5 comments about Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance.

1. A true story well told. An uplifting story about the power of love, faith, and self reliance. The unbelievable resiliance of humans to survive and keep their sanity in a world gone crazy. The book does not dwell on the horrors or even give explicit descriptions. The two main characters had a hard enough time and were not physically tortured or held prisoner. They simply hid out and lived in terror for several years until miraculously making their escape to the West. These were two lucky people who nevertheless suffered years of fear and depradation.



2. Ably edited by their son Lawrence, the instructive and inspiring Holocaust narrative of Jack and Rochelle Sutin provides ample proof of both the degradation implicit in the Shoah and the astounding strength and courage Jewish partisans demonstrated in their battle against the attempted Nazi genocide. "Jack and Rochelle" is a deceptively easy book to read; the chapters consist of blended chronological testimonies; Lawrence Sutin honorably avoids imposing his own voice on his parents, instead allowing his mother and father to describe, in their own words, their own cadences, the horrors they faced and the gritty resolve they mustered to fight back. Rarely does a subtitle so accurately depict the contents of a memoir as does their own: "A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance."

   Both Jack and Rochelle came from educated and enlightened eastern European Jewish families. As the two of them chronicle the onset of anti-Jewish depradations, they remind us of the rich texture of their pre-war lives. This dimension of humanity, of lives complicated by strained love relations, competitive urges and the deeply felt need for independence, makes the Nazi onslaught all the more unsettling and horrific.

   Several themes predominate in the Sutins' braided lives. First is the omnipresence of Jew hatred, whether it be in pre or post war Poland, in the brutally repressive Soviet bureaucracy or the finely honed hatred of Nazi Germany. Indifferent neighbors, vicious anti-Jewish Russian partisans (who commit ghastly sexual offenses against women who want nothing more than to join them in battling a common enemy), and the active participants in human eradication, the Nazis, make the Sutins' world one of constant peril. Survival is never taken for granted, and Jack and Rochelle's descriptions of their physical torment, often undertated, is wrenching to read. Personal sacrifice exists on every level: physical, social and spiritual. Rochelle's first child dies within a day due to exposure when its survival imperils others; Jack is literally covered with pus-filled boils as a result of living outside the boundaries of human habitation.

   Yet, neither Jack or Rochelle never complain, never give themselves away to self-pity. Instead, they are infused with the Judaic command to remember and Rochelle's mother's insistence on revenge, to take action to avenge the murder of their people. In this charged atmosphere of sanguine justice and physical erosion, amidst the rank and fetid habitat of primitive partisan surroundings, hope and love survive. Jack dreams that Rochelle will appear. She does. Despite sexual abuse and spiritual depletion, Rochelle gradually accepts and receives Jack's love. He has never stopped loving her.

   "Jack and Rochelle" is above all a cry of victory. It is a cry that murder and eradication cannot conquer a people. It is a cry that memory and consecration to life will prevail over death. It is a cry that love can endure, even if it is formed in the absolute crucible of death.




3. Jack and Rochelle is probably one of the best books I have read in the past 5 yrs. It is truly amazing what they endure during the war and how they survive. There truly isn't any words to describe how much I loved this book. Thank you Jack and Rochelle for writing your experiences! This is a well written and easy to read book. The story is very easy to follow and so important to be read! I hope that everyone has a chance to read this book. It makes you realize you need to be a kinder and more understanding person to others. Hate is an awful thing....and there is still too much of it in our world! Thank you Jack and Rochelle! God bless you both!



4. Jack and Rochelle Sutin were Jewish and met during WWII. I have read many stories of the holocaust from the perspective of the concentration camp. But never a story like Jack and Rochelle's!! They escaped from the ghetto and hid out it the woods during the war. (Small groups of Jews banded together in the woods.) Sound idyllic? Their existence was horrific, dreadful, and desperate! They were often reduced to being like animals. If a woman arrived pregnant, no one wanted her in their group - a baby is noisy and would be too risky. (If the woman was accepted into the group despite her pregnancy, she was forced to kill her newborn or someone in the group killed it for her.) Jewish women, who were alone and did not find a group of Jews to join, often had to perform sexual favors to find someone to take them in or help them. (Cruel and heartless Russian partisans were the worst offenders!) Despite the absolute horror of this true story, the story of Jack and Rochelle is inspiring. They met in the woods, and survived - overcoming great odds. They later married and came to the USA. The book is also well-written, and is an "easy read" in regards to the writing style.



5. This is a truly amazing story of human courage. Jack and Rochelle were not only brave enough to run away from their Germany captors, but then spent years living in the woods surviving and fighting back. Even after the Russian liberation and their departure from the woods, Jack and Rochelle fought danger constantly until they could get to an American displaced persons camp. They were such survivors. I can't imagine living through what they did, especially at their young ages.
   
   I read this in a day because I couldn't put it down.

5 comments about From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry (Indiana-Holocaust Museum Reprint).

1. What this book does, like nothing else, is to recreate the diversity of Jewish life in Eastern Europe prior to the Holocaust. Carefully selected excerpts from hundreds of memorial books in the YIVO library, this book isn't just about some shtetl, but about Zionists and Misnagdim and town councils and about town that, well, "most towns have a town fool, our town was so small that our village idiot was only half-crazy."



2. Rarely is a book published that causes an entirely new genre of studies to open up. This was the result of the first edition of this book printed in 1983. Before 1983, some scholars, librarians, and genealogical researchers knew of yizkher bikher in general, but up to that time there had not been a major focus on these books as social, historical, and genealogical sources of first-hand knowledge of destroyed communities, to some extent because of language barriers. But as more lay persons began searching their roots in the late 1970s, with interest building in the 1980s and exploding in the 1990s, they started to tap into these remarkable books. The publication of From a Ruined Garden, containing over 70 translated excerpts from Polish yizkor books, illuminated for many lay persons the lost world depicted in these books from which they had been cut off because they could not read them in their original languages, primarily Yiddish and Hebrew. The first edition has long been out of print, but again, in another bit of fortunate timing, a second, expanded edition has been published.



3. This is a truly splendid compendium of excerpts from various memorial books written after the Holocaust to commemorate the vanished world of Eastern European Jewish life in the shtetlach of Poland. I read it in a sitting and will re-read it in the future. For anyone with the slightest interest in this vanished world, I URGE you to buy this book - give it to your friends, as well.



4. Fantastic book. Reading it is like exploring the vanished world of polish stetels. Although I found only one chapter regarding Szczebrzeszyn I highly recomend the book. I wish there would be more translations of Yizkor Books.



5. This book contains selections from seventy of the more than five- hundred Memorial books of Jewish communities in Poland. As the editors make clear in their introduction 'the memorial books' aim to make certain that the destroyed world of Polish Jewry will not be forgotten.
   The books provide in some sense a record of the town they are written about, and often a picture of the people themselves. They connect up with the Jewish traditional Literature of Lamentation. In the words of the authors, " The memorial books came to be seen as substitute gravestones. " The memorial books are structured on a continuum from simple acts of naming to highly elaborated acts of narrative." The authors make clear that even a list of names serves the purpose of remembering. In their introduction the authors quote Shlomo Pultusker," When I review in thought my life in Rozhan, events, splinterrs of half- forgotten memories, appear before my eyes. People , formerly flesh and blood and everyday Jews, were transformed by the tragic events into figures similar to heroes in the dramas one reads.Of all the people of that time, individuals stand out whose names stick in memory..And to these people, most of whose remains lie in no cemetary, may my humble words about them serve as an eternal monument and redeem them from merciless oblivion. With trembling and fear of God I write my modest words, which are no more than a pale reflection of what was in reality."
   
   Three million Polish Jews were murdered in the Shoah.
   These books are the fragmented, inadequate witness of what they were.

5 comments about Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter.

1. Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, written by one of the surviving members of the ZOB was a well-written account of not only life as a resistance fighter but also what life was like for the few that fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This is an easy read and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about this period and what the Jews and all victims of the Nazis had to endure.



