Stephen Klein

Although this book is historical fiction, partisans continued their espionage and sabotage acts throughout the war. In the Spring of 1944 thousands participated in the National Uprising against the Slovakian fascists and the German invasion of Slovakia. Unfortunately, the partisans were no match for the onslaught of the German Army. Even though they now numbered in the thousands, they were not prepared for an all- out confrontation, lacking firepower and organization, and suffered a terrible defeat. However, the remnants of the partisan groups managed to retreat back to their mountain areas of refuge and continued with their resistance activities until the end of the war.

Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country is a collection of interviews with residents of Benton County, Mississippi - an area with a long and fascinating civil rights history. The product of more than twenty-five years of work by the Hill Country Project, this volume examines a revolutionary period in American history through the voices of farmers, teachers, sharecroppers, and students. No other rural farming county in the American South has yet been afforded such a deep dive into its civil rights experiences and their legacies. These accumulated stories truly capture life before, during, and after the movement. The authors' approach places the region's history in context and reveals everyday struggles. African American residents of Benton County had been organizing since the 1930s. Citizens formed a local chapter of the NAACP in the 1940s and '50s. One of the first Mississippi counties to get a federal registrar under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Benton achieved the highest per capita total of African American registered voters in Mississippi. Locals produced a regular, clandestinely distributed newsletter, the Benton County Freedom Train. In addition to documenting this previously unrecorded history, personal narratives capture pivotal moments of individual lives and lend insight into the human cost and the long-term effects of social movements. Benton County residents explain the events that shaped their lives and ultimately, in their own humble way, helped shape the trajectory of America. Through these first-person stories and with dozens of captivating photos covering more than a century's worth of history, the volume presents a vivid picture of a people and a region still striving for the prize of equality and justice.

Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country is a collection of interviews with residents of Benton County, Mississippi - an area with a long and fascinating civil rights history. The product of more than twenty-five years of work by the Hill Country Project, this volume examines a revolutionary period in American history through the voices of farmers, teachers, sharecroppers, and students. No other rural farming county in the American South has yet been afforded such a deep dive into its civil rights experiences and their legacies. These accumulated stories truly capture life before, during, and after the movement. The authors' approach places the region's history in context and reveals everyday struggles. African American residents of Benton County had been organizing since the 1930s. Citizens formed a local chapter of the NAACP in the 1940s and '50s. One of the first Mississippi counties to get a federal registrar under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Benton achieved the highest per capita total of African American registered voters in Mississippi. Locals produced a regular, clandestinely distributed newsletter, the Benton County Freedom Train. In addition to documenting this previously unrecorded history, personal narratives capture pivotal moments of individual lives and lend insight into the human cost and the long-term effects of social movements. Benton County residents explain the events that shaped their lives and ultimately, in their own humble way, helped shape the trajectory of America. Through these first-person stories and with dozens of captivating photos covering more than a century's worth of history, the volume presents a vivid picture of a people and a region still striving for the prize of equality and justice.

This is a historical novel based on the real events between the years 1936 and 1940, a period of the rise of fascist populist anti-Semitic party in Bratislava, Slovakia, which serves as the background for an imaginary eye-witness account of the heroism of Immi Litchtenfeld and his friends and associates. It was during this dark period that Immi developed a system of self-defense that is widely practiced throughout the world today, known as "Krav Maga." Faced by angry anti-Semitic mob attacks on the Jewish Quarter of the city, Immi had to develop a system of self-defense for people who were outnumbered and without experience in physical confrontations. Immi had won national acclaim in boxing, wrestling, and gymnastics, but after he witnessed the violence and the constant threat to the Jewish community, he decided to turn his entire orientation to self-defense and to promote it as a viable answer to the fascist violence. Using his father's gym as a base for training, Immi's set out to convince his trainees that they could overcome an adversary that would be physically superior both in numbers and in strength. The beauty of his system was its basic simplicity, which made long periods of complicated training unnecessary. Basically, the idea was to learn how to block an attack and then to strike at vital areas of the body. The attacker became the victim. When survival was at stake, all rules of sportsmanship had to be thrown to the wayside. However, this book is much more than a group's struggle against fascism. It is the day to day life of Immi and his friends who continued to live, laugh, and love, despite the continuous tension they were under.