HEROES OF THE RESISTANCE

Sketches of resistance heroes in World War II: ""At no time in history has a civilian populace fought so fiercely and with such contempt for personal safety."" The authors indicate why (an S.S. man's account of the arrival of an Auschwitz shipment), and are themselves equally as fierce over the Communists as the Germans as they recount heroic resistance in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia; the ""tragedy within a tragedy"" of Partisans versus Chetniks in Yugoslavia; the Warsaw uprising betrayed. Then there are the maquisards (Trobotas, Monnet, Morel), Michael Holland of the Resenn Agir in France; Von Stauffenberg with his plot to assassinate Hitler in Germany; Countess Krystyna Gizycka who took refugees and weapons out of Poland and Czechoslovakia; Count Pier Luigi Bellini who arrested Mussolini but was not able to halt his extempore shooting in Italy. And so on. This covers a lot of ground quickly, much of it familiar, is as quickly readable. However, its obtuse, outdated political orientation precludes it for any thinking audience.