Mila 18: A Novel

This book is a really good read , the accounts in it of the treatment of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are well written and graphic in some cases , and to think these events happened just over 80 yrs ago , in the grand scheme of things that isn't that long.I can recommend this book.

A very fine book which I have read many times. The pb text is rather small-why is it not available on Kindle in UK though available in US ??

This novel of the Warsaw ghetto, culminating in the 1943 uprising, has been a harrowing re-read.I could well describe myself as a great-granddaughter of Warsaw, much of my family having migrated here from the Warsaw region. At twenty-one, a great-aunt told me of how her father had taken her to visit the family there just after the first world war; until then I had not realised that any relatives had stayed behind and I started to ask myself why I had not heard about them. I did not finish my thought; my brain knew the horrible answer and my blood ran cold.'Mila 18' is viscerally close to home.Having recently read a survivor's non-fiction memoir, I had to remind myself that the novel's leading characters are merely the creations of the author, so well and memorably are they depicted. But I know Leon Uris did that side of his research well; they very much had their real-life counterparts, such as the young commander who wedged himself into a narrow bunker entrance as the Nazis approached and shot him, giving time for his fellow fighters and civilians to escape through other exits.So both books are a moving read for anyone, but I found the novel, perhaps because it is written as fiction, to be much more imbued with emotion, and all the tragic drama of this supremely heroic but ultimately doomed uprising.The small minus points against the writing are the occasional lapses into comic book language to show the impact of ordnance and that some of the Nazis seem cartoonish - but that's no more than they deserve.No one would claim that the author was the most literary writer, just a successful, page-turning one, writing from the heart.Leon Uris' characters are believable and sympathetic, standing in place of the real life people who died of starvation and disease, in the Treblinka gas chambers, or fighting back. And in place of the pitiful few who survived - such as the founders of the Ghetto Fighters kibbutz.They lit a flame for Poland and Israel and 'Mila 18' does them justice.

Leon Uris writes a compelling and gripping tale of a period in history which generally overlooks the individual components.

I reread this book after several years and it still packs a tremendous punch. The many and varied characters, their strengths and weaknesses and their ultimate astounding courage, sweep you along towards a nailbiting conclusion. As the characters struggle to preserve their heritage and traditions against overwhelming brutality and privation we are shown the many faces of occupation and Nazi dominance.Though we know, from the outset, that the ghetto will fall and the remaining Jews will die, the ending is not a miserable defeat but a testament to the human spirit that refuses to be conquered.

The story of the Jewish struggle in the Warsaw Ghetto..If it is possible to put into words the struggle and suffering endured by an individual group into words, then LU has done a pretty decent job. There's nothing " glorious " about war and there is nothing " glorious " about this book, but if it can be called enjoyable, compelling, thought provoking and a great many other thingsIf you're looking for an easy read, choose something else, if you're looking for a good read,well yes, go for it......

For your information. I got an email saying that I hadn’t collected this book from click and collect. I did collect this book on Saturday 6 March

A book very much of its time (written in 1961) but still manages to convey the essence of this astonishing story (the uprising in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in 1943) in a gripping and engaging manner. Uris creates authentic characters and moves a long narrative along at a fast pace. I would have liked to have seen a chapter at the end giving a historical context and tell something of the aftermath, maybe that has been done in other editions.