1 comments about Rescued Images : Memories of a Childhood in Hiding.

1. People of my generation or younger, born after the mid nineteen-sixties, are caught in a strange place when it comes to learning about, and relating to, the events in World War II Europe. We come too late for direct experience, yet before the greater distance of the generation following us. In a sense, we will, if we are thinking people, shoulder the task of passing on the facts, impressions, and enormous lessons from this period, but without first-hand knowledge. "Rescued Images" is a remarkable book which should do much to provide us with a tool which is both entertaining (as extraordinary as that may seem) and profoundly moving. Jacobsens gentle, yet strong voice, is made even stronger by her montages, which are simultaneously beautiful as they are emotionally raw. When she is old enough I will sit with my daughter and we will read this book together, in honor of the triumph of the human spirit, and in memory of the worst of human failings. Parents and schools should add this volume to their shelves, it will remain timeless.

3 comments about Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

1. Anne Frank is about a girl who wrote a diary about her life. The main charecters are Anne and her family. The main problems are that they're Jewish and the Germans were prejudice against Jewish people at that time. The Germans were sending them to concentration camps. My favorate character was Anne because she is a really brave girl who writes a diary about her life and her terrible tragedy.

   I could relate to Anne Frank because I come from another country where I was born and I also was having security problems there. I think I feel the same things she felt because sometimes I feel fear to be in Colombia, my native country. That's what she also felt.

   I liked the book a lot, and I didn't have a favorite part of the book, because I liked the whole book...

   I would recommend this book to people because I think it's really interesting and it's a true story. If I had to be someone in the book, I would be Anne because I would like to be recognized as a great writer in history.




2. Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young girl
   
   I think this is a great book. Anne Frank shows great emotion and tells her life in the "secret annex." She tells about her love life and how her experiences were in this life. I think people should read this book. It's educational in a way and will let you understand a little about what went on behind closed doors.
   
   Anne's diary explains how she felt during her time in World War II. She was very unhappy about having to leave her home and go into hiding. While she was in hiding her and her family were captured by the Germans and taken to Jewish camps. Then after they were captured her father found Anne's diary and gave it to the world to read. Now we the people have all access to the thoughts of Anne Frank.
   
   She was a young Jewish girl that lived a sad life. Anne had a good since of humor, a pretty smile and the heart of a true young girl. This girl who bared all in her diary will live on forever even though she is no longer with us. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about how life was in hiding during the Holocaust. It maybe sad, but this is a amazing story.
   By: Sarah age 13



3. This was an excellent book, very touching and very emotional, and Anne is a hero, a brave little girl.
   
   When the war occurs, Anne and her family take refuge in The Secret Annex which is the back of a house. She writes down
   her thoughts and feelings routinely, as in a diary. Abruptly, the
   entries end.
   
   It isn't until the afterword that we learn of her terrible fate. The sad part is that the incidents in this book
   really happened. I give this book 5 stars:)

No comments about Live! Remember! Tell the World!: The Story of a Hidden Child Survivor of Transnistria (Artscroll History).

5 comments about The Stone Pillow : The Life and Times of Jona Lerman.

1. The Stone Pillow is an interesting biography of Jona Lerman, a Jewish man whose life story spans some important events of the 20th Century. Born into an orthodox wealthy Jewish family in Poland in the early 1900's, he chose to go to Palestine as a pioneer to help establish the Jewish State of Israel. While there he fought in the Haganah, married and had two children. The family he left behind in Poland were killed in concentration camps. Almost devestated when his son contracted Polio, he brought his wife and children to the U.S. to avail his son of the latest treatments. The trials and tribulations of the Lerman Family as immigrants in the U.S. are climaxed by Jona's return to Israel to fight when the country went to war. Co-author Arlene Kurtis did a fine job of making this book interesting reading for all ages. From seniors who have lived through this period of time, to young students who need to learn more about the difficulties of the century, all will find this book very stirring. I enjoyed reading it very much.



