A Jew in the Woods

Of the 35,000 Lithuanian Jews trapped by the Germans in the Kovno Ghetto, most did not survive. Berl Kagan, a 34-year-old journalist and political activist, was among the few who escaped the ghetto before it was liquidated. Yet this bid for freedom was only the first step in a protracted quest to cheat almost-certain death. With his wife and sister-in-law, Kagan spent nine months in the forest, facing near-starvation, freezing temperatures, and the ever-present threat of capture and murder. The Red Army was advancing- but how many miracles would it take to see the day of liberation?

Over the course of those dark, intrepid months, Kagan somehow kept a journal, recording his day-to-day life with unflinching lucidity and eloquence. The experience of Jews who fled to the woods of Eastern Europe during the Holocaust is little documented- but here we have an electrifying, real-time account of, in the author' s words, " one long, horror-filled drama." Both riveting and ashimmer with moral beauty and hope, A Jew in the Woods is an astonishing testament to the resilience of the human spirit.