Biancastella
Subtitle: a Jewish partisan in World War II
By: Harry Burger ; edited by Larry Borowsky.
Contributors: Borowsky, Larry, 1963-
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Niwot, Colo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 168
Subjects: Burger, Harry, 1924-; Jews -- Austria -- Vienna -- Biography.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- France -- Personal narratives.; World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Italy.
Description: Biancastella is the fascinating and inspiring account of one man's uncommon journey through the horrors of the Holocaust. At the age of fourteen, Harry Burger, an Austrian Jew from a well-to-do family, found the circumstances of his life completely altered by the Nazi rise to power. In 1938, just a year after Burger's bar mitzvah, the Nazis overtook Austria and began to implement anti-Jewish policies. His father lost his business and was eventually imprisoned and sent to Auschwitz.

The rest of his family scattered. Burger and his mother went into hiding in France, and learned how to survive under occupying Italian and German forces.

Five years into the war, Burger crossed the Alps into Italy and joined the Partisans, a group of Italian Resistance fighters who battled the Nazis from the mountains in northwest Italy. Taking the name Biancastella, which means "white star" in Italian, Burger, along with other Resistance fighters, was able to fight back, sabotaging German operations, mounting defensive attacks, and capturing and punishing many of the Nazis who would have him dead.

Despite an upbringing that ill-prepared him for life on the run, Burger successfully avoided Nazi capture through seven brutal and uncertain years of war. His is a thrilling tale of courage and survival.
Notes: Includes index.