Brigade [Paperback]

Howard Blum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

THE BRIGADE brings to life a fascinating chapter of holocaust history in which three Jewish men rise above bitterness and hatred to transform the lives of hundreds of thousands. 'We came as an angel of life to the Jewish people...Soldiers are supposed to fight, kill, or be killed, and what we did as soldiers, we found dead people and helped them go back to life.' November 1944. The war in Europe is drawing to a close when the British government finally agrees to send a brigade of 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine to Europe to fight the German army. Among those soldiers are Israel Carmi, a veteran of the Haganah underground; Johanan Peltz, who dreams of returning home as an officer in the British army; and Arie Pinchuk, a former student, who has returned to Europe with his own agenda - to rescue his last remaining family member, the little sister he left behind. The Brigade charge into battle and emerge triumphant, but when the war ends and the soldiers witness firsthand the horrors their people have suffered in the concentration camps, they launch a brutal and calculating campaign of vengeance, forming secret squads to identify, locate and kill Nazi officers in hiding. Their own ferocity threatens to overwhelm them until an encounter with an orphan girl sets the men on a course of action - rescuing Jewish war orphans and transporting them to Palestine - that will not only change their lives, but also forever alter the course of history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although the official history of the Jewish Brigade Group (a unit of some 5,000 Jews who fought with the British Eighth Army in Italy in the waning months of the conflict) has been written, Blum (Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America) breaks new ground by looking into the clandestine operations that occurred after the shooting had stopped. Once they learned the true extent of the holocaust, soldiers of the brigade began using intelligence reports to pinpoint the location of former SS officers and camp guards. The enraged Jewish troops took vengeance into their own hands, eventually slaying hundreds of Nazi death dealers. Blum follows the story of three men Israel Carmi, Johanan Peltz and Arie Pinchuk in detail, interviewed dozens of others, read unpublished personal memoirs and had Hebrew-language documents translated for him. During the war, the more daring Jewish soldiers formed a secret unit that appropriated British supplies trucks, weapons and food and diverted them to ships heading illegally for Palestine The plan included the "repatriation" of thousands of war orphans, who were clandestinely taken from displaced person camps and smuggled to Palestine. The underground Jewish Haganah figured prominently in these operations, which contributed directly to the creation of Israel. Blum, twice nominated for a Pulitzer as a New York Times investigative reporter, and now a Vanity Fair contributing editor, presents the material masterfully, building suspense and carefully documenting all the action. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 2)Forecast: A BOMC and Traditions Book Club alternate, this book should get a push from Blum's journalistic cronies. Rights have been sold in Germany, Holland and the U.K., and to Miramax. Blum's The Gold of Exodus is currently in development with Castle Rock.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-There is a perception that during the Holocaust, the Jews rarely physically fought back against the Nazis. The most avid readers of World War II books know that resistance did occur (the best known is the Warsaw Ghetto uprising), but it was not enough to change the course of the genocide. The Brigade tells a different story. A 5000-man "Jewish Brigade" was formed from settlers in Palestine, but it was not until the waning days of the war, in November 1944, that the British sent it to fight. This account is told from the perspective of three soldiers and relies heavily on interviews the author conducted with them. It takes readers from the early days of the brigade, through the frustration of the soldiers who were sitting out the war, to the combat operations of the closing days of the war in Italy. The Jewish Brigade had little impact on the outcome of World War II, but its existence was critical to the future state of Israel. Almost from the very beginning, it was involved in smuggling Jewish refugees out of Europe and into Palestine. This book is not a standard military history, but is written more like a novel. It is packed with detail but moves along quickly. It will have great appeal to those students who want to explore beyond the standard histories of the period.
Robert Burnham, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067103779X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671037796
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,650,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Having started out my career as a reporter for the NY Times, I've moved on to being an author. And while I'm still writing non-fiction, I'm now more focused in writing books that are driven by characters and a sustained narrative. I live in Connecticut and am the father of 3 teenagers - one in college, one starting next year, and one still struggling through high school geometry. My tenth book will be published by Crown/Random House April 26. It's entitled THE FLOOR OF HEAVEN and its a true story about a cowboy turned Pinkerton detective who goes off to the Yukon Gold Rush to pursue a puzzling and suspenseful case. Twentieth Century Fox just bought the film rights, and I find the prospect of a movie based on the book to be exciting - as do the bursars at the colleges attended by my kids.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stirring history of WW II Jewish military valor, redemption, March 20, 2002

By 

Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Brigade : An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and World War II (Hardcover)

Rarely does a history interweave compelling personal histories and enormous social/moral themes as does Howard Blum's moving and convicing "The Brigade." This work does far more than describe the formation, engagements and ultimate triumphs of the first organized Jewish armed forces in two millenia; it firmly places the five thousand Jewish Palestinian volunteers who fought with the Star of David proudly placed on their shoulders in the center of Jewish history. The men who would don British uniforms would fight for a myriad of purposes: out of anger against the unspeakable evil of the Holocaust, from an awareness that they were living rebukes to the notion that Jews served as deseerving recipients of passive suffering, with a sense of their historical purpose of establishing a Jewish homeland and becoming ironic adversaries of the very nation (Britain) which enlisted their service.

