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Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter (Revised) Revised Edition
Contributor(s): Rotem, Simha (Author), (Simha Rotem), Kazik (Author), Harshav, Barbara (Editor)
ISBN: 0300093764     ISBN-13: 9780300093766
Publisher: Yale University Press
OUR PRICE:   $30.69  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: October 2001
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Annotation: This riveting memoir, a primary source for the NBC miniseries Uprising, tells the story of the Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto who defy the Nazis against impossible odds. Kazik (played by Stephen Moyer in the film) and his fellow Jews smuggle in arms and explosives, perform acts of resistance, hold off the Nazi army for almost a month, and rescue the few surviving Jews after the Ghetto is destroyed. Kazik spends the rest of the war helping Jews who still remain in Warsaw, joining the Poles during their ill-fated uprising against the Nazis, and assisting the Polish underground. This shattering tale of courage will change forever the image of how Jews fought and survived during the Holocaust.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Historical
- History | Holocaust
- History | Military - World War Ii
Dewey: B
Physical Information: 0.63" H x 5.53" W x 8.27" (0.53 lbs) 196 pages
Themes:
- Ethnic Orientation - Jewish
- Topical - Holocaust
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
"In the first three days of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising], the Germans didn't take a single Jew out of the buildings. After their attempts to penetrate the Ghetto had failed, they decided to spare themselves casualties by destroying it from outside with cannon and aerial bombings. A few days later the Ghetto was totally destroyed. . . . The 'streets' were nothing but rows of smoldering ruins. It was hard to cross them without stepping on charred bodies."--Kazik

When the Nazis decided to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, five hundred young Jewish fighters within the Ghetto rose up to defy them. With no weapons, no influence, and no experience in warfare, they managed to resist the Germans for almost a month. In the end, when the battle was lost, the surviving Jews were led out of the ruins through the sewers by a nineteen-year-old fighter known as Kazik. As head courier of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), which had planned and executed the uprising, Kazik spent the rest of the war helping to care for the several thousand Jews who still remained in Warsaw. This book--an extraordinary story of courage and perseverance--is Kazik's wartime memoir.

In stark, spare detail, Kazik reports on the efforts to prepare for the defense of the Warsaw Ghetto, the calamitous battle with the Germans, and the rescue of the few Jews who were still alive after the Ghetto was destroyed. He describes how he assumed a false Aryan identity in order to pass through the city as he collected money and found hiding places for the survivors. Constantly on guard, fearful of informers, his life always in danger, he nevertheless plotted resourcefully to aid his fellow Jews. He tells how he joined the Poles during their ill-fated uprising against the Nazis in Warsaw in 1944, had further brushes with death assisting the Polish underground, and returned to Warsaw to watch its liberation by the Russian army.

Suspenseful, moving, and remarkably heroic, Kazik's memoir is only the second source to be published on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It will help demolish the image of Jews as submissive victims in the Holocaust.