In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle Between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of World War II

Working from newly unraveled archival material, Grodzinsky tells the touching story of the encounter between Jewish survivors and Zionist envoys, dispatched from Palestine to the camps in order to help in rehabilitation efforts but also with a clear Zionist agenda: Their mission was to bring all the “Surviving Remnant” to Palestine. Survivors were to be “the anvil upon which the revolt against the British [in Palestine] must be forged” (David Ben-Gurion). In 1945, Zionists forcefully prevented the rescue of child survivors; in 1948, they instituted forced conscription to the Israel Defense Force, dwindled by the fighting with the Arabs.

”Written with passion and an obsession for accuracy.”—Ariana Melamed, Ha-’Ir, the leading Tel Aviv weekly