2. In a time when the entire world was locked in the turmoil of World War II and all attention was turned to the unspeakable acts that the Nazi's were committing, a group of pioneers built a country. This book tells a story that is seldom told... one which needs to be remembered and applauded. A handful of people held together by a common belief built a nation which stands today as an ongoing symbol of Jewish pride. When I read the story of this man, I was able to understand the struggle to build a nation and the bond that they maintain with it to this day. The Stone Pillow serves as a tribute to a man who has led a remarkable life, endured so many hardships, and lost so much... but was able to endure and give birth to a family, a country, and an ideal (Zionism) for generations to come.



3. In a time when the entire world was locked in the turmoil of World War II and all attention was turned to the unspeakable acts that the Nazi's were committing, a group of pioneers built a country. This book tells a story that is seldom told... one which needs to be remembered and applauded. A handful of people held together by a common belief built a nation which stands today as an ongoing symbol of Jewish pride. When I read the story of this man, I was able to understand the struggle to build a nation and the bond that they maintain with it to this day. The Stone Pillow serves as a tribute to a man who has led a remarkable life, endured so many hardships, and lost so much... but was able to endure and give birth to a family, a country, and an ideal (Zionism) for generations to come.



4. Israel's problems and dilemmas are begging for solutions that seem just out of reach. THE STONE PILLOW is a memoir of Jona Lerman who, in 1934, left Poland and went to Palestine to help recreate a Jewish state. His experiences in the defense forces and as a laborer are related in a compelling human drama that move beyond the historical content, and the reader begins to understand the devastation wrought by religious fanaticism, territorial disputes, and the hostile feelings of Arab foes and friends. Jona proves to be a selfless, ingenious man who made "penny soup" out of wilted greens, carried 80-pound sacks of flour on his back to help feed the hungry during the 1948 siege of Jerusalem, and who remained devoted to Israel even after coming to live in the United states. THE STONE PILLOW is an entertaining and thoughtful saga, masterfully written by Arlene Kurtis, who translated Jona's memoirs into a gripping, timely narrative.



5. The Stone Pillow is a personal account of the triumphs and tragedies of a family affected by large-scale historical events: Nazism, the Holocaust, World War II, and the founding of the State of Israel. This book describes the struggle of Jona Lerman and the other co-founders of the State of Israel to preserve, protect, and defend a land far away from a war-torn Europe and a discriminatory civil society. While accomplishing that goal might involve smuggling illegal refugees or hiding guns in a toilet, their eyes were always on the prize.

   At a deeper level, the book depicts a tangible shift in consciousness over the twentieth century. In the first chapter, when three Jewish men damage the ritual bathhouse in their small Polish hometown of Tomaszov (so that their non-believer friend Asher might be buried in a respectable Jewish plot), we may laugh at the fact that the rabbi and many others believed that God was the source of the "miracle." The reader of today would tend to uphold a more secular viewpoint, that is, to examine first whether or not other human beings have been responsible for the damage before attributing it to mystical causes.

   But the modern point-of-view is not to be necessarily taken for granted. Recent social thought has been affected by progress in scientific and technological knowledge as well as its evil twin, the misuse of this knowledge. Both human creations have, in large measure, propelled our belief system from a largely "God-centered universe" to a more secular, human-oriented frame of reference. However, this shift in consciousness does not mean that there is no middle ground between the two.

   Hence lies another interpretation of the ritual bathhouse story.

   Perhaps the three young men who did the damage were actually acting on behalf of God. While their impish behavior and self-congratulatory tone may reveal their desire to thumb their noses at the authorities of the day, it is equally likely that they may have had a "superior" understanding of Jewish tradition in contrast to the official religious arbiters. While the truth can never be known, this seeming parable makes it appear likely that God could intervene indirectly in human affairs through the medium of concrete individuals who may or may not be divinely inspired, and with or without their complicity.

   While many Jewish thinkers have traditionally believed that the Jews ought not to return to Israel until the Messiah is present, Jona Lerman and other practical-minded individuals nevertheless decided that they must make a home in Palestine before the Messiah's arrival. We will never know whether the founding of the State of Israel was part, or will be part, of a divine plan (as some believe) or whether its founding was a solely human creation. From a religious perspective, what is even more elusive is discovering whether and how concrete individuals contributing to this effort may or may not be working God's will. But from a secular perspective, Jona Lerman's personal account allows us some insight into how these brave men and women forged a unique place for themselves in Israeli and world history by bucking orthodox religious thought and customs.

