1 comments about Return to the Hiding Place.

1. During the Nazi occupation of Holland there was a quiet family of watchmakers, the ten Boons. When they saw the evil of the Nazi regiem they decided to do what there Christian fiath required of them to hide those who were being hunted. They hid eight people (7 I believe were Jewish) as a result when the ten
   Booms were captured by the Nazi's the elderly father died, the two daughter's ended up in Buchenwald concentration camp. The eldest Betsey died at the camp, but her younger sister Corrie was released due to a clerical error. She went on to bring healing to the lives of many people, including her persecuters.

   This book tells the story from the eyes of one of the young men hidden by the ten Booms. He tells life from his perspective. Out of the eight people hidden by the ten Booms only one died during the war. The Nazi's did not find them in "The Hiding Place" ( a hidden room in Corrie ten Booms closet) but after they were moved to safe houses some of them were raided. This is a tale of courage, faith, and conviction. The story of some unlikly heroes from the perspective of the people they helped. Enjoy!!!

1 comments about Surviving in Silence: A Deaf Boy in the Holocaust, The Harry I. Dunai Story.

1. I'm sorry, but this book just was not what I expected it to be. Though Harry Dunai did experience the Holocaust as a Jew, his deafness barely entered into it, except to maybe save his life. His typical experience of being sent away to residential schooling in Budapest probably saved his life, since his parents and brothers were collected and sent to the gas chambers.

   Dunai's life was not easy by any measure, but he had many protectors and many people who cared for him and did so much for him in the way of providing homes and jobs. I don't know if it is the translating of Dunai's own words through his daughter and ghostwriter, but Dunai comes across as a very self-centered human being, who often does not show either the gratefulness for his blessings and for those who do things for him, nor does he express much concern for others.

   Since I've read so many histories and biographies about those who did care on all sides, this one was very disappointing. The section on the war is short...mainly about how hungry he was. A lot of people starved to death...a lot of other people never had the people caring for them nor the opportunities for escaping a horrific existence that Dunai had.

   If you are looking for a good book on the Medical Holocaust as it affected the Deaf, read 'Crying Hands' about the Deaf in Germany who were targeted before and during WWII. This book is okay as a demonstration of deaf life during the war and afterwards in Europe, I guess. (...)

5 comments about Lost Childhood: A Memoir.

1. This page-turning memoir by Yehuda Nir, a New York City psychiatrist, tells the story of his family's experiences during World War II, as it masqueraded as Christians and hid from the Nazis. Nir's fascinating, well-written narrative operates on several levels. These include: the grim adventures of a boy, his sister, and their mother who are caught in a historical nightmare and are trying to survive; a psychiatrist describing how different members of his family coped with the stress of hiding in plain view; and the experiences and impressions of a normal boy growing up in an abnormal world, shadowed by the possibility of disclosure and death.

   Amazingly, this bleak but inspiring story is also laced with humor. Laugh-out-loud moments are provided by the Russians, who bomb Warsaw with heavy parcels of non-parachuted food, destroying the homes of their Polish allies; and flustered German nurses near the war's end, who are distracted from detecting that Nir is Jewish by the aggressive lewdness of his fellow prisoners. Steven Spielberg, get that into a movie!

   It's truly a shame this book is out of print, since it provides an accessible human slant on the important subject of Jewish experience during World War II. In my opinion, the unavailability of this book illustrates a sadly common condition in today's book industry, with editors throwing money at worthless blockbusters but not supporting books like "The Lost Childhood", which could become an adult perennial and a basic text in high school and college curriculums with just a minor marketing effort.




2. This is a very interesting book. This book is about a boy and his mother and his sister. They are all Jews, who servied the World War 2. The boy's name is Yehuda Nir. This is a hair-raising story.
   Yehuda is the son of an affluent carpet manufacturer in Lwo'w, Poland. He has a nanny to take care of him and a German cook for him. He is only 9 years old. After the war started and they were forced into a smaller apartment.
   Within the two years, the tide turns and the Nazi are again incontrol. Many Jews are seized on the streets, imprisoned, and executed. Yehuda's father is murdered. The family moves. Nazis sercure situations in Warsaw. His mother works as a domestic for a wealthy German playboy, catering orgies and meeting important Nazi officials.
   Now their lives are turned upside down. They were living in a time where one had to be careful. They have to trust one another. Then finally there was a up rising in Warsaw. This is why I find this book interesting it is very good.



