Overview
A story of Jewish resistance narrated during World War II through the shocking entries of a survivor’s diary. Defiant German, Defiant Jew is the story of Dr. Walter Leopold, a self-declared “revolutionary Jew”, imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1938 and miraculously released afterward. When he is pressured by the Gestapo to flee the country, he refuses. He would have spared himself and his family unimaginable hunger, thirst and fear. Yet, against all odds, they manage to survive as he silently opposes Nazi Germany from within. In 1942, even when Walter gains employment as an auditor in the Nazi Administration, he continues to agitate against Hitler undercover. He is then forced to round up stray Jews for deportation, carrying a concealed weapon at all times, willing to take his own life rather than be captured by the Gestapo. With a wife and a young child, he wages his lonely war inside the Third Reich where an errand word or an astute Nazi informer would mean certain death. With an introduction written by his nephew Les Leopold, the story of Dr. Leopold is finally released for the world to read and live the atrocities of the Holocaust through his lucid eyes.
Full Product Details
Author: Walter Leopold ,
Les Leopold
Publisher: Amsterdam Publishers
Imprint: Amsterdam Publishers
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.90cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.830kg
ISBN: 9789493056688
ISBN 10: 9493056686
Pages: 452
Publication Date: 01 September 2020
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
This book will keep you spell bound. Like sitting on the edge of your seat at a movie. You are scared for Walter and his family! Best of luck to Annalise and her family, God Bless You! - Brenda V. This is one of the most important books providing historical insight by a Holocaust survivor. Dr Leopold was an intelligent, courageous individual living with his wife and young daughter in Leipzig at the outbreak of WW II. His diary notes, held unread for decades by his daughter, finally came to light by those who could chronicle, translate and publish this profoundly poignant account of the unimaginable physical and emotional horrors faced daily by a German Jew in hiding. It took me longer than usual to read this book because I so often referred to the footnotes and other resources to obtain a clearer picture. This was like taking a semester long college seminar. - Bonnie The story of Walter Leopold and his family is truly an amazing one. Standing out among Holocaust stories, perhaps because so few of his fellow Jews escaped the way he did, this book accounts for how Mr. Leopold managed to evade deportation and pass for an Aryan long enough to see Hitler's and the Nazi regime's downfall in Germany/Austria. And his small family survived with him. This book was a very special read, a one of a kind I haven't experienced before. One can't help posing questions like What if Nazi Germany had not lost the war? How far would Walter have had to bow to the existing system to be able to survive? Would Walter and his family forever have been able to pass as Aryans, living in a society where every trace of their Jewish heritage had disappeared? They yearned for their lost Jewish community in Leipzig. What if their vigilance had slipped, exposing them to their enemies? Walter also gives us an inside view of what it is like to live in a totalitarian state for an extended period, although thanking the Almighty for the privilege of, after all, being alive to experience it. He describes it perhaps better than many other books I've read, with phrases like ... A tough test it is... a denial of self... . He shows great ability for reflection on behalf of the Allies and the European post-war future. The diary form, held together by the comments by Walter's nephew Les Leopold makes this a very exciting and informative read. I'm actually stunned because of all the complicated post-war issues this book presents.- Diddi
Author Information
Dr. Walter Leopold was born in 1898 in Ottweiler, Germany, the son of a cantor. Sincere about his Jewish faith but not orthodox, he fought in WWI for the German Imperial Army and received an Iron Cross for bravery in the Macedonia campaigns. After the war he attended Heidelberg University, earning his doctorate with the hope of serving in the new Weimar Republic. Finding his path blocked because of his religion he secured work within the Jewish community becoming the director of the Reichenheim Orphanage in Berlin. There he met his future wife, Hilda Bluemlein, a pediatric nurse and daughter of a prosperous factory owner in Leipzig. In 1930, they relocated to Leipzig where Walter worked in the Gemeinde - the city's semi-autonomous Jewish administration. Although his mother and two brothers emigrated to the United States after the Nazi's took power, Walter, Hilda and their daughter Anneliese, born in 1937, remained in Germany. As an anti-Fascist activist, Walter engaged in resistance activities throughout the war. His battle against the Nazi death machine is the story of this memoir. After graduating from Oberlin College and Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (MPA 1975), Les co-founded the Labor Institute (1976), a non-profit organization that designs research and educational programs on occupational safety and health, the environment and economics for unions, worker centers and community organizations. He is the author of Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice (Labor Institute Press, 2015), How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Financial Elites Get Away with Siphoning off America's Wealth (John Wiley and Sons, 2013); The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009); The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2006). The Mazzocchi story won the Independent Publisher Award for best biography
