The Unconquerable Spirit: Vignettes of the Jewish Religious spirit the Nazis could not destroy. / Zuker has done a workmanlike job of cobbling together a number of anecdotes from survivors of the Holocaust, which observant Jews term the Churban (literally, 'holocaust' or 'massacre', more at 'genocide') or the Shoah (literally, 'disaster'). The stories relate--typically, in not a whole lot of detail--the grueling experiences of Eastern European communities, largely Hasidic communities, as they struggled in vain against the superior firepower of their German oppressors. Their efforts are typically--indeed, just about always--doomed to failure, but their courage in the face of overwhelming odds is most admirable and is a glowing testimony to the strength of the human spirit.
