No comments about Remembering Georgy: Letters from the House of Izieu.

No comments about Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons.

2 comments about Hess: The Fuhrer's Disciple.

1. The first casualty in war - truth. Without it there will always be plenty of scope for the Violets, Roses, Gilberts, Manchesters, Irvings et al. A well focused study, difficult to put down once under way. Of course, no satisfactory conclusion, leaving me wondering whether I'll be around in 2017, and will the world then know the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I very much doubt it.



2. The standard and obligatory questions about Rudolf Hess are: did he fly to Scotland with Hitler's knowledge? Was he crazy during the Nuremberg trials and afterwards as well, and was he murdered? If you're insane or hopelessly ill-informed, you might also throw in the question whether he ever had a double. Unfortunately, Padfield asks these questions but is too ill-equipped historically to answer them. He is totally out of his depth here and it shows. He relies on Wolf Hess' testimony on many things when he needs to examine the historical record instead. The overwhelming abundance of evidence shows that Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 without the Fuehrer's knowledge, that he was perfectly sane throughout his life (though eccentric) and that the notion of him having a "double" is ludicrous.

   This book is not especially well-written and contains almost nothing new. The autopsy photos of Hess are revealing but hardly show "conclusively" that he was murdered. There is very little material on Hess' long confinement at Spandau, nor about his early life. His relationship with Hitler is not explored adequately with the possible exception of their time in Landsberg prison. In short, a disappointment.

1 comments about Light from the Ashes: Social Science Careers of Young Holocaust Refugees and Survivors.

1. Light From the Ashes arrived as I was watching the latest news about the U.S.'s war against terrorism. I have often wondered if war were declared on the U.S., as it has been declared on so many other nations during my lifetime, how I would "survive." I fear the struggle to survive almost as much as I fear death. Light From the Ashes gives new insight into what it takes to survive war, deprivation, persecution and other horrors of war and holocaust. While many who survived the Nazi Holocaust as adults have written and spoken of their experience and its affect on their remaining years, few, if any have spoken and written of the experience as a child or adolescent. This collection of how those early experiences may have shaped the choice of career in the social sciences is monumental is helping me understand the term "survivor." The essays are literate but completely comprehensible to the layman. The insights into the life of each contributor and editor (also a contributor) comes to light in some cases because they were asked to participate in this volume. It is a timely work, and, I am sad to say, will probably never be out of context in our world.

1 comments about My War: Memoir of a Young Jewish Poet (Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust).

1. Edward Stankiewicz begins by describing his life in prewar Warsaw--his schooling, early love of Latin, and graduation from his gymnasium in 1939 shortly before the German invasion--and his escape to the Soviet-occupied zone. In Lwow (Lemberg) where he attended the university as a student of classics, he began writing Yiddish poems and joined the Writers' Club where he met other Jewish and Polish writers.

   After the Germans occupied Lwow, he was forced to work in a factory that provided the German army with leather and pelts. Later, in a German uniform, he fled to the Ukraine where he wandered from town to town for several months until he was captured by the Gestapo, beaten, and sent to Buchenwald.

   There, as a Pole hiding his Jewish identity, he ended up working as a scribe in the block for sick and dying prisoners. He also managed to continue writing poems, some of which are reproduced in this book.

   As hellish as Buchenwald was, the fact that its political prisoners had for the most part wrested control of its inner workings from the camp's criminal prisoners, meant that there was something of a buffer between the prisoners and the SS in charge of the camp. This situation allowed the prisoners to exact their own justice. Twice Stankiewicz saw prisoners kill other prisoners who had been kapos at other camps ("Buchenwald was meting out justice the prisoners' way."). Toward the end of the book the author describes the day--April 11, 1945--the camp was liberated by the Americans.

   The author's passion for poetry and language runs like a thread through the entire book (he is professor emeritus of Slavic linguistics and literary theory at Yale University). His memoir is an important source of new information and insights about previously little known aspects of wartime Eastern European intellectual life, as well as a moving story of survival against incredible odds.

   --Charles Patterson, Ph.D., author of ETERNAL TREBLINKA: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust

No comments about LEGACY of COURAGE: A Holocaust Survival Story In Greece.

2 comments about The Seventh Miracle.

1. It is with deep emotion that I read The Seventh Miracle. To think that a young boy, bereaved of all his family, had to experience what he did; to know that he did not share his horrible experiences with his family or friends for decades--so deeply were they engraved in him; and to understand that they burst out with full force after having spent 50 years in Argentina--this is what the reader of this unique book is requested to do. He has undergone such tortures, physically and emotionally; he spent his boyhood in ghettos and camps--and still he remained an optimist, a man of values and hope. I believe the book should reach a many hands as possible, in order to spread this story of the triumph of the Jewish spirit-- ....



