X Troop
Facilitated by Leah Garrett
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
2:00PM - 3:00PM
Location: Virtual Event via Zoom
X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II
June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top-secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back, to British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp‚ the scene of one of the most dramatic rescues of the war. X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis.
Leah Garrett is a professor at Hunter College. Her last book, Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel, won and was short-listed for several major literary awards. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two daughters.