Product Review

In June 1941, Dr. Elkhanan Elkes was elected as the leader of the Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania -- one of the few ghettos led by a council chosen by the Jewish community. Reluctantly accepting the post, Dr. Elkes embarked on an agonizing crusade to preserve civic structure in the face of relentless, murderous pressure, and to save as many lives as possible, eventually laying down his own life in a hunger strike in Dachau in October 1944. Dr. Elkes's last letter and testament, written to his children before he died, is included in this memoir, as well as pen-and-ink illustrations sketched by Esther Lurie while in the ghetto.