Fighting Eichmann's Holocaust tells the story of a group of young Zionists who saved at least 30,000 Jews during Adolf Eichmann's genocide in Hungary during World War II.
In the brutal Budapest winter of 1944-45, high-school and college-aged men and women helped Jews hide from Nazis and indigenous fascists, delivered food and medicine to the fugitives, and provided forged identity documents without which life would have been impossible. Often, their bravery resulted in their own capture, torture, and execution. The book tells the story of a dozen of these Zionist volunteers, including the last surviving member of the group, Frank Shatz, who recently celebrated his 100th birthday. Frank was only eighteen years old during those dramatic days.
Author William Walker, a historian, educator, and college administrator, researched Fighting Eichmann for more than thirty years. Based on extensive travel in Hungary, searches of archives in the U.S. and abroad, and interviews with those who participated, it is fully documented and peer-reviewed. This is his third book.
Fighting Eichmann's Holocaust is not the typical Holocaust narrative about survivors. Instead, it is the story of resisters who braved the deadly streets of Budapest to help Jews. Filled with narrow escapes, heroic rescues, and icy death in the Danube River, Walker's book recognizes the effort of the Zionists and warns about the resurgence of antisemitism in Hungary and around the world.
