By Dorothy Leivers
First-person accounts of the participation of Jewish fighters during World War II.
Road to Victory: Jewish Soldiers in the 16th Lithuanian Division
Road to Victory: Jewish Soldiers of the 16th Lithuanian Division is one of the few books written about Eastern European Jews who volunteered to fight as soldiers during World War II. The book contains first-person accounts about the participation of Lithuanian Jews who fought in the 16th Lithuanian Division of the Red Army. Through their accounts they represent the large corps of 4,500 Jewish fighters—men and women alike—who took arms in the battlefields of World War II in order to destroy the enemy as well as to liberate the remnants of Lithuanian Jewry—the survivors of the Shoah. A good number of stories are written by or about women who fought in the war. Professor Dov Levin, himself a partisan and possibly the world authority on the Jews of Lithuania, wrote the first article in the book.
In addition to the personal accounts, there is a yizkor (memorial) section listing 1,215 soldiers who died, giving their name, father’s given name, year of birth, rank, date and place of death. All told some 2,500 people are mentioned in the book. There is an index of persons (yizkor section excluded).
The book was originally compiled in Yiddish and then translated into Hebrew. Dorothy Leivers, author of The Jews of Kopcheve (Lithuania) also published by Avotaynu, has organized and edited this English language translation. The cover is a replica of the Hebrew version of the book with text adapted in English.
This is a readable history, rich in details both for historians and genealogists.
7" x 10" 376 pp. softcover $39.00