Until Our Last Breath: Reviews

"[T]his book is a work of exceptional historical importance."

"In this carefully nuanced and beautifully written biography of Leizer Bart and his wife Zenia Lewinson Bart, the author provides us with keen new insights into the moral dilemmas faced by Jewish resistance members both within the Vilna Ghetto (1941-1943) and later in the Rudnicki Forest (1943-1944)."

"This is a powerful tale of the triumph of love under extremely difficult conditions."

"[A] meaningful memorial to a great Jewish community as well as a tribute to the power of human endurance."

"This is not primarily a book of derring do but of decisions and choices that had to be made. It is an invaluable resource for this period and place that goes far beyond other books this reviewer has read on the topic."

"This is a history in which excellent research by Michael Bart is married to the fine writing of Laurel Corona, a writer with a straightforward style who, for the most part, lets the facts of the Holocaust speak for themselves.The result is an engrossing account about the parents of Michael Bart of San Diego and the experience of the Jews of Vilna during the Holocaust."

"A chance remark at his father's funeral led Michael Bart, the son of two partisan fighters from the famed Nekamah Group [The Avengers] to piece together his parents' story before it was too late. The result is a narrative of great but controlled power that tells the story of his parents, of the struggles within the Vilna Ghetto and of life in the ghetto's underground resistance and of life in the woods. The meticulously researched account is vivid and gives one a sense of that extraordinary time and the most difficult of circumstances in which a few brave Jews understood their plight and decided that while they could not determine whether they lived or died; they would live with dignity and fight the Germans Until Their Last Breath. It is a son's homage to his mother and father, to the cause for which they offered their life, to their enormous courage and their singular love. Very well done indeed."

"We find a cast of characters who, while not religiously observant, exemplify a type of European Jewish lifestyle that both embraced otherness and proactively fought for social equality. A delicate, expressive story surfaces, letting Vilna sink slowly into our memories."

"Appeals equally to the head and the heart-should be of interest to both academic and general readers."