   One thing that Jona understood over the years is that there is a middle-ground between the secular and the religious, between reason and faith. Like the three young men who committed acts of vandalism in the small Polish town, Jona and his fellows may have had a "superior" understanding of Jewish tradition: in this particular case, they took the practical road that allowed themselves, their families, and their companions to survive within a world gone awry. Hence, this intimate portrait of Jona and his family-from their escape from Europe to their caring for a seriously ill child in the United States-not only helps us to discover the ways in which people can make history and history can make people but also presents us with the raw material that allows us to examine the nature of history itself.

No comments about I Chose Life.

3 comments about Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story.

1. For eight months during 1945 I served as a Japanese interpreter (U.S. Marine Corps) at the Japanese POW Camp on Guam. I met and interviewed many Japanese prisoners during that time. This is the first account published by a former Japanese POW that I have seen since the War. American POWS have published but no Japanese for reasons made obvious by the author. I was on the outside looking in. To view prison life from the other side of the fence was most interesting, The book is superbly written. It is factual and honest.For anyone who fought the Japanese in the Pacific this book will open windows and offer to you a view that you might never have expected to look upon. T



2. Taken Captive a P.O.W. Story by 0oka Sh0hei, is about a Japanese man name 0oka Sh0hei who was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army to fight the American Forces On January 25, 1945. Being captured from the Americans. This book is is an okay book. There was some action in it,wich was great. It was okay to thouse who are interested in an middle-clsss scholar who tries this to survive the life of the prison. this would be the book for you. If you are interested in action, i would not sugest this.



3. In 1944, near the end of World War II, 35-year-old, Shohei Ooka, was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army. After suffering from malaria and starvation he attempted suicide when American troops had landed on Mindanao and the situation looked hopeless for Ooka and his (mostly dead by then) comrades. He was captured and nursed back to health by the American forces.
   
   As he writes in ''Taken Captive,'' Japanese prisoners had to deal with their depression, and guilt at having shamed themselves by giving up when their comrades had died in battle or committed suicide. Captivity was strange to the Japanese prisoners because the Japanese military had taught them that the US military were savages and would kill them if they surrendered. Ooka wrote that they had a hard time ''accepting the Americans' warmheartedness with simple gratitude. Whereas they saw themselves as dishonorable captives, the Americans treated them as human beings, and this . . . confounded them completely.'' Over time, the prisoners became lazy and fat.
   
   Some of the former prisoners of war, Ooka writes, ''still refer to the camp as 'paradise' and speak of the time they spent there as the best year of their lives.'' Ooka, who died in 1988, became one of the most well known post-war writers in all of Japan with this book and he takes the reader on a travel from soldier, to prisoner, to a fear of disgrace upon returning home, and back to a father and family man. An excellent book that will show that not all Japanese soldiers were war criminals and psychotics ready to die for the emperor. Ooka held Japanese soldiers who "went amok" in China in great distain.

3 comments about Lucien's Story: A Memoir.

1. This is the story of Lucien Duckstein, an 11 year old boy in Paris who is deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with his mother because they are Jewish. It is also the story of Lucien Duckstein, a sixty year old scientist who eventually comes to deal with the experiences he underwent in Bergen-Belsen and the Drancy internment camp. He explores the price those childhood experiences exacted in his adulthood, especially in his dealings with his wife, children, family and the outside world. He acknowledges the cost of having created a persona which could survive life in the camps. His language is sparse, but eloquent and his pain is evident in the simplicity of his words. This is a short (60page), volume that is uncluttered by the irrelevant, that flows from the start and is stark and frightening in it's descriptions of what it was like to be a French Jew in Paris and later. His use of the present to play off against the past merely highlights the horrors that he experience



2. A memoir -- A gateway into the world of Lucien leads the reader through the tunnels of his mind as the horrors of the past ricochet into the present. Without sentimentality this story changes the awareness of even the most knowledgeable reader. The present is honed by these echoes of the past. Beautifully, albeit adroitly, written, the bones of his experience are clean, sparse and strong. We are helped to understand the unimaginable



3. A memoir -- A gateway into the world of Lucien leads the reader through the tunnels of his mind as the horrors of the past ricochet into the present. Without sentimentality this story changes the awareness of even the most knowledgeable reader. The presnt is honed by these echoes of the past. Beautifully, albeit adroitly, written, the bones of this experience are clean, sparse and strong. We are helped to understand the unimaginable

5 comments about Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts From The Archives Of The Israeli Police.

