On Burning Ground [Hardcover]

Michael Skakun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

"For as long as I can remember, I have been the confidant of a man's conscience..." begins this memoir, in which a son recounts how his Jewish-Polish father had to disguise himself as a Christian and join the Nazi SS to save his own life. Weaving philosophical logic throughout his father's horrific wartime story, Skakun tells a personal, yet epic, account of war and bloodshed, of unspeakable cruelty and unnameable crimes. Nearly 60 years later, Michael Skakun returns to the scene of these crimes, analyzing the complicated relationship between the abuser and the abused, and the irreparable damage born of filial exposure to the most savage human brutality. This is the story of the legacy of post-Holocaust Jews and the attempt to transcend the inheritance of suffering.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The "burning ground" of the title is not just the blasted landscape of Holocaust-era Europe but also the existential anguish of its protagonist, rabbinical student Joseph Skakun, so seared by the evils he has witnessed that at one desperate moment suicide seems the only possible response. Joseph was one of very few Jews in his northern Polish village to escape extermination at the end of 1941, and his odyssey of survival took him into the very "maw of the beast." Assuming the identity of a Muslim Tatar (to account for his circumcision), he traveled to Germany as a foreign laborer. Later, fleeing the suspicions of a fellow worker, he enlisted in the Waffen SS, an act of crushing ethical ambiguity for a young man steeped in the Jewish tradition of Mussar, which stressed moral self-examination. After the war, consumed by the need to convey and come to grips with his experiences, Joseph made a confidant of his son, the author of this galvanizing biography and memoir. Retelling his father's story, Michael Skakun pens a drama of biblical breadth and Dostoyevskian depth, scanting neither the visceral horror of his father's ordeal nor the resourcefulness and resolve that enabled Joseph to endure. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

Distinguished both by outstanding writing and a profound sense of moral complexity, this son's memoir of his father's incredible survival stands out among Holocaust memoirs. In 1941, when the Nazi noose tightened around Navaredok, Poland, Joseph Skakun, a young Talmudic scholar, tried to save his mother from death by hiding her in a basement. After his efforts failed and the Jews were rounded up, Joseph escaped into the forest and fled to Vilna, where he managed to borrow a birth certificate from Stefan Osmanov, an acquaintance who was a Muslim Tatar. Because he was blue-eyed and blond, Joseph was able to assume Osmanov's identity. "But here father, thrown back on his own slight resources, secretly crafted a new identity out of whole clothAcreated a mask so tight-fitting that it became nearly one with his life." Joseph quickly learned the rudiments of Islam, and, since Muslims were also circumcised, he was accepted into the German foreign labor program in Berlin. Assigned to farm work, Joseph tried to keep to himself but was drawn into village social life. When a fellow laborer became suspicious, Joseph enlisted in the SS out of desperation. Fortunately, the war ended before he was mobilizedAthus, according to the author, his father was saved from truly collaborating with Hitler. Skakun, an editor and translator who has served as a special consultant to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial council, offers an unusual and gripping account of resourcefulness, narrow escapes and "moral improvisation." B&w photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031220566X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312205669
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,608,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > History > Asia > Belarus

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, gripping, resourceful, amazing, yet true., July 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: On Burning Ground (Hardcover)

What can I add to the above? Not much. I rarely read Holocaust memoirs, but this one was amazing. Michael's father, Joseph, a Talmudic scholar with blue eyes and blond hair, who tried to save his mother in Navaredok/Novogrudek Poland, failed, and fled to the forests and to Vilna. As a circumcised male in Vilna, Joseph took on the identity of a Muslim Tatar, studied Islam, and became a foreign laborer in Berlin. A hidden Jew pretending to be a Muslim living in the Nazi capital during the War. And then he enlisted in the SS!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A suspenseful narrative of survival by wits in the Holocaust, August 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: On Burning Ground (Hardcover)

Skakun's experiences are comparable to those of Yehuda Nir in "The Lost Childhood" and Moshe Perlman in "Europa, Europa". The crowning irony is Skakun's (almost) joining the Waffen SS in order to hide his Jewish identity, and to survive. However, there are just a few errors of background historical fact which mar "On Burning Ground". E.g., on page 203 Julius Streicher is named as the founder of the Nazi paper "Volkische Beobachter". This is wrong. Streicher founded "Der Sturmer". Volkische Beobachter was an outgrowth of "Munchener Beobachter", a paper purchased and re-founded by Dietrich Eckart. This is the sort of mistake that better editing might have caught. But "On Burning Ground" still stands as a riveting account of survival through quick thinking and a lot of luck.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moral Dilemma, December 3, 2008

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Burning Ground: A Son's Memoir (Paperback)

Michael Skakun's book, "On Burning Ground", makes for a unique memoir as it is the story of his father's experiences during WWII, and not his own experiences, or even his interactions with his father. Joseph Skakun led an extremely interesting, almost unbelievable life, as he did everything he could to evade detection as a Jew and survive the war. It is a story that will leave readers amazed, questioning how anyone had the strength to do what Joseph Skakun forced himself to do.

Joseph's story begins in December 1941, when the Germans come to his town to liquidate it. He tries desperately to escape with his mother, but in the end, he is the only member of his family (as far as he knows) to survive a mass execution. Skakun escapes not once, but twice, from the ghetto, slowly making his way into Lithuania, and finally Germany, where he worked as a farm laborer. His command of several languages helped him along the way, as he gradually assumed the identity of a Muslim from the countryside, hoping that the similarities between Islam and Judaism would help him elude detection. Eventually, he realized that the only way he could guarantee his own safety from the growing suspicions of other laborers was to join the Waffen SS. As Joseph prepared to step fully into the machinery that has been responsible for the destruction of his people, he questioned his actions but knew there is no other way. If he ccould get close to the front, he could escape once and for all.

"On Burning Ground" is a fascinating story, generally well-told, with details that bring Joseph's experiences to life. Joseph's survival is in part due to luck, but more greatly due to his resolve and his ability to forsake outwardly everything that he held dear. Michael Skakun does an admirable job telling his father's story, and examining what his father must have been going through emotionally and psychologically. I thought it an odd choice to narrate as did, refering to the main character as Father rather than taking a third or first person point of view. At times certain elements seem repetitive, but overall Skakun paints an incredible potrait of a remarkable man. It is an unique story of hope that comes from such sorrow. It is a story that needs to be told.