Warsaw

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This bulging first novel collapses under the freight of an overpopulous cast, leaden pacing and clumsy prose. In WW II Warsaw, Jewish resistance leader Abrahmsp ok Bankart proves so dangerous a foe that the Nazis dispatch an officer to ferret him out. Posing as a Jew, SS Lieutenant Eugen Glueck infiltrates the ghetto, where his suffering and his exposure to the tragedies of the Underground foment an unlikely revulsion for his own cause. Characters are lost amid a sprawling set, and loose ends abound--the unexplained murder of a Jewish girl sent to a convent for safekeeping; the ineffectual machinations of a resistance fighter who doesn't look Jewish; the ominous introduction of Nazis who mysteriously fade from view. The language is ponderous and sloppy (``Victor's discussion of resistance had also progressively declined in substantiality''); unnecessary details about dress and food further retard the plot. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Re-creating the heroism of the Warsaw ghetto, Litewka recounts the life of resistance leader Abrahm Bankart, whose legendary exploits have humiliated the Nazis. Obsessed with Bankart's capture, the Germans disguise SS officer Eugen Glueck as a Jew and send him into the ghetto to find their nemesis. As the narrative alternates between Glueck's search and the struggles of Bankart and his friends to survive, a portrait of indomitable human will emerges. The courage of well-drawn protagonists, such as Rabbi Isaac, who sacrifices himself to save his nephew, and Sonya and Heykel, willing to have a child despite the madness around them--will long remain with the reader despite the novel's inevitable ending. Highly recommended for public libraries.-- Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kans.