Jewish Military History Book Club
Purpose of the club – Review books about American and other Jews who have made significant contributions to military history as well as books on Jewish military history.
This book club is a project of the Jewish War Veterans Post 256 Patriotism Committee.
December’s book: Comrades Betrayed by Michael Geheran
At the end of 1941, six weeks after the mass deportations of Jews from Nazi Germany had begun, Gestapo offices across the Reich received an urgent telex from Adolf Eichmann, decreeing that all war-wounded and decorated Jewish veterans of World War I be exempted from upcoming “evacuations.” Why this was so, and how Jewish veterans at least initially were able to avoid the fate of ordinary Jews under the Nazis, is the subject of Comrades Betrayed.
Michael Geheran deftly illuminates how the same values that compelled Jewish soldiers to demonstrate bravery in the front lines in World War I made it impossible for them to accept passively, let alone comprehend, persecution under Hitler. After all, they upheld the ideal of the German fighting man, embraced the fatherland, and cherished the bonds that had developed in military service. Through their diaries and private letters, as well as interviews with eyewitnesses and surviving family members and records from the police, Gestapo, and military, Michael Geheran presents a major challenge to the prevailing view that Jewish veterans were left isolated, neighborless, and having suffered a social death by 1938.
Tracing the path from the trenches of the Great War to the extermination camps of the Third Reich, Geheran exposes a painful dichotomy: while many Jewish former combatants believed that Germany would never betray them, the Holocaust was nonetheless a horrific reality. In chronicling Jewish veterans’ appeal to older, traditional notions of comradeship and national belonging, Comrades Betrayed forces reflection on how this group made use of scant opportunities to defy Nazi persecution and, for some, to evade becoming victims of the Final Solution.
Club moderator
Marc Liebman, a retired Navy Captain and Naval Aviator who is a Vietnam and Desert Storm combat veteran. He is the author of 10 successful novels, four of which were Amazon #1 Best Sellers. He is an amateur historian who has been writing and lecturing about American Jews who have made significant contributions to American Military History.
How to participate:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82876295182?pwd=QUkwWUNOMndGZEd2MDNYV2hySGRLQT09
Meeting ID: 828 7629 5182
Passcode: 305833
One tap mobile
+13462487799,,82876295182#,,,,*305833# US (Houston)
+12532158782,,82876295182#,,,,*305833# US (Tacoma)
Dial by your location
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
Contact for more information
Marc Liebman
Telephone – (214) 403 8093
Email – marc@marcliebman.com
