History and Locations
Aaron’s Journey is both physical and emotional. He traverses hundreds of miles, from his home in Bilky, to the Russian battlefront in Voronezh, then all the way back on foot to Gerjen in Hungary. The journey requires incredible physical stamina, as Aaron endures some of Earth’s harshest winters.
With the help of world-renowned historian Colonel David Glantz (ret.), and his European colleagues, the locations and facts that Aaron describes to his son, Howard Herskowitz, have been verified, and the battlefields and important junctures recreated with as much accuracy as possible. Colonel Glantz has been considered by many to be the world’s leading historian regarding the conflict between The Soviet Union and Germany, including Hitler’s axis satellite partners during World War II. Because Aaron is conscripted by force as a slave laborer under the Nazi-Hungarian army, writes Glantz in the Historian’s Commentary for Aaron’s Reckoning, Aaron is dragooned by the Hungarians and Germans eastward in the wake of Hitler’s obsession, in a ceaseless and senseless Nazi crusade to conquer Russia.
Czechoslovakia
In 1936, Hitler marches his army into the neutral demilitarized Rhineland and in the spring of 1938, he seizes Austria because he claims Austria is a German-speaking state. The Allies do nothing in response to these treaty violations, when Hitler next turns his attention toward Czechoslovakia. Britain and France, in yet another failed bid to appease Hitler, coerce their ally Czechoslovakia into ceding to the dictator her impregnable highly fortified mountainous Sudetenland on its western border with Germany. The Allies also browbeat the Czechs to disband their army in order to satisfy Hitler’s final demands in exchange for the fuhrer’s written promise of no more territorial demands per the infamous Munich conference of September 29, 1938.
Then, in a breach of the Munich Accords, Hitler unleashes his Nazi soldiers to invade and occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia, while he greenlights the Hungarian army’s surprise invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia’s easternmost Carpathian province, including Aaron’s hometown Bilky. The wayward town, once part of Russia and then the Austro – Hungarian Empire, would now belong to fascist Hungary, a gift from Hitler in response to Hungary pledging its army to Nazi Germany, in the event Hitler ever needed their military assistance. And what did the Czech allies do to respond to Hitler’s breach of the Munich Accords? Nothing!
At first, many Bilkers and Carpathian Jews were relieved that Hitler designated the Hungarians to be their new rulers; after all, the Czech Jews had fought side-by-side with the Hungarians during World War I. Unfortunately, the new Hungarian government is virtually as fascist and anti-Semitic as Nazi Germany’s. Hungary had thrown in its lot with their German senior partners in hopes of reclaiming territory lost during World War I, and they dragoon their Jewish men into slave labor to serve the Nazi-Hungarian army.
Axis Europe
By the fall of 1942, the Nazis control most of Europe and North Africa (see maps to the right). After Germany enjoyed phenomenal success during their invasion of Russia in 1941 and into most of 1942, Hitler’s army encounters stiff Russian resistance in 1942, and he calls upon his Axis allies, including Hungary, Italy, Romania and Finland for military reinforcements. By the end of October, Aaron and his fellow Jewish slaves board a cattle-car train in Hungary and head east into the Russian winter. The journey lasts almost two weeks.
Under the Hungarian troops, Aaron marches to the Russian front, the site of many epic battles, from which Aaron miraculously walks away alive. As a Jewish slave of the Hungarians and Nazis, Aaron looks for opportunities to escape to the Russian side. That too, proves perilous. But Aaron’s facility with languages helps him to survive, enabling him to beg for food from villagers late at night, taking enormous personal risk to leave camp, risking certain death if his taskmasters ever catch him. He also overhears the murderous plotting of his captors to kill him. Aaron draws on his experience from his Czech military training and the paramilitary training of Jiujitsu from Palestinian Zionists to execute his mortal enemies.
The Russian Front
As they approach the Russian front in late 1942, Aaron and his fellow Jewish slaves experience deadly airstrikes from Russian bombers, as both captors and slaves are decimated. Far to the southeast, Russian forces surround the German army in Stalingrad. With this blow to their strength, the Germans attempt to install a defensive line from Voronezh south to the Black Sea, while trying to rescue their doomed Stalingrad garrison. Aaron and his fellow slaves, having reached the battlefront just south of Voronezh, are forced by their masters to buttress the Axis front lines, as Hitler issues his usual suicide orders, “No retreat! Not one step backward!” This is to be the Axis response to a Russian attack. Additionally, rumors at the front lines indicate that Hitler actually intends to launch an offensive with his forces at Voronezh to rescue his Stalingrad garrison.
The Russian Attack
During the Russian breakthrough at Voronezh on January 13, 1943, Aaron and a few slaves hunker down in a trench as bullets tear at the snow and bombs fall from the sky. It is the Russians attacking with their most destructive firepower. During this brutal assault, the Axis commanders are strangely silent. Aaron, in a moment of spontaneous ingenuity, lifts his head above his trench, turns to face the Axis soldiers, and impersonates their commanding officers by bellowing the order: “Retreat!” both in the German and Hungarian languages. Believing that Hitler has changed his mind and has ordered a retreat, a panicked rout of the Axis forces ensues along the entire Don River front, as Aaron exhorts countless Jewish slaves to follow their fleeing masters to safety in the woods, saving the lives of all; handing the Russians a major victory, and the Axis a humiliating defeat.