to coordinate the fighters before the uprising rather than remaining fragmented by politics; to arm and support the fighters before and during the uprising; to provide moral support if not arms. The fighters were unbelievably brave and inflicted on the Nazis a series of stunning blows, for 27 days more than had been envisioned beyond the first day. Yet there is thought that the fighters' fatalism, their failure to conceive of anything but a one-day battle, left them with fewer options at the end.
November 23, 2013
I reread The Bravest Battle: The Twenty-eight Days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on the 70th anniversary of that epic fight, reading day-for-day from April 19th to mid-May. As I sat in the bright sunshine of a New Mexican spring, I tried to imagine what these men and women, boys and girls really, were going through 70 years earlier. But that is impossible really. I can’t imagine having my parents and young siblings holed up in an overcrowded bunker waiting for the National Socialists to dig them out (or burn them out) and send them to a death camp. Or to imagine sending my brothers, sisters, children out to fight a professional army with little more than a pistol or a Molotov cocktail. To see them gunned down attacking armored vehicles. Can anyone imagine that? But it happened and this 5 Star book tells the story. Published in 1976 amid the turmoil after the 1973 War of Atonement and the triumph of the 1976 Entebbe Raid, this book is as pertinent now as it was then to understanding the resolve of the Jews. If anyone thinks Israel is going to sit back now and risk genocide as the current crop of political and diplomatic idiots think they can negotiate away Iran’s atomic bomb effort, well just read this book. Never again.
To understand fully (Israel’s) mood and mentality, its pride and policies, and thus the tensions shaking the Middle East and the world today, it is necessary to know the story of the uprising, to glimpse the anguish, the euphoria, the eternal hope of the ghetto defenders, young men and women in love with life yet determined to fight to the death.
For twenty-eight days (according to official German calculation, but actually longer) some fifteen hundred fighters, armed with little more than pistols and homemade bombs and supported by about sixty thousand civilians passively resisting in hidden bunkers, fought off several thousand Nazi soldiers equipped with rifles, artillery, tanks, armored cars, flamethrowers, and aircraft. Whole nations fell under the German yoke in a far shorter period.
This is a powerful story; you can’t help but admire the courage of the small Jewish force. You will build up a powerful hate on the Germans and to a lesser extent, the Poles, as the battle progresses. You will cheer on the tiny groups as they swat the mighty “master race” time and again. There are some Poles who do help but most don’t. And the Polish underground provides scant help to the Jews, depriving them of guns and ammo intended to be delivered to the ghetto. Oh well, the Poles will get their reward a little more than a year later when they revolt and the Soviets pull the same maneuver on them.
We all know how the story ends, but what a journey to the end. The Germans can’t believe they are being beaten by a ragtag outfit of civilian fighters. They are furious and proceed to flatten the ghetto, yet the Jews defy them at every turn. Watch the scheming of the industrialists trying to save their slave labor factories and move them out of the ghetto. It’s so sad as bunkers are found and emptied or destroyed, killing those hiding within. As fathers lose sons and daughters, children lose sisters and brothers, elderly fall from hunger or their own hand, the resistance continues. I couldn’t help thinking what if the citizens had a 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms to protect them. Would Hans or Fritz been so anxious to go bust down the door of a Jewish house if he was going to find the owner had a M-4 with a couple of 30-round clips of 5.56mm; or maybe a Glock pistol loaded with 9mm Parabellum. Or maybe nothing so powerful, maybe just an old Mauser 7mm bolt action rifle. This small band of fighters serves as a beacon across the years to fight oppression with all your might. No matter the cost.
To understand fully (Israel’s) mood and mentality, its pride and policies, and thus the tensions shaking the Middle East and the world today, it is necessary to know the story of the uprising, to glimpse the anguish, the euphoria, the eternal hope of the ghetto defenders, young men and women in love with life yet determined to fight to the death.
For twenty-eight days (according to official German calculation, but actually longer) some fifteen hundred fighters, armed with little more than pistols and homemade bombs and supported by about sixty thousand civilians passively resisting in hidden bunkers, fought off several thousand Nazi soldiers equipped with rifles, artillery, tanks, armored cars, flamethrowers, and aircraft. Whole nations fell under the German yoke in a far shorter period.
