Violent Justice: How Three Assassins Fought To Free Europe's Jews

Book Summary

The history of Europe's Jews is one of oppression and violent persecution. As vulnerable minority communities in the midst of suspicious, resentful, or hostile peoples, Jews developed the prevailing attitude that in their own defense the only recourse was to negotiate with those who threatened them. But occasionally this long-suffering spirit broke down, and isolated individuals lashed out in sudden violent eruptions against those who would persecute them. Violent Justice tells the stories of three such lone Jewish activists, who at different times and different places refused to be victims any longer and by political assassination sought to gain world attention to the plight of their people. In 1926, Samuel Schwartzbard, soldier and revolutionary, gunned down Simon Petliura, the leader of independent Ukraine, for helping to kill thousands of Jews. In 1936, Yugoslav David Frankfurter shot Wilhelm Gustloff, a Nazi leader in Switzerland, to short-circuit the growth of Nazi sympathizers. And in 1938, German-born Herschel Grynszpan killed Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat, to avenge the deaths of Polish Jews. Between 1926 and 1938, the unrelated but deliberate killing of three persons thought to be instrumental in the repression of European Jews stands out as a desperate cry for help by lone Jewish activists who would be victims no longer.

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