1. The Israeli agents involved in his capture couldn't believe that such an unremarkable man could be the one with the blood of six million Jews on his hands - This book reveals how he could! This is one of the best books I have read in a long time, not (I agree) everyone's cup of tea but definately mine! Once started I couldn't put the thing down. I was locked to it with disbelief at the way Eichmann could rationalise all his actions (almost justify them) and distance himself from the end product of the conveyor-belt he claimed to be....just the transporter of! I know others have written not particularly savoury reviews of this book, but if you are in any way interested in the Holocaust then reading of the bringing to justice of one of it's most notorious perpetrators will be time well spent. Highly recommended...............Fascinating!



2. Adolf Eichmann was the main character behind the deportation of the jews to concentration and extermination camps during the second world war. With that in mind, one better understands the historic and sociological value of a book made of the transcripts of his interrogation at the hands of the israeli police prior to Eichmann execution at the conclusion of his trial. However several things wich I will now detail diminish the impact of this neverteless important work.
   The first of these diminishing factor is Eichmann himself... Eichmann lies constantly all trough the transcript and try to weasel is way out of most of what he consider to be potentially damming evidence for his trial... Given the man's weak intellect most of his lies are unimaginative and most of the time he doesn't even realize he is not making any sense and denying evidence already backed by numerous witness and written evidence... He doesn't even have the common sense to realise what constitute dammaging evidence and what doesn't and he sometimes argue against or refute very technical details of little importance and yet not realize that by his own previous admission he has already confirmed the most important charges against him. All through the book Eichmann shows himself to be an uninteresting bore of little character or imagination. Totally selfish he constantly blame others for his wrong doings. He is also completely unrepentant (One gets the impression that under the same circunstance Eichmann who do it all over again, as he doesn't even seem to grasp the importance of his part in the holocaust)
   Another factor that raise question about the value of this book is the circumstances in which the transcript were obtained from Eichmann. Even considering the disgusting nature of the character, one must admit that sending secret agent to kidnap him from Argentina (with not respect for the sovereignty of that country)and to bring him to trial on such short notice, trial which ended by Eichmann execution, might raise questions about the impartiality of the israeli authority and the fairness of the procedings. Incidentally, Capt. Avner Less the man who interviewed Eichmann had lost several direct family members to the extermination camps ... So are the extract presented in this book truthfull representation of what really took place in the interogation process? Probably, but one must nevertheless not forget the circumstances in which Eichmann's words were obtained...
   In conclusion, the transcript will be of limited interest to people trying to get a better picture of the holocaust and the role Eichmann played in it. Eichmann's constant lying and droning on and on in his answers leave very little interesting facts and you will get a better picture of the holocaust or the role Eichmann played in it in other books. However this book will be of great interest to anybody interested in knowing and undersanding more of the personality and mind of a man who is responsable for the death of 6 million jews. Reading this book makes one realise the rather unconfortable fact that a man like A. Eichmann is not exceptionnal but rather a very dull, very normal man, the kind of promotion chasing heartless civil servant like there are hundreds in every big city ...



