Do Not Go Gentle: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance in Poland, 1941-1945

Forty years after the Holocaust reached his hometown of Kurenits in Poland, near the Soviet border, the author writes about his experience in the resistance movement. Without aid of a diary, which, he notes, may account for minor inaccuracies or omissions, Gelman describes his escape as a teenager into the forest where eventually he met up with the partisans, and joined the organized force that attacked German outposts. Although concentrating on those who fought back, he also examines the psychological warfare that silenced other Jews and gave the appearance of acquiescence in their own destruction. The memoir is a contribution to the literature of the Holocaust, but, unfortunately, with its one-note prose and plodding unselectivity, it is expressive of the author's fear of being ``inadequate in conveying to the reader the depths of terror and despair we experienced under the Germans.'' (Aug.)