X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II by Leah Garrett

[gilda_elise]

The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now

June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad.

Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis.

Given how much print and film has been given to the Holocaust, I’m surprised that I’d never heard of this unit. Because it’s a story that truly should be known. Boys, and they were boys when their journeys began, give up their identities in order to fight against the Nazi regime. Most do not know what has happened to the families they left behind, but they are willing to do just about anything in order to help bring down the people who destroyed their world.

Many would die, But many of those who survived would never go back to who they had been. Oddly enough, it would mostly be those who emigrated to the US who would take back their original names, become Jewish again. But many would become thoroughly British.

For the first time I could actually follow the battles, these men coming alive as they made their way from Normandy beach and across Europe. Theirs is truly an amazing story.






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