A Jew in the Woods (Pages from a Diary)

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.