Customer Reviews

The Defiant: A True Story

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I loved this book. This is very different than "Bravest Battle" or "Hiding Place". There are a half dozen points I would have never learned: - This was a 14yr old from an upper middle class family. He was able to constuct a dirt house & survive a brutally cold winter with NO supplies or knowlege. - Everyone hated them. The Russians, the Polish farmers, everyone. - At one point he lived rather free, but under Russian Rule. Even though the consequences were death or life in prison, every person under Socialism cheated and were capitalist. From kids to grannies. Rather powerful! I'm making each of my kids read this book. It was great & I read it straight through.

Shalom Yoran is a long time frind of my grandparents. I visited him at his hous a few months ago. There i got a signed copy of this book. It is the gretest book i have ever read. This is one book every person in the world should read to learn what the jewish people went through. Find out the truth about the holocaust and what we could have prevented

I met Shalom and Varda at the Holocaust Museum in WA D.C. I purchased the book, had them sign it, intoduced myself to them as a person involved in k-12 education. Shalom graciously signed my book. I began reading it on the plane on the way home and could not put it down. This day by day, moment by moment dairy of a 14 year old boy whose family, friends and 6 million Jews killed because of their heritage is chilling. I felt as if I was watching a movie of Shalom's life with each word I read. Shalom and Varda came to North Central WA and spoke to 3,000 plus JR/SR students about their lives. I am hoping it changed many lives. Shalom is working with Chip Taylor productions to make a documentary. And we are looking for a "Steven Speilberg" to produce a full length film for the public. A 5 star book!!

I very much enjoyed reading such a fascinating book. I never realized the work of the Jewish partisans nor the anti-smitism that also existed on the part of even the resistance fighters.
Just a great book that really emphasizes the terrors of the Nazi regime. It also goes to show what happens to a people who are disarmed and in many cases have only sticks and pitchforks to fight back w/.

Rare is it to find a book that so succinctly depicts the frightening uncertainty of being a Jewish partisan outnumbered against the Nazis during the Second World War. Rarer still is it to find a book like Shalom Yoran's, one that captures his deeply personal experience of fighting the opposition side by side under emotionally and physically gruelling and painful conditions. Yoran relates his harrowing experiences of losing loved ones while battling the cold, hunger, supposed fellow partisans who make anti-Semitic attacks upon Yoran and his Jewish comrades, and his own feelings of self-doubt as he struggles to overcome the ultimate evil (the Nazi forces who wish to kill him and his fellow Jewish comrades) and gain back his freedom. A must-read.

This is the original hardbound edition of the extraordinary account of Selim Sznycer (who later took the name Shalom Yoran), of his family's flight from the Nazi invasion of western Poland to the eastern, Soviet-occupied town of Kurzeniec, where they remained until the Germans bombed there too, killing his parents.

Rather than surrender to a certain death, Selim and his brother Musio fled to a deeply forested swampy area, at whose center they constructed a hidden bunker with some friends. There, they struggled merely to stay clothed, warm and fed. They had little to trade and no money with which to buy, and were reduced to infrequent forays into villages several miles distant, where they could steal enough rags and potatoes to survive. Lighting fires was difficult; the smell or sight of smoke could attract attention.

At one point, Yoran left the hovel to search for food only to return and find several comrades dead. He and his brother then fled further east, and ultimately joined the Soviet and Polish partisans. This was not only an act of extraordinary defiance, it was itself fraught with danger, as both the Polish peasants and Russian partisans with whom they fought were themselves highly distrusting, and hateful, of Jews. At first, Selim was not trusted with guns. He was left to fight with sticks, a fake rifle, and in one case, a pitchfork. But gradually, a few comrades developed trust and respect for him, as he became an expert at bombing the railroad tracks carrying German supply trains. He derailed several trains; the sabotage stopped German war materiel transports--and required extensive new track construction, significantly slowing Germany's war machine in the region.

Ultimately, the author survived and fled Europe for Israel, where he broke through the British blockade, joined the Israeli air force and built a successful Israeli business. Although Yoran necessarily survived only by fighting, success (as I have written before) is the best revenge. And for Yoran, that came through building a new life, business and family in Israel.

This is a terrific book, for young and old alike.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

The Defiant is the story of Shalom Yoran (born Selim Sznycer)
, and his time spent with the partisans fighting the Nazis in Poland. After three years on the run , with his family , from Nazi mobile killing units , the Nazi terror finally caught up with them and in the little town of Kurzeniec , 1 040 Jewish men , women and children where dragged from their homes and hiding places , murdered and burned. Included among those slaughtered where Selim's parents.

Selim and his brother escaped into the woods and joined the partisans , and heeded the last words of their mother to survive and take vengeance for them.

This is the story of the partisan guerilla warfare against Nazi terror.
Although Selim fought among non-Jews , he always fought first and foremost as a Jew - with them but not as one of them. He dreamed of having his own country , of fighting for it and even dying for it-that is what kept him alive. The dream of surviving and living in the Land of Israel as a free Jew and building it.
After the war , his dream was fulfilled , and having escaped the Soviet Army that tried to draft him , and the British blockade that tried to keep Jews out of Palestine , he settled in Israel and joined the airforce , becoming a prominent businessman in Israel.
The Zionists in Europe where always the backbone of Jewish resistance to Nazism.