During World War II Samuel (Mietek) Gruber was one of the Jews in Europe who actively fought against the Nazi overlords. Serving in the Polish army at the outbreak of the war; he was taken prisoner by the Germans and interned near the Lublin ghetto. With a handful of other Jewish prisoners of war; he organized an escape and took it to the woods; where he helped organize a unit of Jewish partisan fighters.The former town and city dwellers candidly admit that; initially; life as fugitives in the woods held terrors they had not known even in the Nazi prison camp. The screams of small animals in the night; the unearthly shriek that turns out to be only the scraping of a loose branch against a tree trunk; leave them frankly quaking with fear.But within months Gruber and his ragtag band of fellow prisoners; some of them barely past adolescence; mature into a well-disciplined unit of freedom fighters. They engage in daring exploits; including sabotage operations against German military transports and clashes with units of the regular German army. Living with the death every day gives the partisans the courage to attempt the impossible.
#1241978 in Books Routledge 2000-07-05 2000-07-03Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.21 x .96 x 6.36l; 1.21 #File Name: 0582278171358 pages
Review
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Excelent book for research on the Iriish emigrtionBy william A. BeaverThe book is a wonderful source for an article I plan to write on the influence of the Irish Catholics emigrationon the American church.28 of 31 people found the following review helpful. reporting the factsBy A CustomerThis book needed a better editor. Professor Kenny is allowed to repeat himself constantly. In his introduction he apologizes in advance for the number of statistics that he will present in the book. He then proceeds to provide a moderate number of statistics three or four times; sometimes in subsequent paragraphs. This is merely mildly irritating.A more irritating habit of the author's is to provide a selection of analyses of a particular historical or cultural question and then provide a very lame summary or feint at providing his own analysis without writing anything of substance. For example; he brings up the question of "Why do the Irish have such an alcohol problem?"; sketches out various other scholars' theories about this cultural phenomenon; "straightens out" some misunderstandings (e.g.; they don't drink more; they drink differently (!?)) and you finish the section having no idea why alcholism is prevalent in Irish culture.Professor Kenny is fine at reporting the facts (especially if you need to be told more than once). I finished this book knowing a great deal more about the "what" and the "where" of Irish Americana; but very little more about the "why". Aside from these basic complaints I would say that this is a book worth reading. Kenny arranges his book chronologically; beginning in the 18th century; well before the Famine diaspora. He makes an explicit effort to explain the relationship between largely "Scotch-Irish" immigrants from Ulster of the 18th and earliest 19th century and later largely Catholic immigrants from Munster and Connacht. The Ulster people had been in Ireland less than 200 years before they uprooted themselves and moved on; their identification with Ireland was considerably weaker than that of emigrants from Munster and Connacht. The appellation "Scotch-Irish" was invented in the US by the Ulster people in order to distinguish themselves from the famine Irish; who were altogether more destitute; culturally distinct (different folkways); not to mention Catholic.There is a great deal of information in this book. It is simply not all that well presented or analyzed. It is understandable that it be sold as a textbook; the analysis can perhaps take place in the classroom after the reading. As I read this book out of curiosity and not as a reading assignment; it is now up to me to find more critical books to supplement the basic knowledge that this book provides.1 of 6 people found the following review helpful. not goodBy YaI had to get this book for an irish history class. It was not the best book to read pretty dry; but filled with alot of detail and facts.