3. In many works attempting to discuss the minds behind the Nazi Final Solution, the reader is harnessed with the task of sorting facts from assumptions and interpretations that too often color an otherwise accurate book. However, Eichmann Interrogated allows the reader to study the words of one of the most notorious actors of Hitler's plans for genocide and mass murder. While reading the transcripts of Eichmann's interrogations at the hands of Israeli police, I attempted to try and understand what would cause Eichmann, a man who in his earlier years had a fascination for Jewish culture, to turn evil and attempt to destroy a whole race of people. Although the transcripts don't provide an answer to such a complex question, they did provide a means to study Eichmann. Through out the interrogation, Eichmann consistently denied his role in carrying out the Final Solution. Rather than admit to any actual killings of Jews, Eichmann stuck to a story which maintained that he was simply a soldier following orders, and even then, his only task was to ensure that the trains containing the Jews were running accurately. I found it also interesting to read that Eichmann claims to have provided alternatives to the wholesale slaughter of the Jews, such as exportation of all Jews to the African island of Mauritius, or the strangely Zionistic support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Although the truth about Eichmann and his motivations will never be clear, the transcripts of his interrogation, although possibly filled with lies, provides an interesting historical document for those wishing to learn more about the psychology of the engineers of the Final Solution.



4. This is a hard book to read, but highly recommended. It must have been Eichmann's worst nightmare: to find himself brought to justice by the very people he tried to exterminate. One feels no sympathy for the man; what makes the book so uncomfortable to read is to see him lie and dissemble.
   
   Like the monstrous bully he was, he is unable to accept responsibility or to show any genuine remorse. Rather, he claims to have been a cog in the wheel, to have no responsibility for what happened. One would almost wish he just denied guilt rather than put on this snivelling performance (but then, it is the Holocaust deniers who ought to be forced to read this book because it not only makes it clear what happened, it makes it obvious, to me at least, that Hitler ordered it).The brilliant interrogation of Captain Avner Less of the Israeli police should be read by all law enforcement officers as a way to trap a suspect. Eichmann denies knowledge of a particular matter and then is shown a document on that very subject that he signed. "I can't wriggle out of that one," becomes a refrain. Peculiar little sidelights about the Holocaust pop up. Captain Less asks about Jewish Nazis, for instance (of which there were a few, surprisingly enough) and Eichmann goes through a song and dance about how they had to be sent off to the camps because they were Jews but were isolated from the other prisoners because they were Nazis. Really twisted knowledge.
   
   It was impossible for me to read this book with a lower opinion of Eichmann than I already had, but it does give you insight into how evil can dominate someone who lacks a moral compass.



5. Adolf Eichmann made many statements when interviewed, and this review only touches on a few topics. One of these is the personal philosophy of Eichmann, including his rejection of Christianity: "More and more I came to the conclusion that God can't possibly be as small as in the Bible stories. I thought I had found my own belief. And I read Schopenhauer, who says the way of religious faith is safer and the way of freedom is a dangerous way, which the individual must perpetually work out for himself. I said to myself: The God I believe in is greater than the Christian God." (p. 39).
   
   Eichmann also touches on the early days of the Nazi Party: "Yes, Herr Hauptmann, of course there was hatred of the Jews in it. But in those days there were lots of party members with Jewish relatives by blood or marriage. I myself knew an SS-Scharfuhrer who was a Jew...I said to him: Good God, man, there's nothing I can do for you. The only advice I can give you is: Clear out, go to Switzerland or somewhere else, because it's no good for you here, it's no good, it's hopeless." (p. 41).
   
   The idea of sending Europe's Jews to Madagascar has at times been mistakenly attributed to the Poles. In actuality, this idea goes back to one of the early pioneers of Zionism. As Eichmann explains: "I remembered Theodor Herzl's efforts to bring about a Jewish state, described by Adolf Bohm, and that at one time Herzl had considered plans for Madagascar." (p. 65). After being asked by interrogator Avner W. Less if he got the idea from a Polish commission that had visited Madagascar in 1937, Eichmann replied: "No, never, never, never. I got the idea from Theodor Herzl." (p. 69). Eichmann also denied knowledge of the conclusions of the Polish commission, which had found the whole idea impractical, as recounted by Less: "...this Polish commission...came to the conclusion that a maximum of fifteen thousand European families could be settled there, while certain members of the commission thought that figure far too high..." (p. 69).
   
   Eichmann denies knowledge of any written order to exterminate the Jews. He instead claims that Heydrich communicated this order verbally from Hitler (p. 81).
   
