cover image The Anti-Warrior: A Memoir

The Anti-Warrior: A Memoir

Milt Felsen. University of Iowa Press, $20 (271pp) ISBN 978-0-87745-241-6

Keenly observed and highly readable, independent film producer Felsen's memoir recalls the Spanish Civil War and WW II. As an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, Felsen's antifascism overrode his pacifism and, in 1937, he was among the 36 young men who volunteered to fight Franco as members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Felsen became an ambulance driver, a role which inevitably recalls the war exploits of Hemingway, who makes a couple of cameo appearances in the book. From the unique vantage point of the young soldier, WW II was but a continuation of the Spanish Civil War. As a prisoner of war in Stalag 17, Felsen the atheist ponders his Jewishness and ironically concludes that anti-Semitism has been an impetus for Jewish survival. At points, the volume sags under the weight of the author's political rhetoric. But the absorbing details and dialogue powerfully merge to shape a narrative that records history in the making. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)