"Fighting Back" is more than a tale of survival, it is the extraordinary memoir of a survivor who outlasted Hitler's Holocaust "not in a concentration camp, but in the woods of eastern Poland" as a leader of successful Jewish resistance during World War II. Written to dispel the myth of Jewish passivity, Harold Werner recounts his experiences as a member of a large Jewish partisan unit, which aggressively conducted military missions against the German army in occupied Poland. The unit of young Jews, men and women, received air drops from the Russians, wiped out local German garrisons, blew up German trains, and even shot down German planes. In addition to their military sabotage, these partisans rescued Jews from ghetto imprisonment and slave labour detail and provided a safe haven in the Parczew Forest for other Jews who escaped the Nazi extermination camps. Few, if any, accounts of Jewish survival during the Holocaust describe such a rare combination of victorious military activities and humanitarian efforts in successful large-scale Jewish resistance against the Nazis. Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly The Jewish partisan unit to which Werner, who died in 1989, belonged--some 400 men and women led by a man named Chiel Grynszpan--operated in the woods of eastern Poland during WW II. Grynszpan's guerrillas performed acts of sabotage against the Germans (blowing up trains, convoys, bridges) and rescued Jews from the Wlodawa ghetto. When the Germans retreated, the Jewish partisans executed Polish civilians who had betrayed Jews in hiding to the Germans during the occupation. The most awesome aspect of this memoir is its stark depiction of the ferocious Polish anti-Semitism before and during the war. Nor did it abate after the war. Werner, who emigrated to the U.S., learned that two of his brothers had been clubbed to death by villagers when they returned to their homes. Told in simple, direct, unemotional language, the book is a valuable document that preserves a record of successful Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Photos. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review A tale of astonishing success--the small groups slowly grew, joined with other groups, and became a partisan force able to blow up bridges, attack German convoys, rescue other Jews, and exact revenge for earlier betrayals . . . This account has the authority of unvarnished human testimony; Mr. Werner's matter-of-fact tone makes the story he tells all the more horrifying. "A tale of astonishing success--the small groups slowly grew, joined with other groups, and became a partisan force able to blow up bridges, attack German convoys, rescue other Jews, and exact revenge for earlier betrayals... This account has the authority of unvarnished human testimony; Mr. Werner's matter-of-fact tone makes the story he tells all the more horrifying." -- "The New Yorker" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.