THE NEW LEADER (Elie Wiesel) "You will read it in a wonderment mixed with the anguish that only the reading of certain old, simple but upsetting legends can inspire -- Everything happens to him. Jacob Marateck is irresistible."

LOS ANGELES TIMES (Robert Kirsch) "Because of Jacob Marateck, a part of the world he knew will never die ... the wry ironic humor, the sharp sense of character and situation. The reader, I hope, will join me in hoping for a sequel."

WNYC-AM "The book is in the very mainstream of Jewish literature; it helps us to laugh at human foibles...adds another chapter to the bittersweet human comedy."

THE PHILADELPHIA BULLETIN "...tells more about life in Eastern Europe than any history text."

THE JEWISH POST AND OPINION (Rabbi Samuel Silver) "...searingly graphic ... a little masterpiece"

JERUSALEM POST "Laughter will come easily enough, but the reader will nevertheless find it remarkable that the author would amuse us while suffering the most wretched circumstances conceivable."

LITERARY JOURNAL (Arthur Kurzweil) "His book is filled with humor, wisdom, religiosity, strength and pride."

THE REVIEW OF BOOKS AND RELIGION (Edmund Fuller) "Jacob Marateck is a happy discovery, thoroughly worth knowing."

THE CULTURAL WATCHDOG NEWSLETTER (Louis Ehrenkrantz) "As history, it is revealing. As literature, it is penetrating. But above all, it is humorous, in a sad way."

ISRAEL TODAY (Yehuda Lev) "Marateck's adventures in Warsaw, his shtetl, and finally with the Czarist armies in Manchuria, fighting in the Russo-Japanese war, are priceless... The book adds another chapter to the bittersweet human comedy."

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE OF PITTSBURGH "You cry with him as he describes his adventures on the battlefield of Manchuria. It is men like Jacob who, through the centuries, have provided the Jew with the ammunition to withstand the physical danger of extermination. Shimon and Anita Wincelberg have done a tremendous service."

BOOKLIST "Brings the bureaucratic humbling and slapstick horrors of the [Russo-Japanese] War into focus."