Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful book!!
Review: I've enjoyed many Leon Uris novels, but of them all, I consider Mila 18 to be his best. The Leon Uris trademark of a meticulously researched historic background coupled with one of the most action-packed stories he's ever written makes this book nearly impossible to put down. The novel focuses on the gradual tightening of the "Nazi noose" round the collective necks of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. The central character, Andrei Androfski, struggles with Jewish leadership, urging the Jews to fight before it's too late. Finally, when it is actually too late to hope for the survival of more than a handful, the Jews DO fight, and HOW THEY FIGHT!! What a story!!!
Rating:
Summary: Very well told story of jews in WW2 Warszaw. Don't miss it!
Review: Mila 18 tells the story of a couple of jew families and how their lives evolve in differebt direction when the germans attack in september 1939. Some chose to support the germans, not knowing what would come. The book is very well told and has you turning pages at a fearsome rate in the end. The remaining i.e. those that are not sent to camps jews fight a heroic battle from their milas beneath the earth.
Read it
Rating:
Summary: URIS AT HIS BEST!!!!
Review: Uris at his best, writing about one of the worst subjects possible... This book turned me into a total fan of Uris, and after that I read all his books.It's a page-turner, no doubt about that, even considering the fact that you'll stop reading a lot of times, when you're feeling tears come into your eyeswith the vivid descriptions of brutality, courage, evil, heroism, doubts, murder and despari. I think this is one of the best novels ever written in all times. Uris did no use the now usual habit of makin" historic-fiction" and giving his characters real names. He did not put Mordechai Aneilewicz as the leader of the Jewish resistance. He "created" Andrei. That was a wish choice, to give him more dramatic freedom without eventually hurting the memories of someone by accident. A marvellous book.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Humanistic Portrayal of the Holocaust
Review: I read this book at the recommendation of a friend, who said it was the best book she'd ever read. I was a little sceptical, having read some of Uris' other works and liked them but was not thrilled with them.
Overall the book gives brilliant insight in the first person to the Jewish experience prior to the entry of the U.S. in WWII. The first half of the book is dedicated to character development and is done so well that you do not easily forget who is who after meeting them the first time. The characters are believable and their actions are completely within their character and philosophy. This section of the book also gives insight into the different factions of Jews and how they differed from each other on the subject of a Jewish State. The info. is remarkably accurate historically and is woven into the story with the same literary prose that the characters are presented.
The second half of the book is dedicated to the Jewish experience within the Warsaw ghetto, which was the largest of the Jewish ghettos in Europe and which saw the largest loss of Jewish life. While the first half of the book is both necessary and interesting in a factual sort of way, the second half moves quickly in its action and is hard to put down. One can envision thousands of Jews standing in lines waiting to be shipped out on trains like cattle to the death camps, or sloshing through the filth in the sewers in a unlikely break to freedom. The imagery never ceases and is probably why a movie could never do this story justice.
The only disappointment I had was that Funk never got his due (like many Nazi's of that time). Because of the foreshadowing earlier in the book I had expected a more bloody outcome for this character. I would also have expected a more dramatic ending for Andrei, rather than his end being left mostly to the imagination, although his demise is foreshadowed from almost the first chapter (those who live by the sword die by the sword).
Ultimately, this book has made it to my top 10 best reads, which include such works as The Brothers Karamazov, Dr. Zhivago and The Grapes of Wrath.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I read as a child
Review: People who complain that real names and historical figures should have been used in this book instead of making people up are missing what this book is all about. It in no way detracts from the heroism of people like Mordekhai Anielewicz (who led the ZOB, the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, Jewish Fighters Organisation, and published the Ghetto's newspaper 'Against the Stream'), Janusz Korczak (the director of the orphanage), and Emanuel Ringelblum (the Ghetto's diarist). These fictional characters are modeled after them, and because they're fictional, there's more leeway to write about them, instead of worrying over offending their heirs' estates or if it's historically accurate to write about them doing and saying things they might not have done, or being somewhere at a certain time when they weren't there. This is why it's historical fiction, not non-fiction. And it's just easier to work with fictional characters instead of inserting real-life historical personages in there as well.