2. Kazik was a 19-year-old Jewish lad who survived the Nazi terror and systematic mass killings of Jews, the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943 and the Warsaw uprising of 1944.
   He was also led many fighters out of the ghetto through the sewer, and he was responsible for the care of many Jews who were hiding in Polish homes. Kazik also managed to find shelters for his parents and his two sisters, and after the war he was one of the very few Jews whose parents were still alive. After the war, Kazik, his sister Raya and parents all immigrated to Israel. Kazik's other sister, Dina, was killed during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Kazik didn't at that time know that his sister was in the ghetto.
   
   I found the book interesting and heart gripping at the same time. It is amazing to read how Kazik manages to stay alive, and always seems to stay one step ahead of the Nazis and their helpers.
   
   Kazik writes how he found one thing difficult when he arrived in Israel: When he told people that he was one of the very few survivors, it seemed like some almost blamed him for having survived. Kazik tells how people kept on asking him about people who had died, but never about those who had survived. This made him reluctant to talk about his past.
   He writes about how one man told him that he (= Kazik) screamed every night in his sleep.
   If Kazik had made a volume II about his life after the war, I surely would have read the book. His history is fascinating, and I hope his life was mainly a happy one after he immigrated to Israel.
   I liked this book, and I found Kazik's story very interesting. Kazik tells us that he is not much of a talker, and that it was therefore difficult to dictate this book to the writer. Kazik may not be a talker or a skilled writer, but his story is one it is hard to forget.



3. The author is sincere and spontaneous in telling his personal experience. The description of events, places and facts is also very well. But from the very beggining it is clear that the author is not a writer (or, at least, not a good one.)
   I am convinced that it is not only a plain true story what captivates the reader but, more than anything else, the way it is told. This book is a good example of that difference.
   Nevertheless, an applause for Simha Rotem, an extraordinary human being that not only fought hard to survive himself, but also to save the life of others.



4. A good book written by one of the few survivors of the uprising. The author tells a harrowing story about what seemed to be a hopeless situation for the Jewish fighters as the Nazis decimated the ghetto around them with bombing and fire. The Jewish resistance fighters held off the Germans longer than the Polish army did. The author freely admits that he is not a writer and the story gets a little rough in spots but overall a good book from an insider who was there and lived to tell his heroic story.



5. I am disappointed in this book. The premise is good, and the author lived through it. However, this is a very uneven book. Even the author admitted he skipped around alot. There are so many Polish and Jewish names thrown in, I was wondering who the heck was who. The film made much better sense. I could have even rated this book a two star, but since this is the story of a brave man, I gave it an average rating.
   
   Kazik is a Polish Jew from Warsaw who saw his family imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. As a way of getting even with the Germans, he joined both the Jewish and Polish resistance. He was essentially a courier, who went from place to place organizing things. His story is the overview of NBC's Uprising. I liked the movie. His book was not as good, even though the movie is based on his book. Essentially he throws a lot of memories together, and states this was the story of the resistance. I think this author is a brave man, but his writings leave a little bit to be desired.

5 comments about The Periodic Table.

1. In this collection of stories, Primo Levi lets go of the Holocaust theme, and tells the story of his life through the prism of his profession as a chemist. As others have said, each chapter is headed up by a different element, and through the properties of that element he explores a theme. There are two chapters--"Lead" and "Mercury"--which are completely fanciful. "Lead" is about a mythical tribe that makes its living mining lead. Not knowing that the metal is deadly, they all ultimately die of a mysterious disease, but they accept it as their fate, the price they pay for fulfilling a special role among men. "Mercury" is about a couple living on a desert island, which holds inexhaustible reserves of mercury, and what happens when two newcomers, one an alchemist, joins them. Both stories are riveting.
   
   I have to admit that I, as well as my very literate book group, lost a lot by having forgotten most if not all of our knowledge of chemistry--not that we had much to begin with. Some familiarity with the science I'm sure reveals a whole new level to the writing.
   
   Some reviewers criticized the lack of insight about the author's time in Auschwitz, but I see that as one of the amazing aspects of this book. For good reason, so many Holocaust survivors are irreversibly marked and changed forever by their experiences. That Levi can write a rich and compelling book that gives weight and significance to the other parts of his life is evidence of an amazingly strong and resilient spirit.



