Fire Without Smoke: The Memoirs of a Polish Partisan (Library of Holocaust Testimonies) — Florian Mayevski with Spencer Bright — Paperback

Description

Fire Without Smoke is an extraordinary wartime testimony that illuminates a lesser-discussed dimension of World War II: Jewish participation in partisan resistance under conditions that demanded not only courage, but concealment.

Florian Mayevski’s account follows a trajectory few survive. After escaping a forced labor camp, he endures the Polish winter as a fugitive in forests and improvised shelters beneath the ground. He later fights as a partisan in the Polish Home Army at a time when Jewish resistance fighters were rare—and where revealing his identity could have jeopardized both command and survival. Under rising hostility, he ultimately joins a parachute group composed of Russian prisoners of war and German veterans of the Spanish Civil War, continuing the fight to the war’s end.

The story does not conclude with liberation. Mayevski’s postwar life includes service as an officer in the Polish Army, followed by exile during renewed waves of antisemitism in the 1960s—first to Israel, and later to England. The result is a vivid, human-scale narrative of persecution, resilience, and moral complexity, presented within The Library of Holocaust Testimonies.

Content note: This memoir discusses wartime persecution, violence, and antisemitism.