This book is a moving testimony to a world that no longer exists. It recreates the richness of life in a Jewish shtetl before the German invasion without sentimentality. It documents the savage destruction of this Jewish world with the aid of documents, photographs, and family memoirs, and includes stories of extraordinary bravery and survival. - Dr Joanna Newman, Executive Director, London Jewish Cultural Centre --- Jack Kagan was born in Novogrudok, when it was a town in inter-war Poland. He was there when it became part of the Soviet Union in 1939, and when the German army marched in, in 1941. ... This book is a remarkable and lasting memorial to four hundred years of Jewish life, edited with devotion. - Sir Martin Gilbert, Honorary Fellow, Merton College, Oxford --- This book ... is a tribute of love from a citizen to his native town. It is a valuable document which brings greater understanding to the terrible course of events that brought so much misery and suffering to the J

Two cousins recall the all-Jewish partisan group and describe life in pre-war Novgrodek, which is in modern-day Belarus. Jack Kagan uses archive material to throw light on the history of the Jews in eastern Europe. This second edition has a new preface and appendix.

"This book serves as a historical guide, as an account of a much-neglected aspect of Jewish history - Jewish resistance - and a memorial to those Jews who fought, and those who fell, in the battle for freedom." Sir Martin Gilbert "This book is a document in itself as it is based on archival materials. It is the first attempt of Belarusian scholars, in cooperation with Mr. Jack Kagan, a former Bielski partisan, to introduce the Jewish resistance in Belarus to researchers and to make it available to the English speaking reader." Tamara Vershitskaya, Director of the Museum of History and Regional Studies in Novogrudok and Jewish Resistance Museum, Belarus