2. I receive many books for review; thus, when I opened Jorge Klainman's The Seventh Miracle I planned to skim through it, but I couldn't;it grabbed me from the start...Klainman relates this tale of horror like a born storyteller; he writes with the great economy and simplicity of on who has lived it, which creates in the reader a high degree of empathy...His story is both heroic and sad, and yet (I can't believe that I am writing this) it also has moments of humor. The saddest part of this incredible story is that his brother Moniek, who had managed to survive the Holocaust, should die shortly afterwards from complications of appendicitis, before Klainman could be reunited with him. Highly recommended reading, gripping, breathtaking until the very end. -- Mario Wainstain, Aurora Weekly, Tel Aviv.

No comments about The End of Days.

5 comments about Born Into Turmoil.

1. What a tremendous book this author has written,- one that takes you right to the heart of the German family before, during, and after the war. Amazingly,- all youngsters have their own ways of dealing with situations forced upon them. Bruno Lange dealt with his in wildly funny ways. The family love is such an inspiration to the reader. This book tells so much of what many have never learned in school,- a must for every library!



2. Bruno Lange's book 'Born Into Turmoil' gives us a growing German boy's account on how his family endured their hardships during WWII and in the Postwar years. How the family helped each other out during these unthinkably harsh years of the war. Bruno Lange has meticulously written this book to show both sides of the war. He introduces his story by showing us what led to Hitler's Germany and why so many Germans supported him. He pointed out the Treaty of Versailles and it's Points against Germany, which created a blue print for the coming of WWII. I enjoyed reading 'Born Into Turmoil' immensely and would like to see a sequel to it written. Bruno Lange is a well versed author with a sense of humour, who manages to write a story taken from hard times but yet the reader feels comfortable reading it. He adds his warmth and personal touch to many of the Chapters. His pointing out the morals of the time shows us how much change we have gone through in such a short span of time. I found this book to be written compassionately but yet factual and historically precise. Unlike many of Hollywood's movies, which are constantly being altered and made more Politically correct to appease the public and profit from it, Bruno has not altered any of the events that he wrote about in 'Born Into Turmoil' at all. He writes actual historical and documented facts as they occurred during those years. Bruno Lange's 'Born into Turmoil' gets a five star review from me and I hope that more books like it will be written by many more Germans that lived during those years and have kept silent until now. The new generation needs to know what really happened to so many innocent German civilians during WWII



3. I have always been fascinated by the events of WW II. No other incident in modern history has left us with such a dreadful, and far reaching legacy.
   "Born into Turmoil" will offer the English speaking reader something different and fresh. Mr. Lange chronicles his experiences as a child growing up in Germany during the Second World War. Together with Mr. Lange you will experience the dreadful bombing raids, and the daily struggle to survive during an unbearable hardship. The theme which keeps surfacing throughout his book is his families love, and how this love managed to preserve the family through the war.
   When the war ends we witness the resourcefulness of Mr. Lange and his family as they try to survive while being threatened with starvation, and roaming hoards of "liberated" criminals. As time progresses we are given an insight into what things were like in post war Germany through Lange's eyes.
   No serious student of these times should be without their copy of "Born into Turmoil", It will give the reader a better understanding of the "other sides" story, and a more complete picture of a larger whole.



4. Bruno Lange's story of a child caught up in the ravages of WWII and his struggle to survive the deadly bombings and the war's aftermath, will touch your heart and lift your spirits. The account of this young boy's wartime experiences will make you laugh, smile and cry, but is never boring. And like a bird fluttering against the wind, young Bruno's struggle moved him upward and onward. With the strong will and determination of a Rhinelander, Bruno emerges from his wartime experiences a whole person; a person who leaves the normal scares of hatred and resentment behind. Bruno Lange's book, "Born Into Turmoil" will inspire and strengthen all who read it.



5. I just finished reading Bruno Lange's book, Born Into Turmoil.
   The book is universally appealing in its portrayal of young boys in search of adventure in a world of chaos and/or peace.
   Reading it reminded me of the many stunts pulled by Tom Sawyer as written by Mark Twain.
   Bruno gives a refreshing, yet solemn biography of what it was like to grow up as an indoctrinated, Nazi youth. His father was drafted into the German Army as a medic in Poland while Bruno, himself, was drafted into the Hitler Youth movement. Hiding Jews and helping Poles were only a few examples in the book of the kindness of his parents.