2. I didn't know what to expect when picking up this book. I'd recently finished the not unrelated Garden of the Finzi-Continis and thought I might find some variant on this. Yes, both books consider Jewish-Italian culture in the years surrounding WWII, with the specter of the holocaust in the background (mainly). But they are quite different. F.C. has at its roots the humanities, and P.T., the sciences. And what I most enjoyed about P.T. was the chemistry. It's a rarity in literature to find a subtle appreciation for the career of the scientist, and Levi succeeds admirably. This book would be an outstanding choice for any science and engineering student to read just to see how one can ply a trade, be it in the laboratory, the mine, or the consulting business. Bravo, Dr. Levi.



3. It's an emblematic title for a book designed whit tales that confection a whole history. The book is a metaphor of the periodic table: elements conform substance so words conform ideas.
   
   Primo Levi is a mentor; he begins a melancholic tale, connecting us with characters and at less expected time we receive a little lesson about chemistry, -it's a good way to spread science, didn't it?- but that's not enough for him so we also get his testimony about how he suffered WWII.
   
   Primo's statement is hard: "... I felt guilty at being man, because man had built Auschwitz..." at last it's not clear if he got peace at his mind; but, I must recognize he is honest, because somewhere in the book he says that Primo Levi writes for Primo Levi.
   
   In conclusion, it's a gentle book wrote to present a testimony of a man who was born Jewish in Italy, studied chemistry and suffered the war.



4. Entertaining, sad, and insightful. What a loss to the world. "Carbon" chapter is fascinating. Began second reading immediately following the first.



5. Like other reviewers, I sometimes found the science in this book a bit hard to follow. But that was made up for by the general loveliness of Levi's dry wit. My favorite examples-
   
   - "a livered [solidified] paint is much more rebellious, more refractory to your will than a lion in its mad pounce; but, let's admit it, it's also less dangerous."
   
   - "Gina then made a cruel decision: if she couldn't bind herself to the man she cared for, the only one, there would not be any other . . . she forbade herself marriage forever in a refined and merciless manner, that is, by getting married."
   
   -"It was clear that Bonino's story would be far from brief; but I remembered how many long stories I myself had inflicted on people, on those who wanted to listen and those who didn't. I remembered that it is written [Deuteronomy 10:19] 'Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.' and I settled back comfortably in my chair."
   
   - [before the start of the book] "Troubles overcome are good to tell."
   
   This is not a Holocaust memoir like some of Levi's other works; it is a group of [mostly autobiographical] little essays, almost all about Levi's pre- and post-Holocaust life, by a great writer who just happened to have been in Auschwitz.

5 comments about Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport.

1. I can't get this book out of my head. It has managed to invade my thoughts on a daily basis and show up in my dreams at night. It is shocking and appalling that such an event could occur - parents having to say goodbye to their little children. I have children of my own, and reading this book made me almost ill with sadness and horror. The heartache and misery endured by the Jewish people is beyond comprehension - it utterly boggles the mind.

   First-person narrative history is perhaps the most interesting history to read; the individual accounts are so emotional that you want to reach into the page and lend comfort. This is an excellent book that deserves a special place in the holocaust library. It should also be read in schools.




2. This book is based on the memories of several people who were involved in the Kindertransport -- children, organizers, and foster parents. It well-written and easy to read. Also, should one desire, one can follow one individual all the way through the process or read all the accounts based on time.



3. Imagine being 10 years old and having your parents put you on a train to a foreign country! The stories told in Into the Arms of Strangers are heartbreaking AND inspiring. 9 out of 10 of the 10,000 children who were part of the Kindertransport never saw their parents again, but they survived WWII because hundreds of British opened their arms and hearts to them when they arrived as refugees. The experiences of the Kinder are an important lessons for the world, especially in light of recent human rights violations in places like Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and Africa. We should look toward the unselfish example set by the British people as a model of compassion and action during a time of need.
   
   Although it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the individual stories which are told in a timeline fashion, the short summaries at the end of the book help you go back and tie up loose ends.
   
   It is amazing that the Kindertransport stories did not come to public attention until just a few years ago. They are an important part of the whole Holocaust story. The companion DVD is a great teaching tool for middle and high school.