3. this is the best World War Two story told.. I never liked history books but after i read the plot, i knew i had to read it. its true about what the person above said about reading it at night and you will not put it down until u finish it. I stayed up nights until 12, 1am to finish reading it.. i recommend everyone to read this even if you arent a fan of history. it will change your opinion.



4. The book The Lost Childhood is a great Holocaust book! It gives a great description of the horrible things that happened to the Jewish people. This book alone should tell you why teens should learn about the holocaust because I would never want any thing like this to happen again, and we are the future. It makes people realize that you should stand up for what you believe in and don't let people put other people down when they don't even know them.
   This book is about a young boy who had to live through the Holocaust being Jewish. It tells how his mother, sister, and himself lived without knowing what happened to their father (husband), and how they went without being known as Jews. This book is very good because you get to know how it felt to be treated badly when you did nothing wrong except practice the religion you believe in. In this book they had very hard times from being sent to no one knows where to always running and hiding when they saw Germans. If you are interested in the Holocaust, this is a great book, but even if you are not this is a great dramatic adventure.



5. This extraordinary memoir is back in print! Scholastic re-issued it recently. Look for ISBN # 0439163897.

No comments about My Years in Theresienstadt: How One Woman Survived the Holocaust.

5 comments about The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War's Aftermath.

1. We typically don't write or receive personal letters anymore. That is just one of many reasons why this book, with the different life experiences Kurt and Gerda W. Klein had during the war, is so compelling. Imagine this 25 yr. old U.S. serviceman helping this young woman, who had grown from adolescence to adulthood on a Nazi death march, come to grips with who she is and what's to become of her. The book provides a first hand account and perspective through their letters to eachother, as the hopeful re-building of countries and lives is surrounding them. This is a must read, especially poignant in the tenuous world situation we all find ourselves in, post Sept. 11th. The fact that these two young people married and built a life together is a wonderful love story.



2. I think this was a okay book. It was very boring and kind of dragged. But I do like there love story, it was very touching.



3. This book is a very good read. It shows the compassion of love and trust. I am one that enjoys reading letter so this was perfect book for me. This book is comprised of letters written back and forth between the two authors. It is completely nonfiction. It shows the two peoples raw and bare emotions. It does take a while to read. It is not an extremely long book but it takes a good while to read. It is an easy read. The word choices arent difficult and the sentences aren't very complex. This sweet books talks about the way a couple met and lived through post war in Europe. The man was her liberator. She was a victim of the Nazi's cruel treatment. They became good friends while she was being treated in a medical hospital. As their relationship grew it became more loving and caring than anyone could have ever thought possible. They fell in love just as he was going to be sent back home. As this tragic point in the story happens it is counter acted by a wedding proposal and a vow for a marriage and a wonderful life together. As he left Europe, it started the wonderful wait until they could be married in Paris in 1946.



4. After I read Gerda's "All But My Life", I absolutely had to read this book. I had to know more! "All But My Life" and "The Hours After" are two of the best books I have ever read.



5. Ever since discovering Anne Frank back in Junior High School, I've always been interested in books about the Holocaust. I recently finished The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy. It's a very well written and important story about the Holocaust. And when I finished it I wanted to know what happened after the end of the book. What happened after the Jews were liberated? Everything from their previous lives was gone, their homes destroyed their families dead, murdered. What would they do? I hadn't read anything about after liberation.
   
   The Hours After tells the wonderful and uplifting story of what happened to Gerda Weissmann after liberation. The story is revealed to us through letters between Gerda and her fiancé, Kurt Klein, one of the American soldiers who liberated her from a slave-labor camp in Czechoslovakia in May 1945.
   
   At first I didn't care for the format of the book. I felt it had a sometimes awkward rhythm, going back and forth from Gerda's voice to Kurt's but at some point that feeling disappeared and all I could focus on was what would happened next.
   
   I thought their letters to each other were beautiful, especially Kurt's. What a wonderful gift they have in these letters. I also thought that the way the letters were written was interesting, maybe it was the way they translated from German to English but they seemed very old fashioned even for 1945.
   
