Customer Reviews

Voice from the Forest: Memoirs of a Jewish Partisan

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Nachum Kohn's experiences during WWII are an important part of both partisan history and the Shoah. This striking and well-documented memoir presents a facet of the struggle against the Axis evil that is too often overlooked here in the West. Partisans were an important part of the war effort on the Eastern front, and the Soviets were the only source of outside support and material available. Much of the partisan command structure were also Soviet officiers.

But also woven in the story is the continued senseless miso-Judaism that is still with us and again rising. Kohn's independent Jewish partisans were not allowed to ally themselves with the non-Jewish partisan groups (a fact also documented by the Bielski brothers' and the Warsaw ghetto fighters' stories among other partisan testimony). Kohn, however, had skills the Soviets needed in the area, so he was allowed in while the remainder of his partisans did not survive the war. This book is the sole testament to their lives, bravery, and kiddush al-HaShem.

This book documents the determination of many young Jews to pick up arms and fight-- and the walls of hatred, indifference, and outright murder they faced from Nazis, Poles, and Soviets. This book should come back into print (and perhaps a Hebrew edition would be a good idea as well).