   Bruno gives examples from a Nazi propaganda book, The Poisoned Mushrooms, in which Jews are depicted as animals and thieves and slaughterers of innocent animals...not to be trusted. One can only imagine the effects it had on the minds of young German youth at the time.
   Luckily, with the advance of the Allies into Germany, Bruno's family is captured and re-indoctrinated...able to let go of the hate that was sown into a country so full of beauty and promise.

   As a German teacher, I will make it a must read for my students. I feel it is a story they would be able to relate to on a personal level.
   Bruno tells of having lied about having appendicitis in order to skip school, and ends up with his appendics actually being removed! He finds a bazooka in the woods and fires it into a tree...knocking him and the tree to the ground and setting the surrounding grass on fire. He is starving for food and invents ingenious ways to feed his family, including making himself potato pancakes. Lacking lard or butter to fry them in, he resorts to using Singer sewing machine oil...only to discover that it turned out quite delicious.

   From leaping onto a moving Allied train to steal coal to keep his family warm or bicycling with a buddy across Europe on $3.85, he keeps the reader intrigued and squealing in delightful laughter the whole way through. It took me six hours to read and I recommend it to anyone who wants to see war from the German side.
   This is a MUST READ for those who would believe that HATE is the only way to resolve conflict.

5 comments about Child of the Holocaust.

1. Jack's mother sends him to live with a Polish family, away from German occupied Warsaw. When he comes back to visit he finds that his family has been taken away by the Germans. In vivid, realistic prose, the author recounts his wanderings from one family to another, often having to escape for his life from neighbors and even from the people who had previously befriended him. This is a fast paced book that reads like a novel. It also ends like one, leaving you uncertain as to whether it is a work of literature or a true story. Having read many other accounts of this kind, it has the ring of truth and captures in all its heart-wrending detail themisfortunes of Jews in Poland during the Second World War. /subm



2. While in the bookstore of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, I purchased Child of the Holocaust. Four years later I finally read it last week. I could not put it down. My heart bled for the danger and sufferings for young Jankele. This is one of the fastest paced books about survival that I have read of late. I believe that it is important for the youth of today to read such works and should be put into high school libraries. My only criticism is that further information about Jankele and his family was not included. I was hoping for a sequel to come from Jack Kuper. I can see this being made into a Spielburg masterpiece because this story should be told and what appeals to our youth now are only tales where they play a significant part.



3. I read Child of the Holocaust and thought it was an intresting portrayal of a young Jewish boy running from the Gestapo in Poland. I found myself immersed in a book filled with fear, hardship, and luck. The boy, originally named Jenkele, was a clever boy who I thought was more courageous than anyone I had ever seen. Plus the author described the story so well, that I thought I was part of the action. The book incorporates suspense, sadness, and the harsh reality of Hitler's Holocaust. Although the book was great, there were it's moments I didn't like. One of the moments I didn't like was when Jenkele and his friends were told to beat some sick kittens to death with sticks. There were also parts that were unrealistic. An example of an unrealistic part in the book is when a militia who turns over Jews to the Gestapo let Jenkele go not once but twice. Overall the book was great, and I recommend it to all people interested in the Holocaust.



4. "Child of the Holocaust" offers an insightful look into the life of a young Jewish boy trying to keep his identity hidden in a war-torn Poland during World War One. It is deeply emotional and frighteningly realistic. When the main character, originally called Jenkele, is hiding from the Gastapo in a haystack with his uncle, you almost feel as though you are there beside them, living through the freezing temperatures, the lice, vermin, and constant threat of being discovered.
   Not only does the book offer the point of view of that of a young Jewish boy, it also offers an insight into German and Russian soldiers, young men called to honour by their countries, but whom would rather be at home with their families. Its perspective is refreshingly different from the usual cold-blooded murderer portrayal of German soldiers.
   I definatly recommend this book for anybody, even if the Holocaust isn't a subject that normally appeals to them.



5. I haven't read this book in probably 25 years, but it is a part of who I am today just the same. I still vividly remember certain events and even remember parts of some sentences from it. Having always loved books, I read the first addition of Jack Kuper's memoir when I was about 10 years old, after picking it up from a used book dealer. It made lasting impacts on my young mind. This book was part of how I came about rejecting the racist views held by my family. I'm grateful to Mr. Kuper for having shared such painful but powerful memories.