This is a powerful story; you can’t help but admire the courage of the small Jewish force. You will build up a powerful hate on the Germans and to a lesser extent, the Poles, as the battle progresses. You will cheer on the tiny groups as they swat the mighty “master race” time and again. There are some Poles who do help but most don’t. And the Polish underground provides scant help to the Jews, depriving them of guns and ammo intended to be delivered to the ghetto. Oh well, the Poles will get their reward a little more than a year later when they revolt and the Soviets pull the same maneuver on them.
We all know how the story ends, but what a journey to the end. The Germans can’t believe they are being beaten by a ragtag outfit of civilian fighters. They are furious and proceed to flatten the ghetto, yet the Jews defy them at every turn. Watch the scheming of the industrialists trying to save their slave labor factories and move them out of the ghetto. It’s so sad as bunkers are found and emptied or destroyed, killing those hiding within. As fathers lose sons and daughters, children lose sisters and brothers, elderly fall from hunger or their own hand, the resistance continues. I couldn’t help thinking what if the citizens had a 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms to protect them. Would Hans or Fritz been so anxious to go bust down the door of a Jewish house if he was going to find the owner had a M-4 with a couple of 30-round clips of 5.56mm; or maybe a Glock pistol loaded with 9mm Parabellum. Or maybe nothing so powerful, maybe just an old Mauser 7mm bolt action rifle. This small band of fighters serves as a beacon across the years to fight oppression with all your might. No matter the cost.
April 9, 2009
at first i had a bit of trouble with kurzman's technique of digression...
i arbitrarily use ellipses in my informal writing, a bad and pointless habit i mean to correct soon, but kurzman uses them to excellent effect as long as you realize what he's doing...
he will make a statement, usually one which describes a specific outcome, which ends with an ellipsis, and he will then move into a detailed digression away from the main story in order to provide exposition about how that outcome came to pass...
i like it...
i've never come across this particular technique before...it works extremely well for this text as kurzman has all these little anecdotes, which undoubtedly came from the exhaustive eyewitness interviews he conducted, that are connected to the characters and the story but don't fit directly into the overarching narrative, and using this structure he elegantly works them into the book...
as i read this, i try to put myself into the position of the jews, and i find i recoil immediately...i simply cannot genuinely attempt to willingly imagine myself, my wife, my children in such an unendurably horrific circumstance...
the thought of our door being kicked in, being thrust into the street and separated, knowing full well that your family is going to be killed, perhaps right in front of your eyes...
i cannot genuinely imagine this...
tracy and i were having a conversation about 'safety' in another thread...perhaps this is an example of what she means when she says we can approach these experiences safely as readers...
i am able to read of these events with whatever cognitive shields i require firmly in place to protect me from the true horror these events contain...
the human beings who lived through them had no such mechanisms...
joseph campbell wrote "If our society should go to smash tomorrow (which, as Joyce implies, it may) one could find all the pieces, together with the forces that broke them, in Finnegans Wake."
i don't know about 'finnegan's wake', i've never read it, but i think this statement applies completely to this text...
but, as much as this sentiment expresses, there is more that needs to be said...i've not the wit to sum up the remainder as succinctly as campbell, but it has something to do with the twelve year old boy who gives his life taking out a german tank with two molotov cocktails...with the 18 year old girl who crawls through miles of 25 inch sewer pipe filled with 24 inches of raw sewage to find possible escape routes for her family and friends...with the 20 year old man who overnight becomes a fighter with ferocity and determination enough to take bullet after bullet and still get up to fight again...with the the 35 year old woman who after being riddled with automatic gunfire still has the strength to spit at general jurgen stroop, the commander of the german forces...
this should be one of judaism's holiest of texts because it reveals what their long ancestral lines have converged to produce...not just heroes...there are no words in our language for what these people did...
an incredible book that everyone should read...it is one of the more important texts i have ever come across and illustrates the full spectrum of human conduct from its most bestial to its most magnificent...
i arbitrarily use ellipses in my informal writing, a bad and pointless habit i mean to correct soon, but kurzman uses them to excellent effect as long as you realize what he's doing...
he will make a statement, usually one which describes a specific outcome, which ends with an ellipsis, and he will then move into a detailed digression away from the main story in order to provide exposition about how that outcome came to pass...
i like it...
i've never come across this particular technique before...it works extremely well for this text as kurzman has all these little anecdotes, which undoubtedly came from the exhaustive eyewitness interviews he conducted, that are connected to the characters and the story but don't fit directly into the overarching narrative, and using this structure he elegantly works them into the book...
as i read this, i try to put myself into the position of the jews, and i find i recoil immediately...i simply cannot genuinely attempt to willingly imagine myself, my wife, my children in such an unendurably horrific circumstance...