   I thought it interesting that Gerda said her gushing (about her love and affection for Kurt) and sharing her deepest feelings was impolite. Later she asked to be forgiven for the burden she imposes on him by discussing the loss of her parents and the disappointment she's caused her uncle by not asking his permission to marry. I wonder the origins of such formality? And sometimes I wish there was just an iota of it left in our culture today.
   
   I was moved by the story of Gerda's Grandfather who was exiled to Siberia and how she drew strength from his experience. Gerda is an amazing person, very smart, she never seems to get frustrated by the bureaucrats who make her emigration to the United States so difficult. And when she had the opportunity to exact some justice or revenge (in the case of her landlady and her son) she could only feel empathy for them. What an amazing and compassionate soul!
   
   The process of preparing all of their papers for their marriage and Gerda's emigration to the US was excruciatingly prolonged! Gerda and Kurt communicated primarily by sloooow snail mail that was delivered via go-betweens until April 1946 (with the exception of a few telegrams). How different from our lightning fast communications and overnight deliveries of today.
   
   A wonderful and uplifting story!

2 comments about Surviving Despair: A Story About Perseverance.

1. I finished reading "Surviving Despair" yesterday; it took a while because I wanted to go slowly and absorb the historical information. Also, there were so many times I just had to stop because the tears blurred the words. It is such a powerful story with so much sadness, mixed in with some happiness and hope. It is a remarkable document of an unimaginable time in history.
   
   David was so reluctant to share with others (even his own family) the trauma and tragedies in his life. Yet, he obviously shared so much with the author, Herman Taube.
   
   David's relationship (or lack of) with his sons and grandchildren was so disturbing. I wonder if Uriel had married a Jewish woman and had Michael been straight would it have been easier to connect with his sons. I think not. I think his sons were too much a reminder of the children he lost in the fire.
   
   The book also reinforced the role of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in the lives of the survivors.For so many survivors, the museum is their voice. David certainly found new purpose in his life at the museum.
   
   Thank you, Herman, David and Rose for this precious gift



2. Herman's descriptions are so good that you feel you're right there with the main character watching the moments of his life unfold and seeing him persevere through all the horrors of the war and the holocaust and beyond. The story follows a boy from a small village in Poland, where he grew up before the war, to separation from his family, flight to Russia, and his attempt to make a life after all his losses.

No comments about Witness to Annihilation: Surviving the Holocaust a Memoir.

5 comments about Primo Levi: Tragedy of an Optimist.

1. I bought this book with great expecations--partly on the strength of Victor Brombert's NYT review and partly because I was midway through the wonderful Periodic Table when the biography came out. My hopes were disappointed--big time. The problem is, the writer has collected a lot of details, only to be confronted with the necessity of doing something with the details. She was not up to the task. In many cases, information is put forth without any attempt to integrate it into Levi's life story. The reader asks, What does this have to do with Levi? How did it have an impact? How should we interpret the information--should we interpret it at all? Alas, one senses that the author dug up some fact or other and said, well, now I'm going to cram it into my book. You figure it out, reader. Another problem with the author's treatment of detail is her very annoying repetition of facts. Sometimes the language is close to verbatim in different places throughout the book. Levi's books are constantly being published and then, a few pages later, published again (and I'm not talking about different translations). A third problem is that much of the information seems to have been gleaned from Levi's published books. And yet there are no new interpretive glosses that add anything to what Levi himself wrote. Finally, as the Amazon review notes, Levi the man does not emerge from the pages. If you want to know about Levi, stick with Survival in Auschwitz, the Periodic Table, and his other works. Wait for a better biography than this one.



