"Frank Blaichman was sixteen years old when German forces invaded Poland. He saw his friends and neighbors conscripted to work as slave laborers. His uncle was taken outside his home and shot for preparing kosher meat; a few weeks later, one of his cousins was shot in her bed. When the roundups and deportations came, Blaichman knew he would not go quietly." "He set off for a nearby forest to find the underground bunkers of Jews who had already escaped. Together they formed a Jewish partisan force dedicated to fighting the Germans and anyone who collaborated with them, while hiding and sheltering those who were unable to take up arms. Death stalked the lives of these brave soldiers without an army - but they knew they would rather die fighting than surrender. As their numbers grew, they took up arms alongside Polish partisan units, and in 1944, they faced their greatest test: well-armed and well-rested German army battalions and air force units sent to destroy them." "Rather Die Fighting is the inspirational memoir of a man who dared to stand up to the Nazis against all odds. It is a saga of courage, sacrifice, and honor - and a fitting tribute to those who fought shoulder to shoulder to protect their families and homeland in World War II." --Book Jacket.

Memoirs of a Jew born in 1920 in Warsaw; in 1930 he and his parents emigrated to the USA. Ch. 5 (pp. 115-143), "On the Edge of the Volcano, " contains, inter alia, recollections of and reflections on antisemitism in Poland in the 1920s.

Memoirs of Filar, a Jewish pianist born in Warsaw in 1917. Describes his youth as a child prodigy, including his early successes despite anti-Jewish discrimination. Pp. 50-115 relate his experiences in the Holocaust. At the outbreak of the war he fled to Lvov, but he returned to Warsaw after the German occupation in 1941. He entered the ghetto, where he first played with the Jewish symphony orchestra, but was soon sent for forced labor. When his parents and several of his six siblings were deported, he and his brother Joel joined a resistance group. They fought during the uprising, but were then caught and deported, first to Majdanek and then to Skarżysko-Kamienna, Buchenwald, and Schlieben. After surviving a death march, they were liberated at Nixdorf. His parents and two siblings perished in the Holocaust. After the war Filar lived in Germany; in 1950 he emigrated to the U.S., where he became a concert pianist and played in Carnegie Hall in 1952.

"Gene Gutowski's name is associated with some of the great films of the twentieth century: the Oscar-winning masterpiece The Pianist, Repulsion, Cul-de-sac, and Fearless Vampire Killers. Producer of many of Roman Polanski's classics, Gene Gutowski shares here his extraordinary memoirs: those of a Polish Jew, alone in occupied Warsaw after the deportation of his entire family. As a young man who, with the blind courage of one who has nothing to lose, took incredible risks, he narrowly escaped the many horrors of life in Nazi-occupied Poland. In an extraordinary twist of destiny, and thanks to his prodigious resourcefulness, Gene Gutowski found himself in Germany in 1945, working as an American counter-espionage agent. After the war, he made his way to New York, where he worked as a fashion illustrator and TV producer, then on to London, where he became a successful producer and member of the jet set during the sixties. Finally, he achieved Hollywood consecration with the three Oscars won by The Pianist. It is an extremely endearing personality that reveals itself here, modest about the difficulties overcome, honest about the successes and failures. Gene Gutowski's youth was a thumb of the nose to death and totalitarianism, and his journey is a formidable life lesson"--back cover.

Memoirs of a Jew (b. Faye Lazebnik) from Lenin, Poland (now Belarus), who survived the Nazi occupation in this region, on the Polish-Soviet border. On 14 August 1942 the ghetto of Lenin was liquidated by the Nazis; the author was spared as a "specialist" (a photographer). In September 1942 she joined Soviet partisans in the Molotov brigade and served there as a photographer, nurse, and soldier. Relates the experiences of Jewish fighters amongst the Soviet partisans. Antisemitism existed among some partisans, and sometimes it cost Jews their lives. In July 1944 the area in which she fought was liberated by Soviet troops. In 1945 she returned to Poland, and in 1948 emigrated to Canada.

Navigating between the two worlds of wartime experiences in Europe and new life in Australia, this moving memoir of & a Holocaust & survivor is & imbued with an element of fiction. This deeply personal narrative travels from darkness to hope as the author loses his family at Auschwitz, spends the war in concentration camps, and ultimately emigrates to Australia with his wife, leading to an eventual restoration that remains colored by a tragic past.

A "memoir by a journalist about his father's attempt to survive the aftermath of Auschwitz in a small industrial town in Sweden"--Jacket.

