Product Description

Three young Zionists left Poland during World War II and made for the Lithuanian ghetto of Vilna. Here they carried out some of the first underground resistance raids of the war. Rich Cohen describes those dangerous, but highly effective strikes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #198830 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Rich Cohen, author of Tough Jews, has written what he calls "a Holocaust story without a concentration camp" about Jewish resistance fighters during World War II. The Avengers: A Jewish War Story describes how three young Jews--Cohen's cousin Ruzka Korczak, her friend Abba Kovner and Kovner's future wife Vitka Klemperer--created an armed, underground movement behind the German lines in Poland with the goal of sabotaging the Nazis and helping the Russians advance. Cohen reports that Kovner described the group's dilemma this way: "If we act cowardly, we die; if we act courageously, we die. So we might as well act courageously". The group's fighting outlasted the war to exact revenge on the Nazis held in Nuremberg and finally to fight for Israel in the 1948 War for Independence. Researching The Avengers, Cohen spent time with the surviving resistance fighters in Israel and in Eastern Europe. The result is a deeply personal and impassioned defence of a movement that some readers will view with pride and others will condemn as vigilantism. This book, like Tough Jews, is a lively, intelligent and heartfelt work of Jewish history. --Michael Joseph Gross

About the Author
Rich Cohen is the author of Tough Jews. He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Observer, the New York Times and many other magazines. He is currently contributing editor at Rolling Stone and lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

three young jews decide they will fight the germans.
During the war,when the holocust was at is peak three young jews who were,nt even twenty years of age one young man Abba kovner, and two young women Vitka Kempner and Ruska marle,escape from ghetto and live out in the Polish forest and lead orther jews who help revenge all the orther jews that were murdered by the germans. The three avengers use the sewers to travel and transport guns and bomb factories and bridges,the bravery and determination is ingredible.The later part of the book reveals what they planned [and how would revenge the Germans when the war was over]. Even when the war was over and they try and eventually go to Palestine their troubles are far from over.A book that everyone should read.