4. The story of the rescue of thousands of Jewish children is told here in good part by eighteen individuals involved in the Kindertransport. The stories are often heartbreaking as most of the children left behind parents and family they were never to see again.
   Most of these people do manage to make new lives for themselves in England. But the legacy of seperation and suffering does not end with them alone but continues even into the next generation. There are stories here of decency and kindness of non- Jews to the Jewish youngsters, but also stories of obtuseness. Behind it all is of course the ' crime of the century' the Nazi cruelty which took millions of innocent lives.
   This book is a valuable work of testimony but of course tells only a small part of the story of the thousands of children who were saved by the 'Kindertransport'.



5. From the ashes of the WW2 emerged this poignant account around a set of children by then, who tell us their little anecdotes related with the desolation and abandon of their parents since the arrival of Hitler in 1933.
   
   Each one of these little livings has its own specific weight, that allows us to know many unsaid aspects of this unforgettable and horrid episode about the progroms of the Jews.
   
   Totally recommended.

5 comments about Stella: One Woman's True Tale of Evil, Betrayal, and Survival in Hitler's Germany.

1. This book is well worth seeking out, even if it is out of print.

   What makes it all the more fascinating is that the author grew up with the subject of the biography. The text seems meandering at first, but the interweaving of his story -- and that of Stella -- comes sharply into focus, as the writer shares his innermost thoughts.

   Although he does not make Stella blameless, he does demonstrate empathy for her -- in the end, she lives but has lost her soul. She is an unforgetable character. Striking, too, are the many `supporting' characters Wyden introduces to us, brave and courageous Jews who survived in Berlin through much of the war and, in some cases, all of it. These individual stories are striking, heart-warming, sometimes funny, and always unforgetable. I found the book as engrossing as a fictional thriller, truly a `can't put down' item! Don't miss it!




2. I do not wish to hurt anyone who has suffered from the holocaust by writing this review, nor do I want dishonor anyone who was destroyed by it. I am only making an observation about what happened to this woman named Stella. Stella was a beautiful blonde girl who reached early maturity during WWII in Berlin. She was Jewish, but with her blue eyes she could easily pass for a gentile. When Hitler started his personal war against Jews, he initiated the most horrible and beastly experience that could happen to human beings. With his henchmen, and their vicious attacks on Jews and other peoples, he pushed people into emotional dungeons, and it is at these dark, these lowest levels, that we discover what we are really capable of doing. In his painful memoir of his experiences of the holocaust, Elie Weisel, shows us in Night, that when the Nazis tossed tiny bits of bread to starving Jews, many of them killed for that one morsel of food, sometimes ending the lives of their loved ones for a chance to put something in their mouths. For me, this book was about survival. No one knows what they are capable of unless they are taken to that horrifying nightmare place of doom, and unless one has been there, there is absolutely no way of knowing what our choices would be. Many would argue that Stella did not get to the extremes that occurred in the death camps. But we do know that she was beaten over and over and over again. And then she was offered a chance to have it all end by being a "catcher" for the Nazis. We know that other Jews committed suicide to avoid the beatings and the offer of becoming a catcher to stay alive. I can only thank God that I have never had to be in such a situation, because I don't know what I would do. How could I know? I do know that I have a very strong instinct to live, and I think that may have been why Stella took the path that she did. I believe, that in making that choice, she did lose her "soul." I think that is the only way that a human being could do what she did. For Stella did not only "catch" Jews for the Nazis, many eyewitnesses said she seemed to enjoy it. I think for anyone to make that "choice" you would have to put your entire being into it in order to perform those horrible crimes. In the end, I think Stella suffered far more than if she had allowed herself to die at the hands of the Nazis. At the age of about 21, she began the life of a person who is hated by virtually everyone she had ever known and anyone she would ever meet. She lives her life constantly attempting to convince herself that she didn't do anything wrong. She lives in total seclusion, with the lights always dim, year after year with no one to love her, no one to hold her, no one to console her. And still she survived into old age. Survival was Stella's strongest urge. It kept her alive to live a lifelong death, the death of her humanity, with the destruction of hundreds, perhaps thousands on her hands. Would I choose survival? In retrospect, had I been a "Stella," I can only pray that I would have had the ability to accept my death at the hands of the Nazis.