In European and Holocaust historiography, it is generally believed that neither the Zionist movement nor the Yishuv were mindful of the plight of European Jews in the face of the Nazi threat during the 1930s. Drawing on a wide variety of memoirs, letters, and institutional reports by people from all walks of life, this volume sheds new light on a troubled period in Jewish history. Jehuda Reinharz and Yaacov Shavit trace Jewish responses to developments in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as reactions to British policy on the question of a Jewish homeland, to show that Zionists in the Yishuv worked tirelessly on the international stage on behalf of their coreligionists in Europe. Nevertheless, their efforts were all too often shattered by the realities of their powerlessness and lack of resources. Piercing to the heart of conversations about how or whether to save Jews in an increasingly hostile Europe, this volume provides a nuanced assessment of what could and could not be achieved in the years just prior to World War II and Holocaust.

Memoir of the author's life from Palestine, to Poland, to America, covering a career in government and Sovietology.

The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945 examines one of the central problems in the history of Polish-Jewish relations: the attitude and the behavior of the Polish Underground - the resistance organization loyal to the Polish government-in-exile - toward the Jews during World War II. Using a variety of archival documents, testimonies, and memoirs, Zimmerman offers a careful, dispassionate narrative, arguing that the reaction of the Polish Underground to the catastrophe that befell European Jewry was immensely varied, ranging from aggressive aid to acts of murder. By analyzing the military, civilian, and political wings of the Polish Underground and offering portraits of the organization's main leaders, this book is the first full-length scholarly monograph in any language to provide a thorough examination of the Polish Underground's attitude and behavior towards the Jews during the entire period of World War II.

Memoirs of a Jew who was born in 1927 in Borisław, Poland. Pp. 31-132 deal with the Holocaust period, based on information found in a diary she kept at the time. Wolanski survived in hiding, at first with a Christian family and then in a bunker in the forest, until the liberation.

Memoirs of a Jew who was born in 1922 in Zhetel (in Polish, Zdzięcioł). Pp. 73-137 deal with the Holocaust period, and Shelub's experiences as a partisan in the forests of Belarus.

Upon arriving at the kibbutz, after years of running and living in a constant state of fear and anxiety, I finally felt that I could unburden my heart and mind. I had dreamed of the day I would arrive, alive, in Eretz Israel. The constant stress of the last few years was made easier by my constant desire to achieve that goal. So, when I first arrived in the kibbutz dining hall, it was as if all my dreams had come true. David J. Azrieli was born in 1922 in Maków Mazowiecki, Poland. Written by his daughter Danna, this gripping account of survival during World War II describes David’s extraordinary travels, always just one step ahead of life-threatening danger, which took him to the Soviet-occupied zones of Poland and later to Ukraine, Tashkent, and Buchara. He subsequently served in the Anders Army, before making his way from Baghdad to the frontiers of British-occupied Palestine. The memoir chronicles David J. Azrieli’s arrival in Palestine, his studies at the Technion in Haifa, his experiences as a soldier in the War of Independence, and his realization that most of his immediate family had perished in the Holocaust. Azrieli finally settled in Canada in 1954. There he married his wife, Stephanie, and together they raised four children—Rafi, Sharon, Naomi, and Danna. This story of survival is all the more remarkable given Azrieli’s later achievements as a successful real estate developer and philanthropist. One of the economic giants of the Jewish world, his many developments changed the face of Israel and stand as a striking testament to the strength and courage of a boy whom Hitler could not defeat. The highlight of his activities is the establishment of the Canadian and Israeli Azrieli Foundations, which focus on improving the lives of present and future generations through education, research, healthcare, and arts. -- page 4 of cover.

In this new collection of essays, Adam Michnik—one of Europe’s leading dissidents—traces the post-cold-war transformation of Eastern Europe. He writes again in opposition, this time to post-communist elites and European Union bureaucrats. Composed of history, memoir, and political critique, In Search of Lost Meaning shines a spotlight on the changes in Poland and the Eastern Bloc in the post-1989 years. Michnik asks what mistakes were made and what we can learn from climactic events in Poland’s past, in its literature, and the histories of Central and Eastern Europe. He calls attention to pivotal moments in which central figures like Lech Walesa and political movements like Solidarity came into being, how these movements attempted to uproot the past, and how subsequent events have ultimately challenged Poland’s enduring ethical legacy of morality and liberalism. Reflecting on the most recent efforts to grapple with Poland’s Jewish history and residual guilt, this profoundly important book throws light not only on recent events, but also on the thinking of one of their most important protagonists.

Memoirs of a Jew who was born in Warsaw ca. 1920. In 1939 he went to study in Lvov. Describes the Nazi occupation in 1941, the pogrom by Germans and Ukrainians which followed, the anti-Jewish laws, and life in the ghetto, where Stankiewicz became a forger of papers. In spring 1943 he escaped from the ghetto and fled to Ukraine, posing as a German soldier; however, he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald. A friend helped him obtain classification as a Pole, thereby improving his conditions in the camp. He was liberated in April 1945 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1949.