1 comments about One Family.

1. This elegant juxtaposition of personal stories with historical insights is a most welcome addition to the literature of the Holocaust. Using scholarly research and powerful, personal stories, Kolin has created a moving portrait that chronicles the experiences of one family during the Holocaust. The book traces the political aspirations of some of the members of the Kolniczanski family around the turn of the century, their involvement in the Polish fight for independence and their rise to political and economic success in Warsaw. It then uses both historical research and personal testimony to describe the family's tragic experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto and in the concentration camps. The book also describes how the Holocaust affected the lives of family members who emigrated to France, how they fled Paris twice, and how the family business was taken over by Nazis. Stories of other family members, including those who fled to Denmark and the U.S. are also included. A poignant and powerful book.

No comments about From the Wise Women of Israel: Folklore and Memoirs.

4 comments about Words to Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto.

1. I read this book after I watched the movie "The Pianist". The true accounts in this book shocked and moved me. By combining with the visual impact from the movie, I am able to relate what I read with what I watched from the movie. After reading the book, I admired the courage, the-will-to-survive, and the brilliance of the Jewish people. I suggest to people who are interested to know what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto, but who has no such background on the holocaust, watched the movie first, then read this book. It is not a dry history book. The acccounts were written by people who have superb writing skill, though they might not know themselves.



2. So often, we read accounts of the Shoah afer the fact. Not to diminish their power, but primary testimony as the events happened, understandably a rarer extant survival, speaks directly and eloquently with a visceral power. The accounts here, by a cross-section of thoughtful, self-deprecating, agonized, and bewildered observers, show why those in the ghetto were so diminished and demoralized.

   Years of abuse, mental and physical, years of starving and disease and uncertainty wreaked havoc on the Jews in Warsaw. Reading these accounts, you understand how awful were the limited choices between giving in and holding out could both be. Also, what here emerges more fully is the extent to which Jews were exploited with the hopes of work permits, resettlement, visas, and hush money by informers, turncoats, bosses, and those willing or forced to collaborate. The constant anxiety underscores the bodily suffering of the ghetto's inhabitants.

   Revealed here are the predicaments hundreds of thousands of people like you and me faced, nearly half-a-million crowded into an area the size of Central Park. What often has been distorted into kitsch or melodrama in later re-creations in its original context remains unforgettably eloquent.




3. How can one describe the indescribable? In the last several years, I have read maybe a dozen and a half books on the Shoah and have been greatly impressed by many if not all of them. This narrative though, I feel, is head and shoulders above all of the other personal accounts that I have read thus far. Words to Outlive Us is a fascinating read. This, I feel, can be attributed to three things: the structure of the book(it is divided into six chapters each dealing with a particular aspect of life and death inside the Ghetto), the fascinating and in many cases heartbreaking quality of the accounts and finally, the sheer quantity of unique individual accounts. . While none of these components of the book are unique individually, put together they create an unsurpassed narrative of those Jews, who for no other reason than the fact they were Jews, suffered under the Nazis and in many cases, their Polish neighbors. This compilation is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. It is even more amazing when one takes into account the the fact that many of the narratives were actually penned during the events these individuals were living through and for that matter the immense danger that these survivors placed themselves in simply by writing of their experiences as Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
   Particularly poignant I felt, were the chapters on the institutions of the Ghetto, the resistance and liberation. Through these accounts the reader is seeing day to day life and tragedies as if he or she is witnessing them personally. The reader is a witness to both the greatest acts of kindness and the most horrific acts of violence which human beings are capable of. This is, I believe, the greatest testament to the power of this collection of personal stories. My only disappointment in this book was that it wasn't double it's 440 pages.



4. THe breadth of these first-person journal entries is awesome and profound. These are real voices from the Warsaw Ghetto. They truly are Words to outlive us. I have been lately somewhat obsessed with the tragedy of the Warsaw Ghetto. I have read several books about the time, and the plight of the Jews there. This one gives such powerful details, organized around around different subjects. These are the words of the people who lived it.