the thought of our door being kicked in, being thrust into the street and separated, knowing full well that your family is going to be killed, perhaps right in front of your eyes...
i cannot genuinely imagine this...
tracy and i were having a conversation about 'safety' in another thread...perhaps this is an example of what she means when she says we can approach these experiences safely as readers...
i am able to read of these events with whatever cognitive shields i require firmly in place to protect me from the true horror these events contain...
the human beings who lived through them had no such mechanisms...
joseph campbell wrote "If our society should go to smash tomorrow (which, as Joyce implies, it may) one could find all the pieces, together with the forces that broke them, in Finnegans Wake."
i don't know about 'finnegan's wake', i've never read it, but i think this statement applies completely to this text...
but, as much as this sentiment expresses, there is more that needs to be said...i've not the wit to sum up the remainder as succinctly as campbell, but it has something to do with the twelve year old boy who gives his life taking out a german tank with two molotov cocktails...with the 18 year old girl who crawls through miles of 25 inch sewer pipe filled with 24 inches of raw sewage to find possible escape routes for her family and friends...with the 20 year old man who overnight becomes a fighter with ferocity and determination enough to take bullet after bullet and still get up to fight again...with the the 35 year old woman who after being riddled with automatic gunfire still has the strength to spit at general jurgen stroop, the commander of the german forces...
this should be one of judaism's holiest of texts because it reveals what their long ancestral lines have converged to produce...not just heroes...there are no words in our language for what these people did...
an incredible book that everyone should read...it is one of the more important texts i have ever come across and illustrates the full spectrum of human conduct from its most bestial to its most magnificent...
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June 26, 2018In depth history of one of the most audacious, and little known, resistance efforts in WWII. Beginning on April 1 during pass over Polish resistance fighters staved off German forces from occupying Warsaw until September 14th with minuscule help from Allied forces, especially the Russians who were already plotting to control Eastern Europe. Even with Churchill's pleading the US only provided one airdrop. One more story of missed opportunities to counter the impending Cold War during WWII.
December 7, 2011
Good, in fact, great account of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Kurzman traces each day. Excellent.
July 3, 2011
Dan Kurtzmanin "Varsovan geton kansannousu" (Art House, 2005) kuvaa niitä vajaata kolmeakymmentä päivää keväällä 1943, jolloin Varsovan geton juutalaiset nousivat aseelliseen vastarintaan SS:n kaavailemien pakkosiirtojen alla. Taistelu tiedettiin toivottomaksi jo sen käynnistyessä, mutta siitä huolimatta heikosti aseistautuneet juutalaiset pystyivät pitämään puoliaan ylivoimaista vihollista vastaan niin bunkkereissa, palavissa rakennuksissa kuin viemäreissäkin. Sanottavammin apua ei ollut tiedossa sen enempää antisemitismiin taipuvaisilta puolalaisilta kuin liittoutuneiltakaan, vaikka viestejä geton ulkopuolelle saatiinkin lähetettyä.
Kurtzmanin kirja on taitavasti kirjoitettua populaarihistoriaa, jota on vaikea laskea käsistään. Se tempaa mukaansa ja järkyttää samanaikaisesti kuvatessaan taistelevaa mutta tuhoon tuomittua gettoa, joka toi tapahtumien keskelle joutuneista ihmisistä esille niin ne parhaat kuin pahimmatkin piirteet.
Kurtzmanin tutkimustyö on ollut pitkäjänteistä ja laajaa kapinallisten leiristä katsoen, mutta täytyy myöntää että saksalaisten näkökulma jää vajaaksi, vaikka SS-kenraalimajuri Jürgen Stroopin saappaista tapahtumia aika ajoin tarkastellaankin. Yksi helppo nimivirhekin kirjasta on mahdollista bongata.
Ehdottoman suositeltava kirja kaikille aiheesta kiinnostuneille.
Kurtzmanin kirja on taitavasti kirjoitettua populaarihistoriaa, jota on vaikea laskea käsistään. Se tempaa mukaansa ja järkyttää samanaikaisesti kuvatessaan taistelevaa mutta tuhoon tuomittua gettoa, joka toi tapahtumien keskelle joutuneista ihmisistä esille niin ne parhaat kuin pahimmatkin piirteet.