Though "The Brigade" nobly treats the themes of Jewish armed resistance, vengeance and ultimate salvation, this memorable history above all signals the profound development of a renewed Jewish identity, forged in battle against the background of genocide and ruin, tested by personal sorrow and fortified by a messianic vision of a Jewish homeland for the shattered remnants of European Jewry. The Jewish fighters are proud, heroic and consecrated to their vision; they become increasingly aware of their role in a Jewish future. Initially consumed by rage and the obvious need to crush their German enemy, the three members of The Brigade on whom this history focuses evolve morally. From muderous avengers of the crime of mass murder, these men ultimately perceive their role as guardians of those Jews who survived the Holocaust, especially the children, as central to their lives' meaning.

Rich in specific military detail, "The Brigade" is at its best when depicting the personal transformation of its three featured soldiers. Each comprehends a remarkable epiphany during Passover in 1945; each becomes acutely aware of his Jewishness, his place in the enormous task confronting him. The aloof, aristocratic Johanan Peltz discovers his "inescapable and defining" bond with common Jews. "He could neither hide from nor deny it...He was another Jew walking down a long corridor toward a communal destiny." Studious and devoted to his family, Arie Pinchuk finds the moral strength to reconsecrate himself to the search for his family. The contentment of Passover contrasts painfully with that which "had been taken from him," and he resolves that only by redeeming and reclaiming his family could he once again recapture the peace of the holiday. Israel Carmi, a brilliant tactician and resourceful leader of the Jewish Palestinian underground, celebrates the Passover under fire. Yearning for his family in Palestine, Carmi is struck with the awareness "that this makeshift seder in a trench crowded with Jewish soldiers was making all the future seders possible."

Blum also deftly interstitches the remarkable story of Leah Pinchuk, Arie's sister. Leah's survival quietly and convincingly emerges as a methaphor of the Holocaust. She is a living embodiment of the modern state of Israel. Mr. Blum is also capable of eloquence as well. His description of Carmi and Peltz's encounter with Jewish survivors of Mauthausen devastates the reader. The survivors "found it easier to imagine that angels, not Jewish soldiers, were standing in front of them." When one weak, old man steps towards Peltz and touches "the tip of his finger tentatively to the skin of Peltz's outstretched hand," it is as if time and history stop. "Bound by their deep shared sorrow," the men embrace and mourn together.

"The Brigade" is an especially important history given the peril of Israel's existence today. At a time when Holocaust denial and distortion are perniciously used against Israel, at a time when many in the world are still profoundly ignorant of the moral imperative of that beleaguered nation and at a time when much of the world is more comfortable with Jews who suffer than Jews who fight back, "The Brigade" serves as a reminder of Jewish strength, resolve and hope.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Israeli "Band of Brothers", December 26, 2001

By 

James Foley (Brighton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Brigade : An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and World War II (Hardcover)

An Israeli "Band of Brothers"

All those who loved the recent HBO miniseries (and Stephen Ambrose book) "Band of Brothers" will also enjoy "The Brigade" by Howard Bloom.

"The Brigade" is the story of the Jewish Brigade Group, a unit made up of Jews - mostly from the then-British mandate of Palestine. Also known as the Jewish Fighting Brigade, it was formed in 1994 and played a critical role in the defeat of the Nazi armies in Northern Italy in 1945 as integral part of the British 8th Army.

Like "Band of Brothers", "The Brigade" not only gives us a history of the unit as a whole, but also allows us to get a better understanding of some of the individual members. In place of Dick winters, Lewis Nixon,Carwood Lipton, etc. we have Sgt. Israel Carmi, Cap't Johanthan Peltz, and Lt. Arie Pinchuk.

And while "Band of Brothers" reaches it's anticlimax in May of 1945 (or even in earlier in '45, after the victory at Bastogne), the story of the Jewish Brigade only gets more interesting after the war "officially" ends.

Though nominally part of the British army, the loyalty of most members was to the Jewish people. Service in the British army was seen merely as a means to an end. It was in this spirit, that the Brigade (aided by elements of American intelligence) started to carry out a campaign to identify and eliminate Nazi war criminals that had evaded Allied arrest. Their efforts as infiltrating and destroying a secret Nazi cabal that was spiriting former SS officers into hiding in South America was as exciting and as filled with intrigue as anything that could come out of the imagination of John Le Carre.

The adventure, however, doesn't stop there. The Brigade soon turned to rescuing the remaining Jews of Europe and making sure that they returned to their historical homeland in Palestine. Despite the active opposition of the British and in defiance of British colonial immigration laws, the Brigade was able to help around 68,000 Jews reach the Middle East. Another 50,000 or so were
captured by the British en route but were able to enter Israel after it had achieved independence in 1948. (The Jewish population of Palestine was about 600,000 in 1945.)

The Brigade was the first organized Jewish Army since the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE/AD and Howard Bloom captures well their struggles, anguish and triumphs.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest heroes, April 16, 2002

By 

"veryseriousguy" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Brigade : An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and World War II (Hardcover)

The turning point of this masterpiece is a short scene in a church. Two soldiers, wearing their Jewish Brigade uniforms, show up to assassinate a Nazi in hiding. Instead, one of the congregants, a young girl, sees them and confesses to them in broken Herbew that she is a Jewish orphan and wants to leave with the soldiers. Suddenly, the soldiers see a shift in their mission from being assassins to rescuing Jews and smuggling them to Israel. This noble mission is completed, at times at odds with the British Army and at times with their tacit aid. This story how one chance encounter leads to the rescue of tens of thousands is a magnificant story that should stand alongside the story of the Exodus from Egypt.