Red Partisan: The Memoir Of A Soviet Resistance Fighter On The Eastern Front, Nikolai I. Obryn'ba. (washington, Dc: Potomac Books, Inc., 2007). Isbn 13: 978-1-59797-125-6 (cloth). Pp. Xii+228, Map, Photographs, Index, Glossary. $26.95

摘要

Originally from Kiev and Kharkov, Nikolai Obryn'ba lived in Moscow in June 1941 when the Germans invaded the USSR. He volunteered for the opolchenie (a sort of home guard) and after rudimentary training (which seems to have consisted mostly of a haircut and the acquisition of a motley uniform) found himself, like many others, a prisoner of the Germans after the giant encirclement battle at Vyazma. Unlike most of his compatriots taken prisoner during the early weeks of the war, he somehow managed not only to survive as a POW, even though the Germans completely neglected their prisoners, but to escape to one of the largest partisan-controlled areas behind Army Group Center, a constant trouble spot for the Germans for several years, in the Polotsk-Lepel region in Belorussia. He then spent the next few years as a partisan and yet again managed to survive against great odds.