UNCLE MISHA'S PARTISANS

by Yuri Suhl ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1973

To win a place among Uncle Misha's Partisans, Motele is willing to do anything -- even keep up his appetite while eating from a swastika imprinted mess kit which one of the band has taken from a dead Nazi. Soon Motele's fluent Ukrainian and village boy's knowledge of gentile ways earn him a far more difficult mission. Motele, now transformed into Mitek, is hired as a violinist for the German officers' mess and finds himself playing the Horst Wessel song in a Nazi uniform while passing information back to his friends in the forest. In the end, Motele has his triumphant revenge when -- calling on his murdered sister as a witness -- he plants a bomb in the officers' quarters. For Motele and the rest of Misha's partisans resistance has become a sacred commitment to their exterminated families and a ncessary part of their survival in the forest. Luckily Motele escapes capture (and is even spared the decision of whether to kill a pro-Nazi musician who befriended him), and the suspense of his dangerous assignment is sublimated in the strong spirit of comradeship shared by the fugitives who gather in the forest to celebrate a wedding, sing. the ringing Partizaner Lied, and hope that at least some of them will live to dance on Hitler's grave.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Four Winds

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION