In the waning days of World War II, the Jewish Infantry Brigade was formed as part of the British army. While in their downtime, they'd hunt down Nazis in hiding and help Jews make it to Palestine. This is a larger collection of three smaller stories set in this time period. It's an interesting side of the war. This also takes place in the years following the war in Europe and Palestine which is something Americans never see. The third story is during the formation of Israel. The stories are open ended but a lot of stories during WWII were open ended without any closure.

"The Jewish Brigade" graphic novel was published in 2016 and was written by Marvano (Mark van Oppen) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvano). He has authored or coauthored many graphic novels. 

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in Poland shortly after the end of World War II. The primary characters are Leslie and Ari, both British soldiers part of the Jewish Brigade. The Jewish Brigade was created as part of the British Army in 1944 and saw action primarily in Italy. It was made up of over 5000 volunteers from Mandatory Palestine.  

Leslie and Ari are looking for Jewish refugees as well as former Nazis hiding among the population. 

I enjoyed the 25 minutes I spent reading this 50-page WWII graphic novel. I normally do not pick graphic novels to review, but because this one dealt with WWII I decided to give it a try. It was an interesting story with very good artwork. I like the cover art. I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

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'The Jewish Brigade' with art and script by Morvano is a story that takes place in post-war Germany.

Ari and Leslie are two soldiers in a Jewish Brigade doing surveys of the German countryside. Along the way, they pick up a young girl names Safaya who has survived the war. They find a war criminal in hiding. They witness escaped Jewish prisoners being executed in the field. The Russian soldiers they meet are tolerant of them, barely, but let them go because they are British soldiers.

I was unfamiliar with this part of history, so I really enjoyed this graphic novel. The horror of post-war, the obviously bad feelings and the trauma of surviving are all here. The art is also really good.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

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The Jewish Brigade #1 by Marvano is a European comic book taking place during World War II. Marvano is a comic book artist from Belgium.

Ari and Leslie, two soldiers in the Jewish Brigade, are riding on a jeep through Italy looking for survivors and hunting Nazis, dispensing justice on the spot. The two soldiers discover that the plight of the Jewish people was not over when the Nazis were soundly beaten, but have shifted inland. Europe was still dangerous to the Jews.

The Jewish Brigade #1 by Marvano is the first of a three part series taking place in 1945. The soldiers are part of an English brigade formed in 1944. The British thought that Jews had a right to fight the evils the Nazis have inflicted on them.

The story the author tells is harsh, even with the drawings and bright colors. The two protagonists despense justice with a bullet, the Jews might not be in death camps, but their survival is not guaranteed. A continent full of Russian forces who are danger to the local populace as any occupying force can be, and even to allied soldiers.

What makes the violence in the story so poignant is that most of it happens in the background. Using indirect clues through text and pictures, the author illustrates the horrors staying away from gory pictures which might cheapen the horror real people faced.

The comic strikes a fine balance between the wonderful art and the balance between prose and art is one of the best I’ve seen to date. This is a very interesting graphic novel about a period which is sometimes glossed over and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

Excellent start to a series

I loved this graphic novel. The story is fascinating, and the characters and illustrations are great. To me it is a sign of good writing when something I read spurs me to read more on a subject and this graphic novel did exactly that. Two other graphic novels I recently read accomplished the same thing: “The Invisible War: A Tale on Two Scales” and “The Bridge”. Graphic novels are great at condensing history or science into a very readable form. I strongly recommend The Jewish Brigade for anyone interested in history.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.

An interesting graphic novel about a part of history I had not known much about. Decent art style and artwork.

The Jewish Brigade was created to provide an outlet for Jews in Palestine to participate in the war on Germany within the British Army. They served in Italy and after the war was part of the occupation of Italy near the border with Austria and Yugoslavia. Some members of the Jewish Brigade were part of nokmin units that assassinated SS and Wehrmacht officers accused of atrocities against Jews during the war in Europe. They also helped Holocaust survivors make their way to Palestine despite British objections. Vigilante is the first part of a trilogy telling the story of the Jewish Brigade members after the end of the war in graphic form. It helps put faces on part of history that is not often told or studied.

Thanks Netgalley and Europe Comics for the chance to read this title.

This is a brilliant start to this trilogy. I didn't really know much about the Jewish Brigade before reading this book. The Jewish Brigade was a military formation of the British Army composed of Jews from Palestine. The Brigade was formed in late 1944 and it's soldiers fought the Germans in Italy. After the war some members of the Jewish Brigade helped holocaust survivors emigrate to Palestine. Even though this was illegal, holocaust survivors were desperate to flee Europe which was still very dangerous for them.

This story focuses on two soldiers from the Jewish Brigade. Ari and Leslie have finished fighting in Italy and they are now looking for survivors from the camps and assisting them. They are also hunting down Nazi officers and executing them. Ari and Leslie are convinced that the battlefront is shifting and that the plight of the Jewish survivors from the camps is increasingly ignored. Newer battle lines are being drawn up between communism and Western Europe. Both men want to see justice and they want to protect survivors from the camps and they are prepared to do all that they can.

The story has a really good sense of action and a great portrayal of the aftermath of World War Two in Europe. We get to explore the horror of war and the way in which the soldiers are confronting the horror of the camps, the complacency of some of the German people and the violence that Jewish survivors encountered as they returned home.

Many stories about this period of history address the anti-semitism before the Second World War, the war itself or the horrors of the Holocaust. This story and the volumes after it seek to fill the gap between the end of the war and the creation of the state of Israel. The focus is on the holocaust survivors and their struggles.

Although the subject matter of this book is actually quite hard to read in places, the way in which the story is told is excellent. There are subtle clues about the violence and horror Illustrated through the dialogue and some of the artwork but this isn't a gory portrayal, instead it is a brilliant portrayal of the aftermath of World War two which doesn't seek to hide the horrors of the war but through the graphics manages to tell hard hitting true stories.

The artwork shows the emotional devastation of war, the ravages of the war across Europe and the determination of these soldiers to seek justice in their own way, and their struggles to balance revenge and justice

I thought this was a really excellent book because it manages to teach and educate by telling a story that really needs to be told particularly in these days of increasing intolerance across Europe, but it does this by illustrating the story. The artwork tells the story and reminds us that the lives of people who escaped from the camps continued, but these lives had to be rebuilt from nothing.

The artwork and the drawings are really beautiful even though the story is a hard one to read about. I think there is a good balance between art and prose and the comic isn't too wordy. This volume introduces us to the key characters who are bold, distrustful but determined to seek both justice and revenge.

I am really glad that I read this volume and and I will definitely be reading the next two volumes.

Copy provided by Europe Comics via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

"Who'da thought, huh? Jewish soldiers in Europe! With weapons! Can you imagine?" This is the end of World War 2 in Europe, and two soldiers with connections to the Jewish Brigade – which had had such success it had to be pulled back from the front for fear of showing everyone else up – are on clean-up. Their task is to find Nazi war criminals and to dispense lead justice. But what they find will change their immediate focus – and their destinies…

This is a clearly important, hard-hitting and quite wonderful book, which is why it's disappointing to mark it down for quite large things. Pictorially, the 'generic landscape' that is supposed to be Poland never convinced – it looks French through and through (even if the creator seems Dutch and his dedication is in Spanish). What section of the text that is supposed to be chatty back-story is straight from the 'examples of bad exposition' handbook. And finally you not only have a quite jumpy script (is this about who's doing the worst at the end of the war, with reprehensible Soviets, Nazis and vengeance-seekers all against each other at one point, or something bigger?) but the fact this is book one of three, and the ending isn't exactly the strongest place to break off.

But what you do get probably exceeds all those quibbles. This is powerful stuff, make no mistake. The very fact that a book about the Jewish Brigade exists, when I had never even heard of them before, is such a wonderful corrective, for all its fiction and faults. It's a middle finger to the Nazis, and a brick to the face of UK Labour Party, 2018. There's a line here about the causes of Zionism, and it's so bloody obvious it doesn't need quoting, but some people will still get a surprise at the fact of it. Whether despite or because of the fact this is in translation, some of the speeches are really blunt, and I think with such a cause at heart that's a good thing, not bad. I hope this book not only entertains (it is disturbingly engaging at times) but wakes people up.

The thing I love about reading European comics is the different perspective they give, most notably history. I had never heard of the Jewish Brigade, that this first of three volumes is based on, but apparently it was a real division, and they were trying to help the survivors of the “camps”.

In this first volume, two members of the division, are hunting Nazis, and come across a Jewish girl who has been hiding out in a convent. That is where they discover a Nazi, and kill him.

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They are not shy about announcing who they are, and why they are there.


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So far, a well thought out story. I am curious to see what happen in the rest of the books in the series.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Set at the end of World War II this is a forgotten story and not Britain’s proudest moment.
It is a stark reality that peace is not a reality immediately the conflict ends. Indeed, the countless refugees, the young women of the German greater nation and liberated prisoners in concentration camps were not spared in the aftermath of the end of hostilities and a surrender.
The Jewish Brigade in a three part comic series aims to tell the story of the Jews who most acknowledge endured great suffering and mass execution in what has come to be termed the Holocaust.
Britain allowed Jewish soldiers into battle towards the end of the Second World War, many fought with great determination and a degree of restraint at a time when rumours and details were emerging about the Nazi Final Solution.
However, the units were disbanded as quickly as they were formed.
In this fictional account it tells of two soldiers now in Poland looking out for former SS officers to enact a swift judgement.
The tale is horrible in so much as justice meant no trial just a bullet to the head. Meanwhile other atrocities were happening in this ungovernable land. The Russians were no angels towards civilians and had their own form of anti Semitic pogroms which meant Jews from liberated camps by Soviet forces were still in mortal danger.
The story is harsh and difficult to assimilate as horror is added upon horror where hope should have ruled. This comic is realistic in pointing out some of these atrocities but it is balanced by introducing a young Jewish girl who survived the war living with Nuns but now wants to travel with these two Jewish soldiers.
It is annoying to realise your own ignorance of these events and it is rewarding to read of such cruelty and horrifying incidents as this fiction is based on historic facts. It makes me wants to leave the VE Day celebrations and lobby Churchill and his government to do more.
Indeed like all good history it makes one want to learn more and be less compliant and believing of what we are told.