Leon Kahn, a Polish Jew and Canadian philanthropist, gives us a different kind of Holocaust memoir. He shares the little known story of the family groups of Jews and partisan fighters, composed of Poles and Russians from Siberia, who roamed the forests outside the towns in search of food and weapons. As a partisan fighter, Kahn was given professional guerilla training and soon became an expert in blowing up German trains. The story of the partisan struggles is as engrossing as it is terrible, for Kahn describes in detail those uncertain times when one never knew who was friend, and who was enemy.
Leon Kahn was born Leon Kaganowicz in 1925 in Eisiskes, Poland, near present-day Vilnius, Lithuania. During the war he fought in Eastern Europe with partisans against the Nazis. In 1948, lone survivor of his family, he immigrated to Vancouver, where he made a living in various small business enterprises until he became a successful real estate developer, first with Block Brothers and then with his own company. He was noted for his humility, his contributions to the Jewish community and his work as an anonymous philanthropist. He died in 2003, leaving behind his wife, two sons and a daughter.