3. Few can match the infamous Blond Poison, Stella Goldschlag, who stalked the alleys of Berlin seeking former friends, School Classmates and neighbers as as well as total strangers not out of loneliness but in order to betray them and send them to the Gas Chambers to be murdered in her place during the Holocaust. She well deserves her reputation as a Judas to the Jews of Berlin, the men, women and children whom she betrayed by the score to preserve her own life.
   
   This book is basicly her story. Written by a former classmate.
   
   It details much of her early life to the best of the author's knowledge. It then goes on to describe her career as a Griefer, one of the scores of Jews who openly chose to assist the Gestapo finding the Jews in hiding so to deport them to the death camps in exchange for their own survival.
   
   A career in which Stella Goldschlag was one of the Gestapo's best.
   
   One could compare her to the infamous Blond Irma Grese (who is not mentioned in this book) but Wyden shows her life was a far cry from nightmare that of the infamous Blond Beast's. She was not mistreated. Her mother spoiled her. Her father hardly interfered. She certainly had contact with better men in the beginning. A far cry from the horrors of Irma Grese's nightmare life that ultimately exploded with deadly fury upon the inmates of Auschwitz with all the savagery of a mistreated dog.
   
   When one looks at the infamous Blond Poison and her Domestic Partner Rolf Isaacson one finds no reason to sympathise with them at all. They did what they did as a matter of choice. Wyden even reports the infamous Blond Poison enjoyed her work.
   
   This is the story of one woman's choice in Evil.



4. Wyden mixes personal reminiscences about his youthful schoolboy infatuation with schoolmate Stella with a history of the persecution of Jews in Berlin and Stella's ever duplicitous role in it. Ultimately, he portrays a pathetic, lonely and isolated woman who refuses to acknowledge any guilt, real or alledged, or personal responsibility in betraying Jews to the Gestapo.
   
   This book is history and personal anecdote while concurrently begging thought provoking questions about guilt and capitulation. One could easily conclude that had Stella been born in a different place at a different time she would have been a totally ordinary person living out an uneventful life. Sometimes it almost seems that Wyden wants to believe this too. For her part, she claims that even had there been any cooperation with the Gestapo it was to spare the lives of her parents. Is she guilty out of concern for her parents (they ultimately perished) and therefore somewhat forgiven by the "I was just obeying orders" defense so frequently echoed throughout World War II and VietNam; or is she guilty because an ordinary person was born into and negatively impacted by the truly bizarre and cruel world of 1940s Berlin?
   
   Stella is ultimately a disturbing portrait of a truly personal human tragedy; her own and those who suffered for it.



5. Stella is my kind of history. First person who was there, through their own eyes. When I majored in American History I wondered what happened to the Jews who were my age during the war. Thinking that I would not have fallen in the Nazi traps which led to the camps. This book helps explain where the 20 year olds went during the war. The author was in Berlin before the war with many school friends and neighbors. The follow-up with his friends and the stories of their lives during and after the war is amazing. Riveting. I couldn't put it down and would recomment this book to anyone interested in Berlin history during the war.

2 comments about One Woman Against the Reich.

1. This vivid story of life in Germany during the worst part of its history is told by one who lived through it. Memories of that awful period in human history are fading fast as those who experienced it are dying. This page in human history should not be forgotten. The book is especially timely in the light of the war in Iraq. This is not a story of battles but of the day-to-day life of a Christian family during the time when Hitler and his minions ruled Germany. The Ziefle family held fast to their Christian faith in the face of danger and ridicule. The book recounts their walk of faith day by day. They suffered both physically and emotionally, especially during the five years Reinhold, the eldest son, was a prisoner of war despised for being part of Hitler's army. It is a reminder of how to live one's faith in the midst of opposition and threats. Sharing this family's experience is helpful in thinking about what is going on and will go on in Iraq as the people there learn to live with the effects of war.
   Georg and Maria Ziefle had four children, Reinhold. Kurt, Ruth, and Helmut.
   Both Reinhold and Kurt served in the German army. Ruth under took many daring adventures to care for the family and its needs. Georg was not forced into the army because of his work for the Red Cross and the fact that he was disabled from World War I. Maria and she narrowly escaped being forced into service of the German war machine. Their faith was tested many times but they all survived the war and lived productive lives after the war. Helmut, who wrote the account from his memories and with the help of his siblings, spent many years as a professor at Wheaton College.



