Aleksei Nikitin – Bat Ami for Ukraine

Ukrainian Jewish boxing champion Ilya Goldinov has just come second place in the Soviet All-Union championships when World War II breaks out. After the German invasion of Ukraine, he joins the partisan fighters in the forests behind the front line. Only by lucky coincidence does he survive and he joins the regular army as a soldier before being sent by the Ukrainian secret service on a life-threatening mission to occupied Kiev.

Aleksei Nikitin’s novel BAT-AMI. FROM THE FACE OF FIRE is not a documentary novel, but its story – inspired in part by the author‘s family history – is based on Ukrainian files relating to 1941-42 secret service operations. The novel tells the true story of the famous boxer Goldinov, because the rumours that were still circulating in Kiev after the war have largely proven to be false, as has old Yad Vashem version of the events.