Red Partisan

Book excerpt: A memoir of a Soviet artist who became a resistance fighter against Nazi Germany during World War II. The epic World War II battles between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are the subject of a vast literature, but little has been published in English on the experiences of ordinary Soviets?civilians and soldiers?who were sucked into a bitter conflict that marked their lives forever. Their struggle for survival, and their resistance to the invaders’ brutality in the occupied territories, is one of the great untold stories of the war. Written late in the author’s life, Nikolai Obryn’ba’s unforgettable, intimate memoir tells of Operation Barbarossa, during which he was taken prisoner; the horrors of SS prison camps; his escape; his war fighting behind German lines as a partisan; and the world of suffering and tragedy around him. His perceptive, uncompromising account lays bare the everyday reality of war on the Eastern Front. Praise for Red Partisan “[Obryn’ba’s] descriptions of life in a German POW camp offer unique insights into a little-discussed aspect of the Eastern Front.” —Military Review “Obryn’ba’s simple and candid yet gripping memoir presents a credible mosaic of vivid images of life in the Red Army during the harrowing first few months of war and unprecedented details about his participation in the brutal but shadowy partisan war that raged deep in the German army’s rear. A must read for those seeking a human face on this most inhuman of twentieth-century wars.” —David M. Glantz, historian of the Soviet military