No comments about Jurek Becker: A Life in Five Worlds (Chicago Lectures in Mathematics).

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.

No comments about Out of Nazi Germany and Trying to Find My Way.

1 comments about The Splice of Moments: Autobiography.

1. Rarely does one get such a heartwarming and intimate look into the life and musings of such a fascinating man. This biography takes you from the tears of a great grandmother losing her family to America to The Second World War in China. It includes correspondence between engineers and love poems to one's wife. The subject matter is diverse and poignant. It's form is unique but highly readable and thought provoking. In many ways, it is reminiscent of Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. This is more than a book. It is a journey.

5 comments about The Light After the Dark: Six True Stories of Triumph after all hope had gone....

1. Before hunger, deprivation, terror and torture, there was another part of life - life filled with meaning, spirituality, dignity, resistance and struggle, that even in the blackest moment in the history of the Jewish people, the enemy could neither vanquish nor destroy. That is the message of this powerful, moving book, a message we must never forget.



2. While there is much to inspire in these accounts, my first reaction was of amazement at the behaviour of people on both sides of events. What a lesson in humanity. These stories make personal the atrocious events in history, the people who were the victims, and some other people who were just there, and by being there, played roles in what happened. Besides the history that can be learned through all the detail about places and events, the testimony of these people gives us much to think about. How would I have reacted? These stories enlarge our understanding of both history and humanity. A most worthwhile read.



3. In each of the six stories, the subject took an active role to ensure his or her survival. During the Holocaust in which six million Jews perished, it is easy to lose sight of the individual and his or her actions. Jews weren't the sheep that history would like us to believe Abram states, there is no sense of pride in being portrayed as a victim. It is this statement that provides the running theme throughout the book that when read by a younger generation, would instil a sense of pride and lead them to the realization that a survivor in surviving was a hero.



4. Abram must have needed infinite patience to draw the details of each of these stories from their narrators. He certainly exerted all his talent in retelling them, using a flashback technique to set the scene for each one, but otherwise letting the stories of the individuals' Holocaust experiences and subsequent lives speak for themselves.



5. This book is solely from the heart. The author certainly took a lot of time and care to research this book and wrote it with a lot of feeling. I cannot wait until Alvin Abram writes another book even a sequel would be thrilling to read once again. I have recommended this book to all of my friends here in Toronto and abroad. I am sure they too will derive as much pleasure as I did in reading this book. Thank you for making the holocaust a more pleasurable reading experience. Jane Skinner

No comments about Self Portrait: An Artist's Memories.

No comments about Otto, the Boy at the Window: Peter Abeles True Story of Escape from the Holocaust and New Life in America.

No comments about I Gave You Life Twice: A Story of Survival, Dreams, Betrayals and Accomplishments.

2 comments about Vienna Voices: A Traveler Listens to the City of Dreams (Writing Travel).

1. Weinberger's glimpse into Vienna's rich cultural and historical life serves as a launching point for researching her in-laws' past. Though well-off and industrious throughout the late thirties, the onset of World War II forced them to flee, uprooting their lives and sense of identity like thousands of other Jews in the city.
   
   Weinberger's smooth writing style makes it easy to envision sitting in one of the city's countless coffeehouses on a mild spring day. Yet simultaneously, it is impossible to ignore its undercurrent of war-related anxiety, a constant reminder that a war continues to ravage its victims' lives long after its end.
   
   Although Weinberger's work might be classified as travel writing by some, she encompasses aspects of many other genres -- history, memoir, nonfiction, humor -- creating a memorable read.



2. This is a beautifully and sensitively written collection of personal impressions of Vienna intertwined with flashbacks of personal history of a Viennese Jewish family in the years before and after the Anschluss.
   A very delicate treatment of a highly emotional topic.

No comments about The Oxymoron Factor.