No comments about Maybe Tomorrow: A Hidden Child of the Holocaust.

No comments about Der Finfter zman: lider (The Fifth Season: Poems).

4 comments about Biografía de Ana Frank.

1. This book is wonderful, it was done with the complete cooperation of Anna's surviving relatives, who gave the author letters, photographs and Anna's more personal side. They finally show us Anna's mother and father, and you will find letters and parts of Otto Frank's diary and memoirs, where he sees a complicated relationship between mother and daughter, and the pain he felt that Anna and her mother could have more time together to get to know and understan each other better, he knew that the fights where due to her age. For the first time you get to know Anna Frank, not as a victim, but as a human being, who loved, laughed and cared, but who also fought, cried and felt alone. A must read, Enjoy!



2. While perhaps the title of this book might give you a hint, nothing in the documentation for this book tells you that it is NOT the original, but is a translation into Spanish. Be forewarned. My low-star rating has nothing to do with the quality of the book. I assume the other reviewers were able to read the book in Spanish. But if you aren't able to do this, don't buy this book.



3. Agosto del 2001

   He leído el libro en dos días, me ha cautivado el estilo de la escritora, pero sobre todo los hechos de la vida de Ana. Esta biografia es la primero que leo sobre Ana, ignoraba que hubiera algo como esto ademas del diario. Pienso que la autora ha hecho un excelente trabajo de investigacion sobre los acontecimientos que sucedieron antes, durante y despues en la vida de la familia Frank, durante esos tragicos dias de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El libro ademas de presentar los hechos de una manera cronologica fundamentados con documentos historicos, tiene, diria yo, un "sabor" familiar, es como si la autora nos estuviera contando algo que le ha sucedido a algun ser querido muy cercano a nosotros (los lectores). Las excelentes fotografias que tiene el libro permite que se conozca a algunos de las personas con las que Ana convivio. Al final del libro se encuentra una parte dedicada a quien pudo haber traicionado a los que se escondian en la "casa de atras". Esta parte me gusto mucho porque es una pregunta que surge al estar leyendo el libro. Es un excelente libro sobre la vida de Ana Frank.




4. this 's a good biography of Anne. it's very interesting book so i can't turn my eyes of it..

3 comments about Conversations with Elie Wiesel.

1. Elie Wiesel is an extraordinary figure in history and literature. As a Jew who survived the Holocaust and horrors of the concentration camps when he was but a child, he has spent his life questioning the very nature of his faith and his fellow human beings. In "Conversations With Elie Wiesel" readers are given the opportunity to hear his viewpoint on a wide range of topics that concern America, and the entire world, today.
   
   These conversations have been honed from numerous interviews with Richard D. Heffner, moderator of the public television show "The Open Mind." Together these two men discuss religion, tolerance, hate, compassion, capital punishment - almost every so-called hot button that exists in the political, social and moral concerns of our world. Elie Wiesel proves himself to be a thoroughly intelligent man, who raises questions even while recognizing that some may never be answered. His distinct experiences and his Jewish faith play a role in all that he says or does.
   
   These conversations are interspersed with interludes that give true Wiesel fans insights into the inner workings of his mind. Wiesel argues for the necessary role of compassion in human interactions. We need to care about our brothers, in spite of our differences, if there is to be any peace and understanding within our world. He holds out hope for the day when everyone could come together and put aside all the differences and squabbles that separate us and tear us apart. This truly is a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in religion, philosophy, and the fate of our world.



2. How does one review a book by Wiesel? He speaks the truth, is a modern day "righteous Jew", and makes one think of the meanings of life



3. Elie Wiesel here speaks with Richard Heffern on major questions of our moral and ethical life. The fourteen chapters of this work discuss such questions as "Am I My Brother's Keeper" " The Role of the Intellectual In Public Life" " The State: Its Proper Role in Our Life " " On Being Politically Correct" "Nationalism and Upheaval" " The Anatomy of Hate"
   "Taking Life Can it be an Act of Compassion?" " Making ourselves over in whose Image?" " The Mystic character of Memory" " Anti-Semitism"
   Heffern a veteran broadcaster is an extremely intelligent moderator. Wiesel is as always wise and humane . He for instance in the opening dialogue talks about the problem many of us face, of where to focus our attentions in a world in which there are so many problems, so much suffering, so much need for help. Wiesel the witness of the 'Shoah' whose book 'Night' perhaps more than any other made a wider publc feel the horror of the 'Holocaust' is not simply a spokesman for the Jewish people, but for all of Mankind. He is a person who cares and has done much to help. His description of his first efforts in Biafra shows once again how he extended his caring for all of mankind.
   Anyone who wishes to have real insight into the moral and political dilemnas facing Mankind today should read this outstanding book.

