Jack Kagan & Dov Cohen, ‘Surviving the Holocaust with the Russian Jewish Partisans (2023)

Two cousins relate their experiences with Bielski’s partisan brigade in war-torn Russia during the Second World War. Natives of Novogrodek, part of present-day Belarus, they describe Jewish life before the Holocaust and furnish a most moving account of how a thriving and prosperous Jewish centre was destroyed by the Nazis and local collaborators. Initial joy when their hometown was taken over by the Soviet Union soon disappeared when the Germans ran the Russians out of town and started implementing policies to eradicate all Jews and anything Jewish.