About half of the Jewish population of Europe who were murdered by the Nazis came from Poland; Polish Jewry fared the worst of any group in an occupied European nation. Poland was not an enlightened Western European nation like France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark, Norway, or Finland, which had a long history of tolerance and interaction with Jewish neighbours and therefore had more people who were in the underground, partisan fighting units, or who were willing to hide Jews, nor did they have a brave head of state like King Boris III of Bulgaria who refused to hand over the nation's Jews to the Nazis; though King Boris was soon afterwards found suspiciously dead, none of the Jews in Bulgaria were touched. Poland had a long history of anti-Semitism, sectarianism, intolerance, superstition, and segregation. Almost no one on the Aryan side was willing to help those trapped inside of the Warsaw Ghetto under increasingly worse and worse conditions, even after the deportations begin, a report on the death camps is smuggled to the outside, and the uprising begins. When the Ghetto is set on fire on the tenth day of the uprising, the fire department only puts out the stray sparks that fly over the wall into the Aryan surroundings. The people in the Ghetto have to look out for their own, and they pull off overthrowing the cowardly collaborators in the Big Seven, Jewish Civil Authority, and Jewish Militia, taking over the slave-labour factories within the Ghetto, creating bunkers deep underground, creating deadly weapons, taking control of the Ghetto, and eventually staging the uprising, all by themselves, with only a handful of Gentiles who are willing to help. In the end all of the disparate forces--Socialists, Communists, religious, atheists, back-to-nature Zionists, Socialist Zionists, etc.--came together and fought and died under the same banner. They held out longer than any of the nations conquered by the Nazis had.
My only minor criticism is that not all of these names are spelt the way they would be in Poland (Andrei instead of Andrzej, Paul instead of Pawel, Susan instead of Zuzanna, for example), but that's really a moot point in comparison to how these people came together and put aside their differences to fight a common enemy, staged a revolt on their own, held a mighty military power at bay longer than professional armies had, dealt a devastating blow to the Nazis' theory that Jews could not fight, and how even though it ended in eventual defeat, it sent a loud and clear message that they could fight and had avenged their honour as a people, fighting under their own flag for the first time in almost two thousand years.
Rating:
Summary: A portrait of agonizing courage and leadership
Review: Interesting Trivia: Joseph Heller's novel "Catch-22" was originally named "Catch-18." MILA 18 was published just before Catch-22, and as a result, Heller renamed his novel "Catch-22" to distinguish it form Uris'. Otherwise, we would be calling confounding and circular situations a "Catch-18." This is story telling at its best. The reader is completely swept up in the unfolding drama. I felt angry at those who turned a blind eye to the Ghetto, and relieved when the characters made it through one more day. The heart of the story is the debate within the Ghetto about how to fight back against the German oppressors. This is what makes the story so dramatic. Each character, whether it is Andrai the warrior or Alex who advocates peaceful resistance, or the Rabbi who advocates prayer, is right at one point in time. I think the overwhelming theme is leadership. How a small group of ordinary citizens got past their differences, and in turn, held off the world's biggest army for months. The suffering and desperation in the Ghetto life is made clear through the exposition of the relationships between the characters. Other Warsaw Ghetto memoirs have described the hunger, the stifling air of the attics and bunkers, the constant fear in greater detail. But Uris reveals the courage of those who stood to resist, each in her or his own way and each after having boxed her or his own conscience. May of us can imagine ourselves a hero. For me, the question is, would I able to put the lives of my family on the line as well? Simply put, I don't think so. Mila 18 portrays the strength of those who not only sacrificed their own lives, but loved each other fiercely while wholly cognizant of the fact that their actions could endanger the object of their love. For me, that is ultimate sacrifice. I also came to very much appreciate the deeper need of the Ghetto inhabitants to preserve Jewish culture. Indeed, they rightly feared that Jewish culture was being wiped out, and that the nobility of the Ghetto resistance would be lost to the world forever after. The story of sneaking the Christian out of the Ghetto, the one person who knows where the diaries of the ghetto are buried, could be a novel in and of itself. The decisions about who would be saved, and at what cost, are ones that I pray I never have to face. I've followed the debate on the most stirring scene in the book on these pages, and I want to add my two cents. For me, it was the Passover seder in the Mila 18 bunker. There was enough space for some 70 people, and more than 150 had crammed in. The Orthodox Rabbi, the one much maligned by characters in the book and by reviewers on this page, leads the seder under these conditions. And indeed, the Nazis passed over the secret bunker doors that night. And this gentile wept with relief after reading that they did so.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best
Review: MILA 18 has long held a place in my personal Top Ten. So many Holocaust stories have been written that at times the process seems almost trivialized. And this saga-like tale from Uris is a familiar one - Jewish persecution/extermination and their response in WWII Poland. But the author somehow plumbs the depth of our emotions as he describes in an unrelenting yet calm tones the consequences of evil. He does this while at the same time exploring the things we most associate with being "human" - love, bravery, family, religion, sacrifice. There will never be another scene written like the one in which the Deborah, now blind and near the end, is comforted by the children's song from her brother. It is just breath-taking, stunning in its simplicity, stirring the emotions as few passages can do. The narrative is told via the viewpoint of the foreign author/journalist who becomes an unwitting hero in the struggle against evil. There is no way to accurately describe how "real" the characters become - one could almost see Gabriella waiting at the local outdoor restaurant. These people are alive in the fullest sense of the word, flesh and blood, yearning to be free. This novel surpasses EXODUS or QB VII and is far superior to any of his later works. A must for any serious reader.
|
