Over the years I have read many books, both fiction and non-fiction, regarding the Holocaust and with every book I continue to be shocked, appalled and heartbroken. It is completely outside of my understanding, and the understanding of most of us, how such atrocities could ever have occurred.

This book strikes a slightly different chord to many accounts of the Holocaust and details how many Jews fought back. I was unaware that the Baum Group, from Berlin, who were a resistance group within the Auschwitz death camp, organised the sabotage of various SS activities from within the camp itself.

Or Hannah Senesh, a Hungarian poet and partisan, who left the safety of Palestine to help Jews in Eastern Europe. She had emigrated to the Jewish Homeland in 1939. Four years later she enlisted as a paratrooper in the British Army.

There are a multitude of similar accounts that the author has presented with a good writing style and I encourage you to read them for yourself. Clearly well researched, Mr. Roland has added another excellent account of WWII atrocities to his existing works.

Without doubt, this is a sobering read and I can not finish this review without quoting a passage from the book. It is written by Irena Sendler who was a Polish nurse and helped rescue 2,500 children from the ghetto.

"Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory. Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal.
I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality. The term 'hero' irritates me greatly - the opposite is true - I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little."

I do beg to differ with her claims here as, in my humble opinion, she and her contemporaries most certainly were heroes. May their memories be for blessing.

Well suited to anyone with an interest in The Holocaust, myself included. Very informative, starts from scratch in the early 1930s and it was nice to have photos too. Thanks to Net Galley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Any book I cannot finish will never get more than three stars.My problem here is the writing was very bland and uninspiring. The Jewish resistance story should have been an exciting and edge of your seat reading but, alas, no. Individual and group exploits were covered but without emotional detail.

found it interesting and historical - I liked this author as I have previously read his works before on the Nazi's and I did not hesitate to read it again. With the insightful and interesting knowledge which I have further gained from this and I would happily read it again

For those interested in the Holocaust history this is a must read book. With this multiply stories and documents that bring to light many stories people have never heard before of resistance all over Europe as well as North Africa The stories cover acts of devotion, desperation and full acts of rebellion.
These stories are easy to read written plain and simple. The stories will remind everyone who picks up a copy of what really happened and how people will do anything to survive.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this breath taking story that is a must read for anyone who loves history.

The author makes it clear that there was Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Jewish people did not passively go to their deaths, they fought in partisan groups, in the ghettos, camps and factories. Some of the accounts in the book did not come out until years after the war because they were written in Yiddish or Hebrew and they were not used by non speakers when they were writing the historical accounts of the war.
The author informs the reader of the events, people and decisions that occurred before Hitlers rise to power and how some of the Jewish population was able to purchase their way out of Germany, or flee to America or other countries using falsified documents, and others were not able to escape, but were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. It is hard to imagine the utter disregard for human life and the cruelty of the German and Polish followers of Hitler!
In Belgium there were many resistance groups, one of them flagged down a deportation train, broke open the cattle trains and freed those who were in the cars. Even though some of the elderly and others were recaptured, 300 were able to seek shelter in the forest and countryside.
You will also learn about how the people of Holland took Jewish people into their homes, and 50-60,000 of them worked in the Dutch Resistance, producing forged documents and helping Jewish people with food and supplies. 10,00 people were executed for their part in the resistance against the German occupation.
You will also read about Werner, a Polish Jew who joined a Resistance group, and Wanda, a 16 year old who shot a German officer “point blank” in Gestapo headquarters, and she also blew up railroad lines.
You will have to read the book to find out about the other groups and individuals who risked and lost their lives to help save others.

*thank you to Netgalley and Arcturus Digital for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

3 stars.

I am quite interested in the Holocaust so this book was pretty much a great match for me. There was alot I didn't know as most of the Holocaust books I read are people's personal stories about being sent away to the death camps so this was a nice welcome to yet another side to the devastating time in history. I appreciated the photos that were added. This book I would recommend to those who are generally interested in the topic as others probably won't enjoy it quite as much.

The myth that Jews walked like calves to the slaughter without fighting back is just that -- a myth. Here, Roland documents various acts of resistance and rebellion from Berlin to Brussels to Algeria to Minsk and Sobibor. At times, it's a taste of Inglorious Bastards with the armed resistance planting secret bombs and conducting midnight raids. Other times, the rebellions were acts of utter desperation, weaponless, against an Army that had overrun all of Western Europe in just a few short weeks. In the Warsaw ghetto, as Leon Uris chronicled in Mila 18, held out against the Third Reich far longer than the entire Polish Army had and with far fewer weapons and no help from their Polish neighbors who betrayed them every chance they got. Roland tells this story - or these various stories - in an easy-to-read manner, but it doesn't lack for details and doesn't lack for bravery against all odds.