|
Review by Christopher Loss
Peter Masters' fine, first nonfiction work, "Striking Back: A Jewish Commando's War Against the Nazis," chronicles with exacting detail the never-before-told adventures of a unique troop that fought in this century's greatest battle, in its most horrifying war.
Not only was the British army's 3 Troop, 10 Commando one of the first Allied units to successfully penetrate Nazi defenses during the D-Day invasion of France on April 6, 1944, 3 Troop was quite certainly the only unit in the Allied forces comprised almost exclusively of exiled European Jews. The author, thankfully, has done more than merely recount the heroic deeds of his fellow 3 Troop soldiers. He has managed to address some widely held, and largely erroneous, perceptions concerning Jewish military involvement during World War II. Namely: When given the opportunity to fight the Nazis, Jews gladly took up arms. This achievement alone is a welcome addition to the ever-changing, and increasingly sophisticated, dialogue surrounding World War II history in general, and Jewish history in particular.
Born into a prosperous middle-class family of Viennese jewelers in 1922, Peter Arany, along with his parents and sister, fled to England following Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938.
After being temporarily detained at the war's outbreak in a British government-run alien enemy internment camp, Arany enthusiastically enlisted for duty in the British army upon his release. Along with 86 other multilingual European refugees, most of whom were Jews, Arany was chosen for training as an elite combat investigator, interpreter and intelligence operative for clandestine army activities.
In large part, "Striking Back" reads as a war years coming-of-age memoir, replete with familiar tales of grueling boot camp and homesickness.
Despite these minor plot contrivances, "Striking Back" has much to offer even the most knowledgeable reader. In the capable hands of the book's author, D-Day is revealed as much more than a battle between an American/British army and a debilitated German war machine. For once, Italian, French, African American and Jewish soldiers' stories share the same page. In the end, the Allied victory is understood as a wholly international repudiation of German Nazism.
One wishes, however, that the author would have pursued issues of Jewish identity and Holocaust memory at greater length. Then again, given what is known now concerning the Nazi's treatment of European Jews during World War II, we should be pleased enough to have this history at all.
©1998, ProMotion, inc.
Support your