   Eichmann briefly discusses the deal he made with Hungarian Jewish leader Rudolf Kastner, in which nearly 1,700 Jews were eventually freed (p. 211, 255). As the editor describes: "What Eichmann wanted to `straighten out' was a deal which Becher, with Himmler's approval, had made with a Swiss representative of the American Joint Committee. Several hundred Hungarian Jews selected by Dr. Kastner had already arrived, via Bergen-Belsen, in Switzerland, from where they would continue on to Palestine. But the agreed payment in foreign currency had not arrived in Germany." (p. 255). Even more intriguing is Eichmann and his claim of being prepared to free 1 million Jews in exchange for ten thousand trucks (p. 211).

No comments about Awaiting a Miracle.

3 comments about Born Jewish: A Childhood in Occupied Europe.

1. The holocaust is a "popular" topic. I don't mean that in the positive sense, but in the publishing sense. Much has been published on the holocaust, Nazi occupation and the party Hitler hosted. History demands that people write it and people demand to hear "the truth" about the past. "Born Jewish" offers something different, something that isn't necessarily in demand, but is neccessary for the canon of work on the war and aftermath of the holocaust.
   Marcel Liebman, for anyone unfamiliar with his other work, is a reknowned Marxist/Leninist/Soviet Union historian and historical analysist. This is clearly, his most personal work, but he does not leave his politics or his academic work at the door. "Born Jewish", as he says, "questions history", not in the sense of the accuracy of the event(Liebman writes how dismayed he is that the world did not fully accept Hannah Arendt's accounts of Jewish collaboration with the Nazi's as having actually happened.) but in the sense of the accuracy of historical accounts of it.
   The new perspective Liebman adds is one often obscured by accounts of Nazi occupation and anti-semitism: that class conflict did not dissolve the day the swastika was raised over Europe's cities. In fact, the Nazi's capitalized on the class difference amongst Jewish populations. For Liebman, the horror of his brother's execution at Auschwitz is intimantly connected with the horrors of exploitation and collaboration within the Jewish community.
   Liebman composes his memories carefully and beautifully, resisting sacrilization of experiences he realizes must answer to history as much as to his own heart, and criticizing the radical Zionism that he was to see flourish during his lifetime.
   The incredible forward by Jacqueline Rose is a great appetite whetter for the book. She sums up the book far better than I ever could: "Amongst other things, this memoir stands as an extraordinary rejoinder to those who insist that Israel is the only and definitive answer to the genocide of the Jews...It is one of the strenghts of [the memoir] that Liebman can be so unerring in this analysis while at the same time acknowledging the point where understanding trails off into uncomprehending terror, where the most painful part of mourning trumps all rational thought."
   I highly reccommend this book for anyone who was interested in the slough of memoirs on the subject. It should be read alongside Judith Butler's new book on mourning, violence, 9/11, anti-semitism and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, "Precarious Life".



2. Born Jewish: A Childhood In Occupied Europe by graphically authored by Marcel Liebman and deftly translated by Liz Heron is a vivid memoir of one man's childhood tale of Nazi control, familial struggle, and the betrayal he faced from more powerful Jews in times already hard. As a revealing and historically important biographical account of international history during the second world war, Born Jewish is an invaluable documentation which is very highly recommended for historians and laymen alike, as each and all may take some interest and understanding in this book. Born Jewish is a compelling and valued addition to the growing library of Holocaust literature so fundamentally necessary if the world is never again to experience genocide on such a massive and methodical scale.



3. This is a spellbinding account of a Jewish teenager in Belgium, during the war. The second of four boys in a loving Jewish family in Brussels, Liebman gives density and texture to the anxieties, terrors, and perils of life under the Nazis. Always on the run, sometimes together, sometimes apart, Liebman is a superb observer of the venalities and kindnesses that accompany him through these tragic days. It is also a compelling coming of age story. All except the last chapter, which takes advantage of his survivor's status to mount a soap box against racism, with a special target being Zionism (hence Jacqueline Rose's breathless intro). Even aside from its polemics, the chapter feels like it is tacked on to what is otherwise a superb addition to Holocaust memoirs.