The Minsk Ghetto, 1941-1943: Jewish Resistance And Soviet Internationalism

"Barbara Epstein has written a revelatory book. Arduously and carefully, she brings to light and to life an aspect of the Holocaust in Belorussia that we did not know, showing us that the victims were not only victims but also fighters. And so were a good many people who were not Jews, yet joined with them to resist Nazi brutality."--Frances Fox Piven, author of "Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America"
"When historian Barbara Epstein traveled to Minsk to learn Yiddish, the language of her ancestors, she got more than she bargained for. An amazing, forgotten story emerged that ran against the grain of almost all accounts of the Holocaust. "The Minsk Ghetto" is an invaluable, and deeply moving addition to Holocaust and World War II history."--Richard Walker, author of "The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area"
"This richly researched, beautifully written account of one of the most important instances of inter-ethnic solidarity and resistance in face of the Holocaust packs an analytic punch as powerful as its emotional one."--Leo Panitch, author of "Renewing Socialism: Democracy, Strategy and Imagination"

Drawing from engrossing survivors' accounts, many never before published, "The Minsk Ghetto 1941-1943 "recounts a heroic yet little-known chapter in Holocaust history. In vivid and moving detail, Barbara Epstein chronicles the history of a Communist-led resistance movement inside the Minsk ghetto, which, through its links to its Belarussian counterpart outside the ghetto and with help from others, enabled thousands of ghetto Jews to flee to the surrounding forests where they joined partisan units fighting the Germans. Telling a story that stands in stark contrast to what transpired across much of Eastern Europe, where Jews found few reliable allies in the face of the Nazi threat, this book captures the texture of life inside and outside the Minsk ghetto, evoking the harsh conditions, the life-threatening situations, and the friendships that helped many escape almost certain death. Epstein also explores how and why this resistance movement, unlike better known movements at places like Warsaw, Vilna, and Kovno, was able to rely on collaboration with those outside ghetto walls. She finds that an internationalist ethos fostered by two decades of Soviet rule, in addition to other factors, made this extraordinary story possible.