A girl called Judith Strick

My weapons would be my youth and impertinence. . . "" that they were for the 17-year-old girl who spent six years following the takeover of her city, Lvov, Poland, not only fighting back but talking back with remarkable fearlessness. As one of her many captors said, ""So goddamned stubborn and tough."" Judith also contributed quick successes to the partisan underground in Poland for two years. When later imprisoned as a political enemy (she was never discovered to be a Jew), she survived the SS inquisitions with baffling alibis and preposterous stories of different identities and missions. Eventually she could not escape the inevitable deportation to Auschwitz (her parents died in some concentration camp). Before long however she escaped, played a part as a machine gunner in the liberation of Vienna, and after Germany's defeat, worked as a military interpreter. A new cause was found when she crossed to Palestine and joined the terrorists in the Irgun, serving both as an artillery and an intelligence officer. Golda Meir, in her preface to the book, calls her memoirs ""a history of her people, from the terrible prelude to national revival in Israel."" It is hard to think of a comparable story (although it is written with no particular style) in terms of insuperable spirit.