Mila 18

When I first began the A-Z challenge, I came to the 'U' in the author list and I thought about a book I had read years ago by Leon Uris, Trinity, which was about the uprising in Northern Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. I knew he had written other books so I thought I would read one of his. When looking at what he has written, I came across Mila 18, described as a "blazing novel... set in the midst of the ghetto uprising that defied Nazi tyranny, as the Jews of Warsaw boldly met Wehrmacht tanks with homemade weapons and bare fists." That sounded interesting enough but the book exceeded all my expectations. The novel is based on the real Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943 and after reading this, I am very interested in reading historical accounts on which Uris based his book.

This stunning novel is set in Warsaw and begins with August 1939, weeks prior to the Nazi invasion of Poland. The reader is swiftly introduced to several sets of characters who are all important to the story. One of the most interesting characters is Andrei Androfski, a Captain in the Polish Army and a Jew, who is dating Gabriella Rak, a Polish Catholic woman who works at the American Embassy. Also important is Alexander Brandel, who we first meet through his journals chronicling the war and the life in Warsaw for the Jews. The reader sees the experiences of many people, from Horst von Epp, a German in charge of propaganda, to Paul Bronski, an academic who is set up as a puppet in the Jewish Civil Authority; from Wolf Brandel, the son of Alexander and a young man at the beginning of a terrible chapter in history, to Gunther Sauer, an officer in the Gestapo in charge of getting information from people.

While it may be difficult to balance this many characters on a normal basis, I found it very easy to keep track of who everyone was and how they were connected with one another. The story was very well told and, even though I knew in general terms how it had to end, I still had to keep reading to see what happened to the wonderful people in this terrible situation. This was a tragedy but not in the same way that so many recently published books have been. The tragedy seems almost incidental, somehow, while the main thrust of the book is about fighting against tyranny in many ways, even at the cost of your own life, and about finding nobility in the hardest situations one could ever face.

One note of comment is how Horst von Epp's character had very interesting comments and insights into the Nazi party and about how the world would react to the crimes of Nazi Germany. While some of them were mistaken, all of them are interesting to read in light of some knowledge of the past sixty some-odd years.

I loved this book and will have to pick up more of Uris' stories in the future.

Rating: 5.0