The porous wartime record of a man of extraordinary heroism,
conviction, and psychotheological confusion. The only recommended
aspect of this biography is the plot outline. We get, in the person
of Oswald Rufiesen, a war hero turned monk, an Israeli who wore the
Nazi uniform, and a Jew who is a Catholic priest: While the
narrative lines of so many WW II memoirs seem comparatively less
compelling, author Tec (Sociology/U. of Conn. at Stamford) does not
successfully compensate for the intimacy and drama provided in
those first-person accounts. In a rather dry, almost journalistic,
tone, we read about Rufiesen's secular Jewish upbringing in
Austrian-occupied Poland. It is difficult to be shocked
subsequently by Rufiesen's conversion to Christianity and service
with the German police when we find young Oswald attending church
with Christian friends and immersed in German culture at school.
There is some interest generated in the subject's underground
activities for Poles and Jews, and some fine documentation of
Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi mass murders. Given the later
emphasis on Rufiesen's oxymoronic religious identity, however, Tec
- herself a WW II survivor, who spent the war years in Poland
passing as a Christian - misses the opportunity to delve into her
subject's complex psyche and his subsequent motivations for
conversion, taking monastic vows, and emigration to Israel. At a
time when overburdened publishers are turning down Holocaust
memoirs by our last remaining survivors, it is sad to see a
biography lacking craft and insight getting published on the merit
of its quirkiness. (Kirkus Reviews)
Few lives shed more light on the complex relationship between Jews
and Christians during and after the Holocaust--or provide a more
moving portrait of courage--than Oswald Rufeisen's. A Jew passing
as a Christian in occupied Poland, Rufeisen worked as translator
for the German police--the very people who rounded up and murdered
the Jews--and repeatedly risked his life to save hundreds from the
Nazis. In this gripping biography, Nechama Tec, a widely acclaimed
writer on the Holocaust, recounts Rufeisen's remarkable
story.
A youth of seventeen when World War II began, Rufeisen joined the
exodus of Poles who fled the approaching German army. Tec vividly
describes how Rufeisen used his ability to speak fluent German to
pass as half German and half Polish in Mir, where he came to serve
as translator and personal secretary to the German in charge of the
gendarmerie. As he carried out his duties--reading death sentences
to prisoners, swearing in new police officers before a portrait of
Hitler--he earned the trust and affection of the German commander,
yet lived in constant fear of discovery. He used his position to
pass secret information to Jews and Christians about impending
"aktions" and to sabatoge Nazi plans. Most notably, he thwarted the
annihilation of the Mir ghetto by arming hundreds of doomed Jews
and organizing their escape, and saved an entire Belorussian
village from destruction. Denounced, Rufeisen escaped and found
shelter in a convent, where he converted to Catholicism. Though a
pacifist, he spent the rest of the war fighting in a Russian
partisan unit.
After the war, Father Daniel (as he is now known) became a priest
and a Carmelite monk. Identifying himself as aChristian Jew and an
ardent Zionist, he moved to Israel, where he challenged the Law of
Return in a case that reached the High Court and attracted
international attention. Today he continues to devote himself to
bridging the gap between Christians and Jews.
In the Lion's Den offers a stirring portrait of a Jewish rescuer
during the Holocaust and its aftermath, illuminating the intricate
connections between good and evil, cruelty and compassion, and
Judaism and Christianity.
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