The Enemy I Knew is a collection of twenty-seven first-person accounts from European-born Jewish combat veterans of World War II. All were refugees from the Nazi regime who fled Germany and Austria in humiliation and fear, then faced down their persecutors by joining the Allied military to fight against the country of their birth.

Serving in North Africa and Europe, these brave men, and a brave woman, gained a sense of dignity and vindication that enabled them to rise above their victimization at the hands of Nazi oppressors. All burned with anger at the Germans who had subjected them to cruelty on the playgrounds and streets of their native towns and to ridicule in radio broadcasts, movies, and newspapers.

Adolf Hitler's initial intention had been to drive every last Jew out of Germany. He implemented policies so hostile toward Jews that they would have little choice but to emigrate. Starting with a nationwide boycott of all Jewish businesses in 1933, the Nazi persecution of Jews rapidly grew harsher. They were expelled from government jobs, their children forced out of school, their assets confiscated. Enforcement came from the vicious Sturmabteilung the stormtroopers or brownshirts. Hundreds of thousands of Jews fled.

But Hitler was creating his worst enemy. These refugees knew the psychology of the enemy better than anyone else in the Allied armies. They knew Germany deep down its countryside, its people, its language and dialects, its cities and streets. As Great Britain and the United States entered the war, the refugees were eager to fight. They struggled to overcome their adopted countries distrust of Germans and got their chance to strike back against the Third Reich.