In Our Own Hands - The Hidden Story Of The Jewish Brigade In World War II

Summary

It is the final weeks of World War II.  His Majesty's Jewish Brigade - the only all-Jewish fighting unit in the war - goes into combat against the hated Nazis...and comes away victorious.   For three years the Jews of Palestine had asked the British Government for permission to form a Jewish unit.  Finally, in 1944, Churchill overrode the objections of the War Office and within a year, the Brigade was seeing action against the Germans in Italy.  It is after the war, though, that the real story of the Brigade begins. Amidst the chaos of post-war Europe, and under the noses of the occupying Allied armies, the young Jewish soldiers mastermind one clandestine operation after the next: forming secret vengeance squads to assassinate Nazi officers in hiding...engineering the rescue and illegal movement of Holocaust survivors to Palestine.  Later, in 1948, Brigade veterans help organize and lead the fledgling Israel Defense Forces in their new country's War of Independence. From the trenches of Northern Italy to the refugee camps of war-torn Europe, In Our Own Hands unravels the thrilling tale of young Jewish soldiers who carried the weight of a people on their shoulders.