Hundreds of thousands of Jews fought in the Eastern European battlefields of World War II, yet their story has rarely been told. Songa was one of these Jews, serving in Stalin's armies for five long years, fighting a war of Communism against Hitler's Fascism. When it was over, Songa had little more than his life as an army officer: his home village had been destroyed, his family murdered, his allegiance to a ruthless dictator coerced through imprisonment, and his sense of purpose in the world unclear.

Chronicling the life of Leon Ajces, known always as "Songa," Natalie Green Giles unfolds...