2. As many reviewers have noted, this English translation whittles down the original French two-volume work, so perhaps an English-language reader's perspective is likewise narrowed; perhaps the publisher and translator of the English version are also responsible for the admittedly scattershot coverage given by Anissimov to Primo Levi's inner complexity. Again, Levi was certainly not the most forthcoming of men, even as he was a writer most famous for his autobiographical accounts. His wife and children receive little more than fleeting mention in the hundreds of closely-printed pages, and inevitably her treatment serves sometimes more as a commentary on the works of Levi himself than a fresh work. How difficult it must be, after all, to write the biography of an autobiographer! Yet, having pointed out some faults, this biography is worthwhile for its picture of the Piedmontese Jewish community into which Levi was born and returned to; its explanations of how Fascist Italy differed from Nazi Germany in its anti-Semitic actions; and most of all how the inner workings of the lager--Auschwitz-Birkenau--played out in Levi's classic accounts as well as the larger context of the privations endured by many of his fellow inmates. Here, the two lengthy chapters on the camp are astoundingly detailed and intimately rendered, and would make an ideal follow-up to readers who have read Levi's own descriptions, for Anissimov is alert to what Levi says and what he leaves out. Apparently the child of refugees herself, the sensitivity and acumen with which Anissimov describes how and why Levi gave the famous accounts for which he is justly famed makes her biography--especially in these two long chapters which themselves comprise almost a monograph--necessary for those who have first read Levi's own works. Her book will not tell you much new about the content of these works, but you will understand better why they were written when in his career, and why such a reticent man remained so in his own life while his books spoke for--only some part--of the pain and hope he carried within and guarded carefully.



3. Primo Levi: Tragedy Of An Optimist is a major biography which delves deeply into the life, mind and work of an influential writer, philosopher, and Holocaust witness. Drawing from exhaustive research, interviews with friends and relatives, as well as numerous unpublished texts and testimonies, biographer Myriam Anissimov explores the complex nature of a most singular, shy, intelligent, and diffident man who was both a strong-spirited survivor and a sufferer of depression, a man who felt misunderstood, certain that future generations would inevitably forget, and even deny, that the Holocaust happened. Indeed, on April 11, 1987, his self-deprecating depression was to lead him to suicide by throwing himself down the staircase of the building in which he was born. Primo Levi is a superbly presented biography and an important, singular contribution to Holocaust studies.



4. Until Myriam Anissimov published this comprehensive biography of Primo Levi in 1998, the world knew him primarily through his own writings. He was born into an assimilated middle-class Jewish family in Turin, Italy, in 1919. His people were not observant Jews, and Levi, apparently, knew little about "Jewishness" until Mussolini's anti-Semitic policy taught him something about his heritage. His father, Casare, was an electrical engineer and an avid reader. Primo learned from him that the humanities and the sciences need not be separate worlds.
   
   Trained as a chemist, he was arrested during the Second World War as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance and deported to the Monowitz concentration camp, part of the Auschwitz complex in 1944. Badly beaten and half-starved, Levi was determined to spend his time mentally recording his irrational world "with the curiosity of the naturalist." His background in chemistry actually saved his life, Levi was to acknowledge later. After being transferred to work in the camp laboratory his situation improved dramatically. Anissimov's account of the final days at Auschwitz - when Levi, suffering from scarlet fever, managed to forage, with a few comrades, through a semi-dismantled concentration camp in the freezing cold - is the focal point of her book. Her research is meticulous. Levi survived 11 months as slave laborer 174517 until the liberation of what he called "that hideous distortion of humanity." Seven months after the war, he was still a refugee in Russia, trying to make his way home.
   
   When he returned to Turin, to the same apartment where he had always lived, he felt a terrible need to bear witness. He had watched as fellow inmates were stripped of their essential selves before they died in the flesh. His powerful memoirs, works of fiction and poetry describe his experience in the death camp and his later travels in Eastern Europe. Levi wrote. "And I felt like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, who waylays on the street the wedding guests going to the feast, inflicting on them the story of his misfortune." The civilized world did not seem to care what he had to say, however. No large publisher would accept his powerful manuscript, "Survival in Auschwitz." Anissimov reports that the book received a few positive reviews but was "distributed rather than sold."
   
   For the last forty years of his life Levi devoted himself to understanding why he was not killed in the concentration camp. "The worst survived, that is, the fittest; the best all died," he said. He spent much of his time writing about literature, astronomy, philosophy, the wonders of the natural life and the dignity of manual labor. Married with two children, he was a lifelong agnostic, and was described by some coreligionists as a stranger to Jewish culture. He worked at his profession, as a research chemist and factory manager, until his retirement. Plagued by survivor's guilt, and inner wounds, as well as the coverage the media was giving to Holocaust deniers, Levi, the most gentle of men, died in Turin in April 1987, an apparent suicide.
   