2. This is a timely book for today. Maria Ziefle was a strong Christian woman, and was very concerned about the Nazi influence on her family. As they dealt with the Hitler Youth, Nazi neighbors, the draft, horrors of war, pressures from "the Party", the heartache of seeing so much wickedness, and so much more, Maria prayed that their family would remain alive and faithful to God.
   
   Today in America we do not live with the horrors the Ziefle family faced. But as our culture becomes more Godless, our children can innocently be drawn into it, just as Kurt was attracted to the Hitler Youth. Parents must be vigilant in prayer and in teaching their children what is good and right and honoring to God. This woman's story will be an encouragement for many parents. Especially as the book was written by her son.
   
   Everything was not ideal in the Ziefle family. Georg was not the family's spiritual leader; his wife was. Everyone may not agree with certain stands they chose to make, but ideal families exist only in fiction, and to agree with everything in a book, we must write it ourselves.
   
   Many photographs are included throughout the book of the people and places described. The story unfolds in an easy way, although the events make for less than easy thoughts as we comfortably read about the Ziefle's struggles. The war is not the focus, but rather the experiences of a Christian German family who did not support the Nazis. Readers of all ages will enjoy this biography, but parents in particular will be blessed by the account of a woman who fought for her family.

1 comments about When Memory Comes (George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History).

1. April 2008 - I read this book when it was first published. A very beautifully written and translated memoire of a Jewish boy raised as a Catholic in order to save him from the Nazi death camps.

1 comments about Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander's Account of a Mass Murder.

1. I've decided to read this book because I visited Vilnius (Lithuania) last month and there I visited the KGB museum. The museum is very impressive, but where it does show a lot of wrongs of the KGB (when the Soviets were in power in Lith.), it hardly mentions anything at all about the significant role local Lithuanians played in the Holocaust during WW II. I stumbled upon this title by surfing Amazon, and then decided to order it. The 'Ponary Diary' is hard to digest realy. It is an almost casual diary of a Polish journalist who lived in the area of the infamous killing fields of Ponary. What I found so hard to digest, is the matter-of-fact style in which the entries are written. There is no emotion whatsoever, Sakowicz could have been describing the local cattle slaugther-house. But maybe it is a good thing he writes in such a distanced way, so the facts (the things he actually witnessed with his very own eyes) don't get blurred. I'm glad I read this book, but I would not want to read it again. It is that hard to take. (What bothered me also a bit, was the fact that nothing was written by way of an epilogue, of what happened to those sadistic Lithuanian and German mass-murderers. They remain nameless and faceless for the most part).

2 comments about The House by the Sea: A Portrait of the Holocaust in Greece.

1. BOOK REVIEW - 2/10/99

   THE HOUSE BY THE SEA: A PORTRAIT OF THE HOLOCAUST IN GREECE by Rebecca Camhi Fromer Reviewed by R. Bortnick

