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blueskygreentreesyellowsun's review against another edition
5.0
Books, movies, and the history I was taught in school all gave me a clear impression of what Jewish people did to fight against the Holocaust: nothing. This book is fascinating because it gives the lie to this perception: the true account of a small group of underground Jews who blew up bridges, derailed trains, and fought Germans. The book focuses on the actions and lives of three fighters in particular: Ruzka, Vitka, and Abba. How they survived the ghetto, how they fought the Nazis, and how they worked to create the great nation of Israel.
cestlahaley's review against another edition
The story of the jewish underground fighters in Lithuania. Not the romantic stuff you see depicted in movies, this is hardcore fighting for life-and-death on the eastern front. Fascinating.
falconerreader's review against another edition
3.0
My roots are Lithuanian, and I've spent five years living in the Baltics. I find it deeply uncomfortable that the Holocaust was at its most lethal in this corner of Europe. All the more reason to read this book. I can't help remembering visiting the site of a concentration camp in Latvia. There is some powerful (Soviet) statuary and a sign reading, "Behind this gate, the earth moans." Yet the place is always strangely deserted. Local friends told me that after fifty years of having Communist propaganda shoved down their throats, including (but obviously not limited to) "The Soviets stopped the evil Fascists," Balts took EVERYTHING the Russians said about history with a grain of salt. So--fertile ground for Holocaust denial. Besides, every Latvian has relatives who were killed and/or exiled to Siberia by the Russians, so that part of history is very much alive. On the other hand...virtually no Jews are left as living reminders of what happened. Very troubling.
I liked how Cohen kept referring to the protaganists as "kids." They obviously had left childhood far behind, but it's a very effective way of reminding us of how much they were facing at a very young age. I think maybe the most moving part of the book is towards the end, when he summarizes Abba's message as "...If you struggle, then win or lose, you win...(and) those who fought often survived." A lesson you rarely hear from the Holocaust.
I liked how Cohen kept referring to the protaganists as "kids." They obviously had left childhood far behind, but it's a very effective way of reminding us of how much they were facing at a very young age. I think maybe the most moving part of the book is towards the end, when he summarizes Abba's message as "...If you struggle, then win or lose, you win...(and) those who fought often survived." A lesson you rarely hear from the Holocaust.
lgwapnitsky's review against another edition
A must read to understand some of the behind-the-scenes work that the Jewish people did during the Holocaust.
immovabletype's review against another edition
5.0
"It's our duty to fight for our people," she said. "It does not mean we've forgotten about Israel. We do it because we love Israel. Every people has its stories of heroism. It is these stories that give you the strength to go on. But these stories cannot remain only in the past, a part of our ancient history. They must be a part of our real life as well. What will the coming generations learn from us? How good will they be if their entire history is one of slaughter and extermination? Our history must not contain only tragedy. We cannot allow that. It must also have heroic struggles, self-defense, war, even death with honor."
I used so many post-it tabs on this book. I used so many that I can run my hand over them like an instrument and make music. I tabbed the damn afterword more than once.
There's a pervasively singular narrative surrounding the Holocaust of Jews being led to their deaths by the Germans and of the Allies as their liberators. This is true — but as with most truth, it's more nuanced than that. Cohen writes in the afterword, "Yes. This is an important story; maybe the most important. It is what happened to the majority of Jews in the War. And yet: It is not the only story." The Avengers shifts the narrative onto the Jews who resisted. Since the back of the book isn't on Goodreads I'll quote it here, since I wouldn't be able to write a better synopsis:
This true story of World War II starts in the Lithuanian ghetto of Vilna, where a small band of underground Jews fight with unending cunning and courage. At the heart of this resistance are Abba Kovner, a fiery poet and leader, and two fearless teenage girls, Vitka Kempner and Ruzka Korczak. When the ghetto is liquidated, these three flee to the forest and fight alongside Russian and Polish partisan groups—dynamiting bridges, derailing trains, and destroying power plants and waterworks. Their actions eventually lead them down a winding path to Palestine, where a struggle for independence awaits the weary yet fiercely indomitable avengers. It is a side of the war not often seen—Jews fighting the Nazis on their own terms. It is also the story of three remarkable people able to call themselves comrades, lovers, friends.
Cohen was related to Ruzka, and much of this story was told to him firsthand since his childhood (the three of them, with their complicated personal history — though Cohen doesn't label it as such it's clear the three were involved in a poly relationship — remained close in relationship and proximity until their deaths), with clear due diligence when in pursuit of writing this book as an adult. As such his admiration for them is hard to miss, but he also doesn't shy away from telling and examining some of the complicated decisions they made. I'd go so far as to say this is a strength of the book: it's a fascinating and relevant look at the paths that war and persecution push people down. The fighters themselves didn't tell all of the history here until they reached old age and their stories — and their fight — were in danger of dying with them. It doesn't aim to be a comfortable narrative, just to reframe it, and it's incredibly effective at doing this. The author was born and raised in America, but the first time any American soldiers are mentioned in the book is not towards the end, and by then the story so thoroughly belongs in the hands of the fighting Jews at the center of the book that the soldiers' importance seems incidental. Their part exists outside of this narrative.
All three of them were remarkable, eloquent people, but Abba was the wordsmith. Cohen may not have been Abba's descendant, but he certainly inherited his talent for insight and poetry, which just makes this an incredibly smart, engaging, moving read. I'll leave you with one more quote to demonstrate this and then leave it at that, because hopefully if you have any interest in the history and relevance of World War II I've managed to impress upon you that this one is essential reading.
Some of the Jewish refugees . . . walked out to visit the camp. Abba never made the trip. Perhaps he did not have the strength to go, perhaps he did not need to. Though Abba had never seen Majdanek, he already understood it; he understood it the way Einstein understood the black hole—as a theory, as something the numbers suggested. His calculations, rhetoric and fears had long told him such a place must exist, that somewhere, on the edge of the universe, a hole must have opened, a void that swallowed up all energy, even light. The trains had to be going somewhere—right?
jjjreads's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
falconerreader's review
3.0
My roots are Lithuanian, and I've spent five years living in the Baltics. I find it deeply uncomfortable that the Holocaust was at its most lethal in this corner of Europe. All the more reason to read this book. I can't help remembering visiting the site of a concentration camp in Latvia. There is some powerful (Soviet) statuary and a sign reading, "Behind this gate, the earth moans." Yet the place is always strangely deserted. Local friends told me that after fifty years of having Communist propaganda shoved down their throats, including (but obviously not limited to) "The Soviets stopped the evil Fascists," Balts took EVERYTHING the Russians said about history with a grain of salt. So--fertile ground for Holocaust denial. Besides, every Latvian has relatives who were killed and/or exiled to Siberia by the Russians, so that part of history is very much alive. On the other hand...virtually no Jews are left as living reminders of what happened. Very troubling.
I liked how Cohen kept referring to the protaganists as "kids." They obviously had left childhood far behind, but it's a very effective way of reminding us of how much they were facing at a very young age. I think maybe the most moving part of the book is towards the end, when he summarizes Abba's message as "...If you struggle, then win or lose, you win...(and) those who fought often survived." A lesson you rarely hear from the Holocaust.
I liked how Cohen kept referring to the protaganists as "kids." They obviously had left childhood far behind, but it's a very effective way of reminding us of how much they were facing at a very young age. I think maybe the most moving part of the book is towards the end, when he summarizes Abba's message as "...If you struggle, then win or lose, you win...(and) those who fought often survived." A lesson you rarely hear from the Holocaust.
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