Fugitives of the Forest - Tapa dura

"For those of us who participated in the events detailed in this book, its significance lies in the author's ability to chronicle our thoughts, our moods, our objectives, our tragedies, and our sufferings, as well as our hopes, dreams, and victories." -Peter Silverman, a former resistance fighter"Allan Levine's ambitious chronicle...meticulously researched...is a must read for those who wonder about organized Jewish resistance to the Holocaust."-Globe and Mail "[This] book justifies itself historically and morally. Levine's sober tone is, after all, a retort to the livid obscenity of history."-Toronto Star "Allan Levine has written an important book...He tells the story of Jewish armed resistance in Eastern Europe very well. He weaves personal vignettes, often poignant into his narrative...His graphic and gripping account should ensure a wide readership."-Winnipeg Free Press

As the Second World War and the Nazi assault on Europe ended, some 25,000 Jews, entire families in some instances, walked out of the forests of Eastern Europe. For three years, these men, women and children had miraculously survived eluding Nazi hunts and Soviet, Polish, and Ukrainian partisans who often killed first and asked questions later. They had escaped from the Nazi ghettos and slave labor camps and formed secret partisan camps in the surrounding forests. The forest not only protected them, it also became their base for sabotage and resistance efforts against the Germans and their allies. Based on numerous interviews with the survivors themselves, Fugitives of the Forest tells the harrowing and heroic story of those who resisted amid such perilous conditions. Among them:The remarkable story of Tuvia Bielski and his rescue of more than 1,200 Jews from a certain death (subject of the major motion picture DEFIANCE, to be released December 2008) The tragic resistance struggle of Dr. Yeheskel Atlas The bravery and resourcefulness of Misha GildenmanThe tale of the Vilna GhettoMany of us will ask the troubling question: why did not more Jews resist? But the question should be: how, under the circumstances, was any resistance possible at all?