My Just War: The Memoir of a Jewish Red Army Soldier in World War II [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Gabriel Temkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 1997

A remarkable story of the resilience, courage, and perseverance of a stranger in a strange land.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA-Unlike many books in this genre, this one tells the story of a man who did not meekly go to the gas chambers, but who fought back. Temkin fled Poland for the Soviet Union after its partition in 1939. He was drafted into the Red Army and served initially in a labor battalion, but was soon captured by the Germans. After a harrowing escape, he was rescued by the Red Army, which he joined again. During the next two years he fought in many of the campaigns that helped liberate the Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary from the Nazis. This book is not intended as an overview of the battles, but is confined to one man's observations of the cataclysmic events that would shape the world for the next 50 years. It is not for the faint-hearted, for the author describes in great detail the horrors he witnessed and the hardships he endured. His story is easy to read and is more of an oral history than a memoir. However, Temkin tends to ramble on in places and often the chapters are more stream-of-consciousness than organized narrative. A good addition to Holocaust collections.
Robert Burnham, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

As an 18-year-old Polish Jew from Lodz, Temkin fled to Soviet-controlled Poland after the Nazi invasion. After the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Temkin was drafted into the Red Army. His memoir traces his experiences as he fought the Nazis across Eastern Europe until the taking of Vienna in April 1945. This is essentially a straightforward recounting of a common soldier's perceptions of one of the most massive and heroic military campaigns in modern history. Temkin's prose is somewhat stilted at times, and he writes with a curious detachment, particularly when he reports on atrocities committed against Jews. It is as if Temkin, whose entire family was wiped out during the Holocaust, is deliberately pulling his punches in the interest of "objectivity." Still, the sheer scope of the violence and horror of war on a gigantic scale comes through clearly in this rather unique and frequently stunning chronicle. Jay Freeman

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Presidio Press (November 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891416455
• ISBN-13: 978-0891416456
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #944,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Just War...a Super Book on the Eastern Front of WW2, November 29, 1999

By 

M. A Conway "Mark Conway" (Hatfield, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Just War: The Memoir of a Jewish Red Army Soldier in World War II (Hardcover)

Folks, this book is probably one of the best, if not THE best, book to come out of the Soviet/German conflict of WW2.

Gabriel Temkin, unemcumbered by Soviet propaganda, tells it the way it really was. The best part of the book is that we get a real close look at what the common Red Army soldier went thru, and we also get a closer look at the common Russian people, whose courage and patriotism show us what a great people they were, and still are. There are scenes in the book describing the way poor kholkozniks helped Mr. Temkin back to Russian lines that really got to me emotionally in the way they sacrificed all just to help a lone, Russian solder, albiet a stranger.

I cannot recommend this book too highly, it is one of my top 10 books, and I own over 600 books, mostly on history.

Since writing the above words 3 years ago, I have since been to the Russian Federation 4 times in the last 2 years. I have seen many of the memorials to the "Velikaya Otechestvannaya Voina" or Great Patriotic War. I have met one Soviet War veteran that I had a good talk with. And I had the good fortune of staying not in Hotels, but in people's houses, and I can now understand further why the "slavic" hospitality I saw in Mr. Temkin's book, still survives in some ways now in the Russia I visited.

Mr. Temkin's book is THE BEST one in describing what Soviet Soldiers went thru. If only more Americans knew how much the Russian and Soviet people sacrificed in defeating Hitler. If only there were a lot more memoirs of men like Mr. Temkin, that were translated into English.

URRA...

Mark Conway

[e-mail]

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most interesting report of a personal war experience, December 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: My Just War: The Memoir of a Jewish Red Army Soldier in World War II (Hardcover)

Mr. Gabriel Temkin's book "My Just War" is quite remarkable for at least two reasons. He is one of the very few Jewish soldiers who were captured by the German Army, spent several months as German prisoner of war, and survived. Apparently he owes that to his good looks, good reflexes, and the fact that his Russian comrades had not betrayed him. Of particular interest are his observations concerning the conduct of Hungarian soldiers in whose custody he was for some time, and their treatment of the Hungarian Jewish labor force... Liberated by the Russian offensive, he joined a Russian infantry regiment and had ample combat experience on the Southern front (among others, in the famous Korsun Shevchenkovsky battle), then in Romania, Hungary, and Austria. Here is the second important quality of the book, that is, a vivid rendering of his experience. I would say the detailed description of combat given in this book can be compared with Victor Nekrasov's story "In the Trenches of Stalingrad".

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars editorial rewies, July 9, 2003

By 

Gabriel Temkin (Ransom Canyon, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Just War: The Memoir of a Jewish Red Army Soldier in World War II (Hardcover)

Dear Sir, I have noticed the recent changes in the Amazon's Website of my book:"My Just War" and I would like to propose that some excerpts from other editorial reviews be also added: 1.From "Publisher's Weekly" of Jan.26,1998: 2.from "Parameters"US Army War College Journal.Spring 2001.From the"Canadian Jewish News",April !998;4. the "Jerusalem Post" and the "The Jerusalem Report", July 13 and August 1998. There were also many very favorable rewies in many local papers in the USA as well as in England. With many thanks, Gabriel temikn.