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Fiction. Jewish Studies. On the night of November 6th, 1941, the life of Isaac Gochman, a 16 year old Polish Jew, changes tragically and profoundly. Over 20,000 Jews from Rovno, Poland are marched into the Sosenki Forest by the Nazis, stripped and shot to death, then buried in an endless, unmarked ravine. All of Isaac’s family and friends die in the massacre. But Isaac miraculously survives the slaughter, and so begins his incredible and harrowing journey through the Polish forest, facing unimaginable hardships and the constant threat of death from the Nazis and their sympathizers.
To save himself, he adopts a new identity, Sergei, a Russian Christian, and joins the Russian Partisan Brigade, to become a demolition miracle man. As a Partisan, he falls passionately in love for the first time in his young life with Ducia, a Russian Nurse.
Near the end of the war, with Ducia tragically gone forever, he turns his back on his homeland, heroically saves the lives of American soldiers, and finds a new home in America.
Isaac is a true coming-of-age story of miraculous survival, courage and love.
Isaac, based on a true story, follows the epic journey of young boy from near-death to ultimate triumph as a man. It is as harrowing as The Revenant. In parable- like prose, it captures Isaac’s miraculous survival of the Nazi massacre of his family and his escape alone into a vast, nightmarish European Forest. After being saved by his friend, Pietka, a gentile from near his village, he joins the Russian Partisans and falls in love with Ducia, a Russian Partisan Nurse. I was immediately drawn into the plight of this brave young man as he learns how love and friendship can overcome the memories of hatred, discrimination, and terrible loss. This is a masterful coming-of-age novel amid the horrors and passions of war.–Dick Allen
Isaac narrates the story of a young Jew from Rovno whose wartime survival among partisan fighters in the forests of eastern Europe is grippingly told from first page to last. For their sheer terror, the descriptions of Isaac’s ordeals match those in Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird and some of Aharon Appelfeld’s fiction. Readers drawn to tales of human resiliency against all odds will find this a compelling novel.–Alvin H. Rosenfeld
