Strangers in a Stranger Land
Hamilton Books (Verlag)
978-0-7618-7149-1 (ISBN)
A twelve-year-old boy named Peisach is snatched from his home in a shtetl near Vitebsk in 1842 and marched far away to be prepared for 25 years of service in the Russian Imperial Army. Six years later, he will be assigned to a garrison in Viipuri, a city in eastern Finland, where his children and grandchildren will be born. Upon his discharge, Peisach will survive by mending second-hand clothes and peddling them on the market square. His son, Mendel, a hat maker, will strive to avoid deportation and enter the middle class as Finland, a grand duchy of the Russia Empire, lurches towards independence while Russia tries to tighten the reins of control.
Peisach’s grandson, Benjamin, ends up in the absurd situation of fighting alongside German troops on the Eastern Front in WWII as an openly Jewish soldier in the Finnish army. Like the other 266 Jewish soldiers in the Finnish army at the time, he is in a no-win situation. If the Soviets succeed in occupying Finland, he will be killed or sent to a gulag; if the Germans win, he will be sent to a death camp. He is hopelessly in love with Rachel, who is serving in the Women’s Auxiliary and in as much danger as he is.
Through bravery, determination, strong leadership and luck, Finland avoids occupation in its three wars between 1939 and 1945, and its Jewish citizens survive unscathed except for the 23 who are felled in combat by enemy fire. The story of Finland’s Jews is unique, as is the story of their country’s survival on the razor’s edge between East and West. Whether read as a love story, a family chronicle, or the history of a little-known country and its tiny Jewish population, Strangers in a Stranger Land conveys the drama and complexity inherent in the dilemmas faced by this small country and its tiny Jewish minority as the Second World War approached and then engulfed them in bloody conflict the Finns tried hard to avoid.
John B. Simon is the author of To Become Somebody: Growing up against the Grain of Society and Kone’s Prince.
List of Figures
Preface
1. Iron Cross for a Jew?
2. Benjamin Reminisces about his Childhood
3. Vidablick
4. Peisach Loses Everything
5. Benjamin Remembers His Grandfather
6. Finland Becomes Part of the Russian Empire
7. Annus Mirabilis
8. Peisach Gets a Life
9. Correspondence after Camp
10. Benjamin Recalls His Family’s Return to Viipuri
11. Mendel’s Childhood
12. A Little Bird
13. Upheaval
14. Civil War
15. Finland Lurches Right
16. Benjamin Thinks Back on Hard Times
17. Mendel Becomes a Finn
18. Finland Recovers
19. Benjamin Reflects on the Rise of Zionism
20. Loyalty Parallax
21. Rachel Makes a Decision
22. David and the Refugee Situation
23. Benjamin Becomes the Man of the House
24. Benjamin Recalls His Adolescence
25. Europe in Turmoil
26. Lotta Training and Civil Guard Youth Camp
27. A Night on the Town
28. The Magical Summer of ‘39
29. Benjamin Recalls the Start of the Winter War
30. The Winter War Begins
31. Finland’s Survival at Risk
32. Benjamin Remembers Wartime Viipuri
33. A Bitter Peace
34. Finland’s Fragile Truce
35. Benjamin Reflects on His Altered Status
36. Hitler Changes His Mind
37. Pressure Mounts
38. A Night at the Theater
39. Afraid of Being Eaten by the Bear, the Lamb Lies Down with the Wolf
40. Miracles Sometimes Happen
41. Benjamin on Heroism and Fear
42. Benjamin Goes to War
43. Rachel Crosses the Border
44. David’s Battlefront Diary
45. Finland Walks a Tightrope
46. Tent Synagogue on the German Front
47. “Those Eight”
49. Benjamin’s Recollections of the Trench War
49. Rachel Meets the Steinbocks
50. The Worm Turns
51. The Beginning of the End
52. Waiting
53. Against Overwhelming Odds
54. All Hell Breaks Loose
55. What Price Peace?
57. Aftermath
About the Author
Erscheinungsdatum | 27.09.2019 |
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Verlagsort | Lanham, MD |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 153 x 227 mm |
Gewicht | 767 g |
Themenwelt | Literatur ► Historische Romane |
Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen | |
Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945 | |
Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte | |
ISBN-10 | 0-7618-7149-7 / 0761871497 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-7618-7149-1 / 9780761871491 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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