Kurtzmanin tutkimustyö on ollut pitkäjänteistä ja laajaa kapinallisten leiristä katsoen, mutta täytyy myöntää että saksalaisten näkökulma jää vajaaksi, vaikka SS-kenraalimajuri Jürgen Stroopin saappaista tapahtumia aika ajoin tarkastellaankin. Yksi helppo nimivirhekin kirjasta on mahdollista bongata.
Ehdottoman suositeltava kirja kaikille aiheesta kiinnostuneille.
November 18, 2013
Heroism, brutality, tragedy, death, death, and more death ... I've read many books about the Holocaust, and this one was one of the most impacting. Because it is not one person's story; it is the story of thousands of residents of the Warsaw ghetto, some who dared to fight and others who just struggled every day to stay alive in the most impossible, inhuman conditions. I am inspired, I am saddened, and, as always, I am spurred to wonder: "What would I do?"
December 12, 2012
Made me cry. A book which needs to be read, lest we forget.
July 13, 2020
This is a disturbing book as it chronicles the heroism of the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw ghetto while at the same time the anti-semitism of so many Poles and the unwillingness of the Allies to even acknowledge the suffering of the Jews in the territories controlled by the Germans in WW2.
If you are not familiar with the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, this is a great resource. Kurzman has documented just about every claim made in the book from eyewitness accounts and personal interviews. The day by day account is sobering at times and wrenching most of the time.
Not sure how more recent scholarship would illuminate these 28 days in 1943, but I recommend this book for its historical accuracy as well as its expression of the complexity of the human psyche. Incredible heroism and courage set against savage barbarity makes one ponder how humans can act in such ways.
In some respects, I found myself relating the book’s messages to the current cultural issues in our world.
The book brought home to me that we are all humans, regardless of skin and ideological differences, but our prejudices can and often do obscure this elemental fact.
Not a book for the squeamish.
If you are not familiar with the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, this is a great resource. Kurzman has documented just about every claim made in the book from eyewitness accounts and personal interviews. The day by day account is sobering at times and wrenching most of the time.
Not sure how more recent scholarship would illuminate these 28 days in 1943, but I recommend this book for its historical accuracy as well as its expression of the complexity of the human psyche. Incredible heroism and courage set against savage barbarity makes one ponder how humans can act in such ways.
In some respects, I found myself relating the book’s messages to the current cultural issues in our world.
The book brought home to me that we are all humans, regardless of skin and ideological differences, but our prejudices can and often do obscure this elemental fact.
Not a book for the squeamish.
October 6, 2021
Although this is one of the few books that concentrates on the action of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the characters involved are really just names—the author gives us no real identifying characteristics or background. Fascinating, exciting struggle but without characters, it becomes repetitive and ultimately uninvolving. I was hoping for more.
November 9, 2024
Epic battle between groups of Jewish people who are staging a counterattack against the Nazi regiment in Warsaw. Brave people trying to save others from the horrors inflicted on them during WWII. Full of factual names, dates, and occurrences. Difficult to read and heart breaking to say the least because it is actually a part of world history.
Borrowed from Clyde.
Borrowed from Clyde.
October 2, 2019
An incredible and sad tale. Excellently written.
August 1, 2020
Excellent account of what happened, the tragedy that a lot of people let it happen and did not help, and also why this incredible act of resistance mattered so much.
August 31, 2022
This book taught me defiance and bravery, to stand still, resist and risk everything for dignity and self respect.
October 16, 2023
As we watch Hamas murder Israeli innocents, let us not forget . Evil is still among us .
Ask not for whom the bell tolls , it tolls for thee
John Donne
Ask not for whom the bell tolls , it tolls for thee
John Donne
December 1, 2023
Man-made horrors beyond comprehension
January 7, 2016
Good account of the resistance of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. One of the few times they fought back during the Holocaust. People smuggled arms and food in through the sewers. The Nazis had sealed off the ghetto and were attempting to exterminate them. Very few survived at the end.
February 17, 2015
Over the years I've read plenty of books about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (at least in a non-academic list on this topic) and I found this book informative and easy enough to read. Not everyone would enjoy it but I did very much.
April 11, 2016
Compelling!!!
Great account of the Warsaw uprising and extremely challenging to read. I also appreciated all the stories of people who fought bravely in the rising - just inspirational!!
Great account of the Warsaw uprising and extremely challenging to read. I also appreciated all the stories of people who fought bravely in the rising - just inspirational!!
March 7, 2018
A true account of the will to survive versus depravity and luck. Remember, this happened not long ago. In modern times by modern man.
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