1 comments about Portrait of a Young Forger: An Incredible True Story of Triumph over the Third Reich.

1. Marian Pretzel was a young jew living in Lvov in Poland when war broke out in 1939. This is his story, and that of his family told with simplicity and without indulging in over-emotion. The bleakness of the observations make it extremely powerful and moving story.
   
   Pretzel tells of his life in Poland prior to the war, of the Russian invasion and his suddenly increased opportunities, and then the invasion of the Nazi's and the sudden increase in nastiness from the Polish who were once his friends and neighbours. Of bribery, blackmail, violence and the slow descent which eventually led the Jewish population to the concentration camps.
   
   Marian Pretzel got transported to a concentration camp nearby, but managed through luck and the interference of Simon Wiesenthal, to escape. On the run he realised that he could pass as an aryan and his forging skills and knowledge of the right stamps for various things allowed him to be fed, clothed and housed by the Nazis. This is the story of his wartime survival, but it is also tempered with the realisation at the time that despite his survival, thousands, if not millions of other Jews were suffering, starving, dying in cities and concentration camps. He says that the worst thing was the slow death which was wreaked on many, rather than a fast end.
   
   His story makes sobering reading. The guilt of survival has pursued him over the decades, that at times he has had to let his friends, and family go, simply because their will to survive was not greater than their will to remain where they were, or to do rash and idiotic acts which led to their demise. His sister Giza refused to accompany him into flight and did not survive, as many of his friends. Despite their parents already being shipped off to certain death.
   
   A well written memoir which makes disturbing reading. At the end of this I wonder how people can be so cruel - how could so many people act so inhumanly - and with people they already knew. I hope that the experiences from WWII remain with us, that everyone should learn and know what can be, that it never happens again.

2 comments about What Time And Sadness Spared: Mother And Son Confront the Holocaust.

1. This is the greatest and most touching memoir on the Holocaust I have ever read. It provides psychological insights into the way the victims felt. Read this!!!!!



2. The main character in this moving book is a teenaged girl, Roma, who is separated from her affluent family and sent to a concentration camp at the age of 16, where she never knows if she will be in the next group of inmates selected to die in the crematorium. Her only solace from the daily horrors is the imagined conversations she has at night, before going to sleep, with her mother. The story of how she manages to survive with her humanity intact and start a new life in Israel makes for gripping reading; I read this book in one sitting. Especially interesting is the epilogue, where she talks about what it felt like to return to Poland nearly 60 years after she left. Adding to the authenticity of the historical details is the fact that Roma's co-author, her son, is a history professor. He writes about the difficulties faced by himself and his mother in writing about her past. Rather than just telling a story, this book addresses the problem of reconciling memory with historical fact, and what it means to write about your past so many years later.

No comments about Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible.

1 comments about Heshel's Kingdom : A Family, a People, a Divided Fate.

1. As a South African living in Europe with a similar and yet in many ways different background, I am able to identify with Mr Jacobson's sensitive account of his search for his family roots in Lithuania. The construction of the work itself is a masterpiece: first his perception of Lithuania from South Africa, then his childhood in South Africa and then the encounter with Lithuania, where he finds nothing concrete and yet conveys the atmosphere of what he finds so movingly. The touching letter to his grandfather and his dream at the end are full of feeling and yet not in the least sentimental. This book has deeply impressed me and given me a wonderfully tragic picture of Lithuania.

5 comments about A Baptist Among the Jews.

1. From the first page to the last, this book captivated me with Ms. Howe's experience among the Jewish religion and culture. This book is a must read for anyone who seeks to understand their own faith, be it Christianity or Judaism.



2. I really enjoyed this book. It was interesting and informative and gave an easy to read insight into the Jewish faith.



3. This book is so filled with spirit and heart. As it unfolds, the reader is drawn into a deep understanding about spirituality with a sense of humor and feeling.
   Great reading for everyone.