   This biography delves deeply into the life and mind of the man who was a philosophical student of life. Ms. Anissimov, a French journalist and novelist, explores the complex nature of the man, who was at once such a vital force, a real survivor in many senses, and the man prone to dark moods, disillusionment and bouts of severe depression. She writes, with riveting detail, about Levi's year in Auschwitz, drawing on his autobiographical accounts and those of other survivors. Hers was the supremely difficult task of attempting to do what Levi himself said he could not. He was not able to show how the survivor and the scientist, separately and together, perceived the world. "Primo Levi: Tragedy of an Optimist" is based primarily on Ms. Anissimov's reading of Levi's work, her correspondence or interviews with men and women associated with him, and interviews and essays on him by others. This painstaking journalistic endeavor is concise and clear, which is what Mr. Levi believed his own work should be - "avoiding embellishments and convolutions." She has accomplished all this and more. I have read that many are disappointed that this biography did not delve more into Levi's personality, his psyche. I understand that his wife would not be interviewed. Nor would she release intimate personal papers. When close family members do not cooperate, and first-hand information is not available, it is almost impossible to form an accurate analysis of someone's inner complexities.
   
   I was deeply moved by this biography. There are flaws here, but overall it presents an extraordinary portrait of a great man. His writings were fundamental in shaping many people's understanding of what the Holocaust meant when he originally wrote about it, and what it means today, in the context of the 21st century. Some people, devastated by the manner in which he died, say that the Holocaust finally killed him. I do not believe this. Primo Levi fought almost all his life to live. He struggled to enjoy life and the world around him, and to bear witness, an enormous responsibility for anyone. He fought courageously for forty plus years. I respect him greatly for that, and for allowing us all to know him a little bit.
   JANA



5. Readers of Levi's works will find this bio complements the works. Entering Auschwitz in his early twenties - on the brink of life itself, love, work, education, friendship - young Primo through his works of literature, his school visits, his articles, his interviews, bore witness to the efficient workings of the German business and military machine as it worked its way through murdering millions of undesirables, mainly people of the Jewish faith. One of the interesting contradictions in Levi's world was his belief in the power of the scientific method on the one hand, which governed his approach to literature, and his love of the inefficiencies and carelessness of the Russian liberators of the death camps, on the other. In the former, it was the Germans very use of science and methodical organization that made it so successful in killing then cremating so many so efficiently. In the latter, it was the absence of method that he found so endearing, so human. If his goal was to bear witness, he has achieved that goal, and his legacy will live forever. No matter how many films we see, or pictures of the dead, or documentaries, it will be through literature that the real legacy of Naziism will be immortalized and it is mainly to this chemist, this great writer, that we owe thanks, a writer who manages to reach the soul of the reader.
   His other great legacy will be his respect for the accurate and most effective use of language which he was passionate about and which he sees as being directly connected to the search for "truth" in his work as a scientist (chemist). It is this passion which connects him directly to such writers as George Orwell. Undoubtedly, the reader leaves Levi's works and this biography with a a greater, perhaps lasting, sensitivity to words, words such as ARBEIT MACHT FREI (work sets free) which was the gateway motto of Auschwitz death camps, but which, ironically, Levi believed and practiced throughout his life.
   Ms Anissimov's work makes excellent reading and she has done a great service in bringing us closer to this fine human.

1 comments about Maria Zacharczuk-Gruenwald: The true story of a young non-Jewish girl's dreams shattered by the Nazi regime.

1. This book is exciting and heartwarming that describes the story of a young girls experience in a horrible time of our history. The sacrifies and she had to endure without knowing if she was going to live or die and to sustain harsh treatment on a daily basis, suffering from medical complications and lack of food. This book is a true testiment of what war is and the many lives that our destroyed because of hatered and discrimination. A great book for the young and old.

1 comments about From the Flames:: Miracles and Wonders of Survival.

1. After reading this short, powerful book I again marvel that anyone survived the Holocaust. This is a must read - no matter what your religion - it is truly amazing.