The Book
"The pistol felt strangely cold in Rachel's hand. She fumbled with the chamber... Despair and desperation have forced Rachel Kremer to become something a young Jewish girl was never meant to be—a smuggler, deceiver, and perhaps a killer.
In Knights of Warsaw, historical fiction that will rivet readers from the first word to the last, D.E. Cummings gives readers an up-close and unapologetic view into the war-torn ghetto of Warsaw, where a young Jewish heroine struggles to survive and dares to hope."
Foreword
If anyone would ask the average American, What do you think the following people have in common: David Irving, author and self-proclaimed historian; Arthur Butz, professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran; James Keegstra, Canadian high school teacher; Roeland Raes, vice president of one of Belgium’s largest political parties (the Vlaams Belang); Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority; Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood; Revilo P. Oliver, retired University of Illinois classics teacher; and Robert Faurisson, the recipient of a PhD in literature from the University of Lyon? most people would possibly reply, “I haven’t the slightest idea,” or they might say, “They all seem to be highly educated,” or they might reply with a question—“Do they really have anything in common?”
However, the answer to this question would be: Yes, they all have one thing in common—they are Holocaust deniers. They all claim that there never was a Nazi systematic mass murder of 6,000,000 Jews in Europe during World War II. At most, they claim it was merely a few hundred thousand Jews who perished during World War II but not 6,000,000, and most of these deniers add that the vast majority of these Jews died because of disease but not at the hands of Hitler and his Nazi hordes.
This propaganda has spread so much over Canada, England, France, Italy, Sweden, and so many other nations, and the U.S. too, that thirteen countries have actually legislated the preaching of Holocaust denial as illegal: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Switzerland. These nations are European nations, most of whom experienced firsthand the extermination of thousands of Jews during World War II. They feel insulted that Holocaust deniers, who are really anti-Semites, should preach falsehoods about a tragedy they saw with their own eyes...
D.E. Cummings, in her book, Knights of Warsaw, has attempted to take one true incident of the Holocaust and develop a historical novel. She admits that she has embellished the story, adding fiction to reality, but the basic premise of the Holocaust remains.
Ms. Cummings does not hide the brutality of the Nazis. On the contrary, she exposes it. There were 9,000,000 Jews in Europe when Hitler came to power. Hitler and his hordes and followers eliminated two-thirds of them, 6,000,000. And if the Allies had not beaten him in 1945, he would have achieved his goal of terminating the lives of the other one-third too.
Cummings has written an important book about Nazi cruelty, Jewish suffering, the desire to live on, the pride of standing up to Nazi savagery, the unbelievable brutality of an entire nation and its cohorts and associates, and the determination of a group of poorly armed, poorly nourished, constantly hounded Jews in the ghetto to proclaim, Yes, we know we are going to be killed, but we will die fighting with our bare fists, if that is necessary.
Cummings’s book is a thumbing of her nose to all the anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers, who are even today attempting to kill the Jews of the Holocaust a second time and whitewash the foul and obscene, impure and filthy reputation of Adolf Hitler (may his memory be erased).
Rabbi Jack Segal
Rabbi Emeritus, Beth Yeshurun Congregation
Houston, Texas