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Mila 18

Mila 18

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Everyone should read this book.
Review: This is the only book I've ever read that has mae me cry. It was exetrely touching, and showed the bravery and detrmination of a people struggling to survive. This book is a must for everyone, espicially those who have read and enjoyed 'Exodus', also by Leon Uris. The spirit of the bravery of the Jews captured in 'Exodus' also comes alive here. I would whole-heartily recommend this book to anyone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Amazing
Review: There is not much I can say about Mila 18 except WOW. This was the first Uris book I read and it has made me his fan forever. Mila 18 is such a powerful account of the Polish Jews, the Ghetto, and what they had to do to protect themselves from the Nazis. I will never forget the scenes in the bunkers, in the rafters, and in the sewers. These stories are not exclusive to the Warsaw Ghetto, but repeat themselves all over Europe during Hitler's reign. A perfect companion piece to Mila 18 is Exodus, also by Uris, in which he tells us of the birth of Israel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Should be standard issue to each human on planet Earth.
Review: I have 100 pages left to go in Mila 18, and have been moved so much from this book that I must add my coments to others here. This book should be read by everyone on our planet as standard education for what humans can do to other humans. (I am sure there are other great books, also, that cover the atrocities of WW2 and the Jews, etc.)

Anyone who reads this book, and does not come away with a new found respect for their fellow man, as well as a new desire to be kind and fair to all, should be shot themselves.

It will change your viewpoint of not only Judaism and Nazi-ism, but the rights of people and how we should act to one another. And, just how bad it can really get.

Read it if you dare.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE BEST AND HEAVIEST BOOK I EVER READ!!
Review: A GREAT READ, A MUST READ, A DIFFICULT READ. I HAD TO PUT THE BOOK down 3 TIMES ON MY COMMUTE WITH TEARS IN MY EYES. This book will give me some of strongest and most lasting memories, and I have read a lot on the holocaust. This time you can really feel for the characters and their plight. Mila 18 can make you hate and runs the gammet on emotions.

It is important and we have all heard it before that we never forget, so that we never repeat. But history repeates itself over and over again. similar situations are going on in 1999, just not as obvious.

AS THE NEW YORK TIMES SAYS ON THE BACK COVER "A VERY IMPORTANT BOOK."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant, simply brilliant
Review: Never have I been so profoundly moved by a book. Each character, each scene, each situation is beautifully thought out and admirably expressed. The book gave me many happy hours of reading and re-reading! and I'd like to thank Leon Uris for this masterpiece which has so profoundly and completely altered my view of historical events as well as of life and death. Thankyou for letting me know that men and women of the likes of Andrei and Simon and Deborah and Gaby existed. Through them I have seen new worlds.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Strong on fiction, weak on facts
Review: I have given the book a 7 based on a combined rating of 9 for sheer readability and pleasure, but a 5 for historic accuracy and attention to detail. First, about the 9. The book is a most enjoyable one to read. It will capture the reader from the first moment. From this standpoint, I recommend the book highly.

But, I have problems with the author's cavalier way of mixing fact with fiction, opinion, and bias. Comparing Mila 18 to "Poland" by Mitchener (just an example), Mitchener heavily annotates his historical novel with chapter notes which separate the fact from the fiction. That is most helpful for someone who wishes to keep historic facts clearly in mind.

The main complaint I have is the somewhat questionable characterization of the relationship between the Polish Jews and the non-Jewish Polish population.

I am not suggesting that there was not serious discrimination at work. There was. But extending this to an anatogism between ghetto resistance efforts and the Polish Home Army is, I believe going to far and defiles the memory of many who made sincere efforts to deal as responsible human beings (on both sides of the Jewish - Christian divide).

Mila 18 suggests that the Polish underground army was antagonistic and openly anti-Semitic to the point of refusing much help and stealing money. He portrays the commander of the Home Army (presumably Bor-Kormorowski) as an effete snob who had no use for the chief protagonist of Mila 18. As a matter of historic fact, Bor-Komorowski had been the commander of the Polish cavalry unit that the book's protagonist (Andrei) was also an officer of. They would have known each other.

In fact, it would seem that Polish underground people went to considerable personal risk to get the stories of atrocities out of Poland to the government in London. Bor-Kormorowski evinces anger over the initial refusal of the BBC to tell these stories of what was going on in places like Auschwitz and in the Warsaw Ghetto (as well as stories of the ! horrors being perpetrated by the "ally," Stalin).

For another slant on this story, I refer any reader to "The Secret Army" by Bor-Kormorowski. Some of the ghetto fighting scenes described in Mila 18 conform in detail to those reported in the Secret Army.

Uris protrays civilian life outside the ghetto wall in Warsaw as close to "normal." Other histories tell stories of quite a different nature, albeit that life inside the ghetto was far, far worse. But life outside it was not normal. The occupying Nazis had successfully driven a wedge into Polish society by the imposition of terror in the camps, in the ghetto, and in civilian society in general. Uris seems to discount the possibility that non Jewish Warsaw civilians and resistance people alike could not help much because it was well beyond their capability to do so. Reading between the lines in The Secret Army, I get the impression that Bor-Kormorowski regrets not having been able to do more for people he seemed to hold in genuine respect.

Finally, I think that Uris also soils the memory of Emmanuel Ringelblum, the diarist of the Warsaw Ghetto upon whom I presume he models the structure of Mila 18 (it is built around diary entries). He does not mention Ringelblum in the dedication to the book, nor does his name appear anywhere in the book. Although I recognize that Ringelblum came under considerable criticism within certain Jewish schools of thought after the War, and is considered a "controversial" figure (because he did not advocate more resistance earlier), I think Ringelblum is much to be admired. The question of passivity is a theme addressed obliquely in Mila 18, and is a topic of some soul searching by Ringelblum as well (he was executed well after the ghetto uprising had been put down). My own view is that Uris should have paid Ringelblum some tribute for his contributions to Mila 18, a book that largely paraphrases the Ringelblum "Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto."

That's why I give! Mila 18 a 5 on historic accuracy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Absolutely Fantastic & Moving Work of Historical Fiction
Review: Mila 18 is a wonderfully written novel, that I found superior to Uris' most famous work, Exodus, in both storyline and writing style. The character development is excellent, which makes the reader truly "invested" in the welfare of the book's major players. I can't recall having read another book that managed to increase my pulse rate during tense moments, or actually bring me to tears (unexpectedly!) quite like Mila 18. For under $7 -- this is a no-brainer (an enriching experience, unlike your typical similarly priced movie ticket!). Enjoy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: Uris' Mila 18 is an excellent book about both the worst and finest hour in the history of the Jews.(The true story of the Ghetto uprising is told at the Holocaust museum in Washington DC and it is very easy to recognize who's who in Uris' book) Interestingly, it was the anniversary of the Ghetto uprising that added the first holy day to the Jewish calendar in almost 3,000 years. Uris does a superb job of telling the story of this little known part of Judaic history.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the most gripping books I've ever read!
Review: This book is fantastic. I learned so much about the struggles and plight of the Jewish in the ghettos while also being thoroughly intrigued by the story. This book, along with Trinity, demonstrates how Uris can make his reader feel so much a part of the story.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 100% gripping all the way through - totally un-missable!
Review: I have now read this book again and again. Very few authors seem to have been able to pull off fiction based on this period, yet Mila 18 is totally believable and really gets the reader desperate to get to the next page - whilst still unable to skip a single word! I even went to Warsaw to visit the site of the ghetto, which was a pretty direct result of reading this book. If you only ever read one more book - make it this one


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