4. "A Baptist Among the Jews" is a passionate blueprint for achieving ecumenical understanding and cooperation. The author has managed to transcend the confines of her narrow fundamentalist origins and allow herself to experience other approaches to the Divine. And "experience" is the key issue in this fascinating story of the author's acceptance and inclusion by the Jewish community. Howe isn't overly concerned with doctrine or dogma. She doesn't bring a list of theological preconceptions or doctrinal preconditions to her relationship with reform, conservative, orthodox, and even hasidic Jews. That a person can actually come closer to God in a faith tradition other than her own is perhaps the central lesson of her book and one that more people would do well to emulate.



5. A Baptist Among the Jews is a great starter book for Christians interested in almost all forms of Judaism. The only 'denomination' she leaves out is Reconstructionism, explaining that this is because she had no access to it.
   
   Howe takes the reader through study groups, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform synagogue services, Torah retreats, and even spends time explaining her experiences with Chabad Jews, who are known for their black coats, fedoras, and their loyalty to a particular rabbi. By the time the reader finishes A Baptist Among the Jews he or she will have a lot of positive, in depth information about modern Jewish thought.
   
   On the other hand (there's always another hand, isn't there?), the title leads one to believe that Howe is a conservative, born-again Christian (The Baptist part of the title) who is transformed through her experiences with some Jewish people. She is actually a pretty liberal Christian who enjoys "re-imagin[ing] scripture."
   
   She attends and lauds a feminine re-imagining of a Passover seder with a Haggadah written from a feminist perpective, and says on page 102, "In my not-so-distant past, I, along with the churches I attended, feared seeing God as feminine, even while we hurried to add that God was not male. Translations of scripture that used feminine - or even inclusive - pronouns angered us because we believed that this was somehow changing God. No one, however, is changing God. We're merely expanding our *images* of God."
   
   I am not saying anything is wrong with this, I am merely saying that the title of the book is disingenuous to portray the author as a Baptist-- The Baptist denomination takes the Bible literally, does not allow women in positions of power over men, they cannot be pastors, and they have spoken out against gender-inclusive languge in the Bible. Howe states several times in the book that she has belonged to several churches, each different from the last, and I did not get the impression that more than one of them was Baptist or even conservative. I could be wrong; that is just the impression I get.
   
   
   I enjoyed this book - the writing is clear and the author is not overly wordy or bombastic. She writes almost like a reporter, weaving facts in with interesting personal stories. The only pet peeve I have is that she consistently says, "The Jews," rather than "some Jews," or "Jewish group." She says things like, "When I study with the Jews..." "..worshipping with the Jews..." as though there are about 20 of them. Most Jews are secular and do not study Torah or follow halakha, so the term "the Jews" felt weird when I read it every time. I don't think she would have said, "When I studied with the Baptists," or "When I worshiped with the Mormons," since it makes it sound like they are part of some little group that meets in a clubhouse once a week. Anyway, it just struck me as odd.

2 comments about Leaving Leningrad (Brandeis Series on Jewish Women).

1. I enjoyed this book greatly. Not so much an autobiography as a series of vignettes, Leaving Leningrad is very easy and entertaining reading. The witty personality of the author shines through every page so that by the end of the book you feel you know her well. You also feel you have seen what it must have been like to live in the Soviet Union in the 60's and 70's - not from the commonly available perspective of an academic or a dissident, but from the point of view of the ordinary everyday working stiff. That's what makes the book not only light and fun, but also enlightening. Read it in an evening (that's all it takes) and I'm sure you'll be glad you did. I was.



2. This was neither a great or terrible book. The author deals with the oppressions of living under the Soviet regime light-heartedly. This is a new angle compared to other books I have read on the subject. It is not particularly well written. I had to go back and reread certain parts to figure out what she was talking about. Also, I thought I was buying a book on a Jewish topic, and in fact the author is not Jewish, her husband is.

No comments about Doctor 117641: A Holocaust Memoir.