Joseph Gavi: Young Hero of the Minsk Ghetto

What would you do if you were a ten-year-old boy and your city was invaded by a brutal army, your family and friends marched off to work each day – mysteriously, never returning? 

This is the shocking but true story of Joseph Gavi, a small Jewish boy growing up in Minsk, Belorussia, during the German invasion of WWII. Relive unspeakable horrors surrounding Joseph’s struggle to simply survive – then to overcome – his brutal oppressors through covert action with the Freedom Fighters. Follow as he rescues more than 200 of his people from the imprisoning ghetto while constantly evading death by execution.

 Read in Joseph’s own words the spellbinding detail of each harrowing escape, at times only inches from the promise of a torturous death. Experience the war-time betrayal of “loyal” friends and comrades as his post-war success in his homeland is thwarted by an old enemy, anti-Semitism.  Follow this national hero, mountain climbing instructor and scientist as he resolves to pierce the Iron Curtain and flee to America toward an illusive dream of success.

Carlton Jackson is a university distinguished professor of history at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky., where he has taught since 1961. He is also the university’s Right Honorable Mace.

He has held four Fulbright senior lecturing awards and, in the 1989-1990 school year, was the bicentennial professor of American studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. He has been on numerous lecture tours for the U.S. State Department and U.S. Information Agency in Asia, Europe and South America.

He has served as a visiting professor at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.; Tufts University in Medford, Mass.; the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii; Graz University in Austria; and Belize College in Belize.

Jackson lives with his wife Pat out in the wilderness of Butler County, Ky. In addition to his 20-plus titles, his most recent work is Freedom’s Way, a true account of the Underground Railroad.