2 comments about The Warriors: My Life As A Jewish Soviet Partisan (Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust).

1. Too often have I read memoirs from Jewish partisans who served either with the Poles, Ukrainians or in this case Russians and Byelorussia and the sad fact that they had to face anti-semitism within these partisan groups and detachments. Again and again they would prove themselves to be resilient fighters, brave soldiers, and heroic warriors when the time came in the heat of battle. Some lived through it all but many more would die and their stories need to be heard, understood and remembered. Not only suffering from the Germans and their local collaborators but also at the hands of the same people whom they sought out for help and protecting and more so to simply join to seek vengeance. This book is a small glimpse into that world, a world where the enemy might be a man you called a friend not too long ago and someone whom you entrusted your life to in a split second decision when had yet to lose faith in humanity and the generous spirit you know people must have deep down inside. Yet the end result more often than not was betrayal, death, starvation, torture, and torment. Stories abound of the dozens of actions undertaken by these partisans and the huge amount of damage they were able to do to the Germans and locals who were helping them. At the same time we are also told about the German responses to these actions, local people who might have had nothing to do with it were robbed, beaten, and killed for simply being at the wrong place and at the wrong time. War is war, I only wish that the author had included everything in this book, sadly he himself says that he left out stories of 'cruelty, inhumanity, and atrocity.' I think that was a mistake on his part, the more we know the better informed we'll be and hopefully we might avert something like this from ever happening again.



2. There is a wealth of information in this book, notably a detailed map of relevant locations. I primarily focus on matters not elaborated by other reviewers.
   
   Zissman describes a time a prewar Poland during which he had a rosy view of Communism. He does not explain how he could have thought this in view of such things as the ruthless totalitarianism and the removal of Jews from top positions in the Soviet Union by Stalin in the mid-1930's. Or how could he be ignorant of these facts?
   
   In 1939, the Soviets occupied then-eastern Poland, a territory with a mixed Polish-Byelorussian-Jewish population. Zissman essentially confirms some historians (e. g., Jerzy Robert Nowak) as to the major cause of Jews being sent to Siberia: Jews manifesting their intent of going to the German-occupied zone (p. 29).
   
   Zissman describes the existence of a Polish militia which briefly served the Germans after their 1941 invasion: "Then they began arresting those who had worked for the Soviets." (pp. 41-42). Later, the Germans shot the Poles along with the Jews (p. 47). Poles who continued to serve the Germans clearly did it under duress: "If he [the Polish guard] dared show any mercy to the Jews, they [the Germans] would shoot him or send him to a concentration camp." (p. 53)
   
   In common with some other Jewish sources (e. g.,Deliverance: The Diary of Michael Maik, a True Story), Zissman confirms the fact that Germans, not Poles, were the main killers of Jedwabne's Jews: "Later on, some Jews who had fled Jedwabno for Derechin told us that when the Germans first entered their town, they had herded all the Jews into a barn and set it ablaze. Anyone who tried to get out was cut down by machine-gun fire." (p. 42). [The discovery of WWI-vintage bullet casings at the site doesn't disprove their connection with the Jedwabne massacre. The Germans probably relegated obsolete weaponry to the shootings of unarmed civilians.]
   
   Bor Komorowski gave an order for the AK to liquidate bandits who were preying on Polish farmers. Apropos to this, Zissman mentions bandit bands of Soviet soldiers who had been trapped behind German lines after the 1941 invasion (p. 78). Later, Zissman was a member of one of the "pozorny" groups that masqueraded as the AK: "When carrying out `bombings' [bandit raids], we impersonated Polish Underground fighters, the point being to discredit the White Poles with the farmers. From the farms, besides food and clothing, we took naphtha, saws, and axes--the farmers would miss these things most of all." (p. 149). How many crimes attributed to the AK (including the killings of fugitive Jews) were actually the deeds of the "pozornys"?
   
   After the Soviet "liberation" of Poland in 1944, Zissman was approached by a Jewish NKVD officer and invited to join (pp. 161-162). He did.
   
   Zissman comments on the reaction to Jewish owners returning for their properties: "Besides not wanting to give up their loot, they [current owners] feared being sent to Siberia as collaborators. Many were ready to kill any returning Jews." (p. 161). Could the fear of being accused of Nazi collaboration, ipso facto for possessing Jewish property, been itself, in many other such instances, a significant motivator for killing returning Jewish owners?

No comments about Lost Hero: Raoul Wallenbergs Dramatic Quest to Save the Jews of Hungary.

1 comments about A Quiet Courage: Per Anger, Wallenberg's Co-Liberator of Hungarian Jews.

1. Rarely do you have an opportunity to meet someone who has "made a difference in history." Ambassador Per Anger is just that sort of person. Elizabeth R. Skoglund touches on the thread that held people like Per Anger, Rauol Wallenberg and others together while they tried to help those escaping the Holocaust. For us now, we too can "make a difference".

No comments about In a World Gone Mad: A Heroic Story of Love, Faith, and Survival.

3 comments about Berlin-Shanghai-New York: My Family's Flight From Hitler.

1. "We are fortunate that this invaluable document has been made available to a broad public. Dr. Friedrichs was an uncompromising observer. He told and reflected upon so many details of his and his family's plight preceding his departure from Germany, that the interval of more than six decades shrinks to no time at all. The reader is drawn into the immense physical and emotional stress of the months during which the Nazi government wished to see as many Jews as possible leave the country, and at the same time piled one barrier upon another in its greed to squeeze out of these people virtually all their material belongings. . .
   
   This is a moving memoir of a family's fate, and a most vivid and informative documentation of what it took to survive amid the gigantic turmoil unleashed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Dr. Friedrichs' view on these events serves as a powerful reminder of those horrific times and a sober warning never to forget."
   
   Paul U. Unschuld
   Horst-Goertz Institute
   Charité
   Berlin



2. Review of : BERLIN SHANGHAI NEW YORK: My Family's Flight from Hitler
   By: Dr. Theodor Friedrichs
   Translated and edited by Frederick Rolf
   A Must read:
   As an American born to immigrant parents, it is still impossible for this reader to imagine anyone surviving the horrors of Hitler's holocaust and/or the flight to a foreign country. However, reading what Dr. Friedrichs had the courage to write, it is clear that he did so with enormous civility at a time when life was anything but civilized.
   This book is testimony to Dr. Friedrichs's incredible humanity... and, while others have, of course, written stories of devastation and dehumanization under Hitler's regime, this is a book that must not be overlooked; its style is simple, but its content is as complex as any one person's life can possibly be portrayed.
   Like many who were a part of Germany's successful professionals, Dr. Friedrichs - a beloved family physician - couldn't believe what was happening in his country. He escaped - with great effort and ingenuity - just in time to save his life and that of his wife and eldest son. His youngest, the son who edited this testimony, was sent to England and separated from the family for years ... the sort of separation most Americans have never had to willingly suffer.
   Page after page, one can only marvel at the fact that while Dr. Friedrichs's own health and that of his wife was compromised time and again in the new climate and cramped conditions of living in Shanghai, he never seemed to lose his ability to treat patients, friends and family alike with the sort of spirit one expects only from those whom we would refer to as saints.
   This kind, brilliant man was not only a healer. Not so surprisingly, he was also a musician, a man with music in his soul and artistry in his ability to carve out a life of dignity where most found only despair. This is a must read book for students of history as well as for anyone wanting to be both emboldened and inspired by a son's ability to keep his father's story alive for others to learn about: the power of a man's love for his wife and children; a physician's dedication to help save and heal the pain of any and all patients; and an unending belief in the goodness of mankind despite the evil of a few.
   I doubt that many of us could ever know whether or not we would have been able to endure and survive as did Dr. Friedrichs, but we must honor the memory of men like him who managed to take notes on scraps of paper and remembered in detail all that he felt he had to remember so that the world would one day know what happened.
   Now that Mr. Rolf has shared his father's story, we must listen. We owe his father no less ... for we must not forget, since other holocausts confront us and remaining silent can no longer ever be an option.
   
   Linda Appleman Shapiro
   Psychotherapist
   Author, FOUR ROOMS, UPSTAIRS: A Psychotherapist's Journey Into and Beyond Her Mother's Mental Illness



3. If you savor stories about people who overcome the most daunting obstacles and thrive nevertheless, this is the book you'll want to read and recommend. And, as in this instance, if it is a true recounting, then that makes the accomplishment even more impressive. Berlin Shanghai New York subtitled My Family's Flight From Hitler is a totally engrossing 300 page book that chronicles what happened to an esteemed Jewish doctor and his family when the Nazis came to power. Thanks to the clarity of the writing, the telling of this family's hardship-filled journey is compellingly told. One question here is whether a man of science, with the commitment to be objective, can remain so and still subjectively report on the austere predicament in which he was trapped? The answer is yes. He managed to balance both needs quite evenly and made the hardships of living under the Nazi and the Japanese dictatorships so terrifyingly vivid. The writing sustains a palpable tension which hovers throughout this journal. To his credit, Dr. Friedrichs managed to maintain a sense of humor, understandably a dark one, but one that leavened the unnerving conditions. Being able to participate in musical groups - he was a clarinetist - also allowed some relief. His descriptions bear a strong sense of urgency and immediacy. Throughout those peril-filled years, Dr. Friedrichs remained the civilized family man and devoted physician. The unmistakable impression left with this reader is that Dr. Friedrichs was an outstanding medical practitioner who never failed to uphold his oath to aid the infirm even under the most dispiriting circumstances. Packed with so many rich anecdotes, and colorful characters, the history of this family's journey reads much like a terrific novel. It could make for a powerful moving film. I strongly recommend it.

4 comments about The Quest for Freedom: A Story of Belgian Resistance in World War II.

1. This is an easy and well written book and first hand biography by a couragious woman, resistance fighter in Belgium during World War II. I am glad to have found this work and finally have been able to read about the Belgian resistance. The simplicity of the biography is what makes it so interesting. The work is filled with small and valuable details. I wish that other Belgians would have found the courage to publish their wartime experiences. Thank you Yvonne de Ridder



2. Easy to read story of the little known Belgian resistance in ww2. Real life stories can be amazing, and fill you full of envy, delight, fear. However, this book is so understated that although the writer did some courageous and amazing things, risking her life daily, she does not portray this, and leaves the reader dissatisfied. Sometimes modesty is not such a virtue.



3. "The Quest For Freedom" by Yvonne de Ridder Files. Subtitled: "Belgian Resistance In World War II". (which is the subtitle on my copy of the book).
   Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, 1991.
   
   Since retirement as an engineer, I have tried to use my MA in History, leading me to the history of World War II. In my limited experience, there appears to be plenty of books on French Resistance in world War II, with the quantity of books on Polish Resistance being in second place (perhaps). It appears that the number of works on the Resistance in Belgium, Denmark and The Netherlands are few and far between. Therefore, I was happy to see the subtitle, "Belgian Resistance In World War II" on this book. I was disappointed. This book does not address the overall Belgian Resistance, but, rather, is the autobiography of one woman who fought hard and long inside the Belgian Resistance.
   
   Having expressed my disappointment, I would not want to belittle nor denigrate the sufferings and sacrifices of Yvonne de Ridder Files. I know that I could never suffer the way that she did and I thank God that as a little boy in world War II, I never had to make real sacrifices.
   
   This book is actually an autobiography of Yvonne de Ridder Files, written in the first person, tracing her life from the early stages of World War II through her last divorce and her latest marriage to Lt. Colonel Roger Files, (USAF), in 1970. The book is replete with photos of the author at various stages of the War, along with photos of some of the Allied fliers (e.g. Max MacGregor and Louis Rabinowitz, page 77) that she and the Resistance helped. Time wise, the author's story begins with May 1940, when the "Sitzkrieg" again became a "Blitzkrieg", and Belgium and The Netherlands rapidly capitulated. Yvonne records how she and her husband fled from Belgium into France, and, one night parked near two big, seemingly brand-new barns. She was afraid that the barns would be mistaken for aircraft hangars, although she spelt the "hangar" as "hanger"(page 12). . Her 1940 husband was a Jew with American citizenship and he flees to America and quietly disappears from the remainder of the book. Most of the book, from page 25 up to page 145, deals with her Resistance efforts, including the hiding of explosives, the protection of Allied airmen and, finally, betrayal, capture and torture by the Nazis. Yvonne never gave away any secrets. From page 145 to the end of the book (p. 171) the author recounts her post war activities, serving the Allied forces as an interpreter.
   
   I found the writing to be sometimes vindictive here and there, as she describes the actions of her step mother and some of her Belgian neighbors. For a misleading title, one star;
   for excellent writing and personal reminisces, five stars; for interesting digs at Nazi propaganda, four stars and, finally, for leaving out too much (where's the first husband?) and putting in too many other details, one star. Average 3.5 stars.



4. I met Yvonne deridder deFiles while my kids were in middle school. She came to the school on an invitation to excite kids that had difficulty in school. She was a jewel. I was given a signed copy of her book as a gift, after talking to the kids and was invited to a private conversation with the author, teacher and myself about the time she was in the resistance and in prison. She was a strong, funny, intelligent woman I was honored to have met and if time would have permitted I would have spent more time with her. The book was very interesting. A little above the middle school age but I found it interesting especially after meeting the author. If you are interested in WWII a must read.