   There are far too few books in English on the Sephardic experience in the Holocaust. There would be fewer still if it weren't for Rebecca Camhi Fromer, author of the groundbreaking The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando (University of Alabama Press,1993) and co-author, with Rene Molho, of They Say Diamonds Don't Burn (Judah Magnes Museum, 1994.) In her latest book, The House by the Sea, she weaves the facts of the Holocaust in Greece around the personal story of Salonica native Elias Aelion. Elias is not a Holocaust survivor in the usual sense, for he was never in a German concentration camp. There are no descriptions here of concentration camps, mass murders, or crematoria. Yet the book is subtitled "A Portrait of the Holocaust in Greece" because, as the author says in the Preface, this is "a serious work that is grounded in the past, the tenor of the struggle to survive, and the nature of the loss in Greece due to the Holocaust." Elias Aelion was born in the house at the edge of the sea, a house which remains associated in his memory with "all that seemed worthwhile, warm and loving, simple and natural..." His grandparents lived there, and it was the focal location of the very large family's life (his parents had sixteen siblings between them!), of gatherings on Sabbaths, holidays and special occasions, of games and fights with cousins, and of other mundane events of a normal life. Elias was inducted into the Greek army in 1939, becoming part of the defense army against the invading Italians in 1940. When the Germans invaded in April, 1941, the Greek soldiers fled in disarray, and Elias escaped on foot with his comrades, walking for about 300 miles from somewhere between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia into Greece. When his family and friends and all the other Jews of his hometown went on the infamous "transports", he was in Italian-occupied Athens.. His tale of the war years, of running, evading, riding on cattle trains and stolen trucks, hiding, and avoiding a German arrest by-the skin-of-his-teeth, or, rather, by the force of some hard green beans (you'll have to read the book to see what that means!), absorbs the reader like an adventure movie. When he returns to Salonica and finds his community and family gone, we feel with him, in the depths of our souls, the tragedy before our eyes. Besides lending her own poetic eloquence to Elias's language, Ms. Fromer also speaks to us directly in the Introduction, the notes, the Appendices and the Afterword, in order to to create a complete picture of the events. In the Introduction, she presents a general historical background of the Jews of Greece, the culture of the Jews of Salonica (the city that "was a main center of Sephardic life, not a mere outpost of Jewish survival"), and the destruction of their great culture in the Holocaust in a period of less than five months, culminating with the nineteenth and last transport out of Salonica on August 18, 1943. Alongside Elias's story, Ms. Fromer adds side notes which are generally very illuminating and interesting. The Appendices include a historical time-line, a chronology of the Holocaust in Greece, a map, and archival information on the transports. One of the documents is especially important. This, from the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services), declassified only in January of 1998 and published here for the first time, dispels any doubt that at least by 1943, the Allies had clear information about the planned extermination of the Jews of Europe. Having established the importance and beauty of this book, we intend no detraction by mentioning two mistakes which, although not significant in context, did catch our attention. One is in the explanation given for the origin of the term sefer tasin - a portable food pot - which in fact has nothing to do with the Hebrew sefer, meaning book, as is indicated, but comes from sefer tasi in Turkish - sefer, meaning journey or expedition (related to the English word "safari"); the other is in the use of the term Inquisition for the Spanish expulsion of the Jews. The House by the Sea is an eloquently-told piece of little-known history. It is an intimate look at the destruction of a great and vibrant Sephardic culture. If we are to understand the full scope of the Holocaust, this history must be known, and that culture must be understood,. This book should be on every Jew's - and certainly on every Sefardi's - bookshelf.




2. While this book is certainly worth reading once,I must say that I can not share in the glowing review presented above.Aside from the fact that the book contains several historical inaccuracies,the "hero"- Elias Aelion is neither particularly heroic nor interesting.

   As to the author's inaccuracies, I will posit but two examples(although there are several):1.the author points out that the Albanians "defeated the Italian Army" when the latter invaded Albania as a first step in their disasterous subsequent invasion of Greece.Well,check again because this never happened;2. the author states that Elias Aelion, the principal character marched back from Bulgaria-Yugoslavia,after the defeat of the Greek Army by the Germans, for a distance of 300 miles.This is quite suspect for two reasons:1.The Greek Army was never in either Bulgaria or Yugoslavia, and 2. the distance from the border in question to, lets say Athens is far less than 300 miles. Yes, I know this sounds a bit picky, but either the author failed to do some basic homework or Elias Aelion is not telling the events quite right.

   And speaking of Mr. Aelion. I wondered, as I read the book, why a trained soldier, such as he, spent his time either lounging in Athens or having little parties while tens of thousands of others, including Greek Jews, were fighting in the mountains of Greece with the Resistance, against the Germans. I remember my father telling me about "David'- a Greek Jew who was his comrade in the Resistance. David lost everyone- but he never lost his love for his country nor his thirst to avenge his murdered family. He was always first in battle...and he took no prisoners.

   Yet,while Elias Aelion feared capture and went in to hiding-- he did so in the relative comfort of Athens,with a roof over his head and with some food in his stomach. While I find the description of his return to his home quite touching, I am sorry to say that I found little else sympathetic about him.

   One single, solitary chapter in Mazower's book "Inside Hitler's Greece" on the plight of Greek Jewry in the Holocaust has more power, force and accuracy than this entire book.