No comments about Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics (Heroes and Villains Series).

2 comments about A Brush With Death : An Artist in the Death Camps (Suny Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture).

1. As a fellow survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Budzyn concentration camp, I can attest the accuracy of the author's harrowing descriptions of his experiences.

   I am amazed at the author's ability to recall so many details. He writes from the heart, without artifice. His spare drawings provide haunting illustrations of what words can't always describe on their own.

   Read this book. You will be moved.




2. This review is hardly unbiased. The author, Morris Wysogrod, a commerical artist by trade, is my cousin and quite truly, a hero of mine. Whenever I visit my Cousin Morris' apartment, I am greeted as soon as I step off the elevator with genuine warmth and enthusiasm. His smile,unbreaking and his conversation,always scintillating, I am amazed at his sincerity and good nature despite what he has witnessed and experienced as a Holocaust survivor.

   His warmth and love for his fellow man is evident throughout his memoir. Morris provides a vivid look at pre-war Poland and the lives that were stolen from our families. And, much as he greets his guests with genuine warmth and affection today, he treats each character in his book with similar respect and reverence.

   His memory is outstanding as he remembers the many personalities and every day people of his Warsaw youth, and later in the death camps. His descriptions are detailed and he suceeds in bringing out the special qualities of each character. This is so important because more often than not, the people he describes with such affection will soon be dead at the hands of the Nazis. Much of Holocaust literature refers to the millions who were massacred. Morris didn't know the millions but he pays beautiful homage to the hundreds who crossed his path.

   From homage to carnage, Morris's story takes us into the Nazi occupation and his incarceration in several death camps. Similar to his skills in painting a picture of his pre-war youth, he is equally and shockingly vivid in his memories of the camps. The brutality, anguish, and sheer inhumanity he witnessed is brought to life as only a man of his artistic talents can do.

   And in the midst of the brutality, there is the friendships, the shared moments, and the appreciation for his fellow prisoners that is necessary for the reader to grasp onto so that he or she may continue with the chilling chronicle of Morris' survival.

   A Brush With Death has warmth, beauty and brutality. It is one of the many stories of the Holocaust experience, and one which I am confident will provide a unique perspective to the most horrific period in recorded history.

5 comments about The Jewish Confederates (NS).

1. The world is full of people who just don't get it, thanks to the ultra-leftist American media. They consider South "the land of bigotry" and portray the War Between the States, as some sort of referendum on slavery and bigotry. In their minds, the thought a Jew in a Confederate uniform is an oxymoron.

   Of course, the historical record is as clear as a bell-the so-called "Civil War" was a result of high tariffs and the average Southerner's fear of a new political party that sought even more "tax and spend" polices.

   During the antebellum times, Jews were an integral part of the South. A substantial amount of their contribution to the region is still part of the Southern landscape.

   When a Jewish friend of mine from the north side of Chicago recently had an opportunity to travel in the South, he was amazed to learn that the South was not the land of anti-Semitism, as the media-dominated northern urban culture had led him to believe. He was also surprised to discover how much evidence of early Jewish influence in the South still remains.

   Of course, I recommended that he read The Jewish Confederates to help him put it all into perspective. It really shows that many Jewish men and women were proud citizens of the Confederacy.

   Some of the details presented make it clear that many of these brave soldiers of the Confederacy were very serious about their faith and culture. A portion of the book that detail the way the Jewish soldiers were allowed the opportunity to celebrate their holidays was especially enlightening.

   It took a lot of courage on the part of Robert N. Rosen to write such a book. In a day and age when many people arrogantly display their ignorance by equating the Confederate flag with racism, Rosen should be considered national hero for having the guts to bring the world the truth.

   If it were up to me, Rosen's The Jewish Confederates would be required reading for any program on "multiculturalism." It would also be required reading for every liberal history professor who teaches the era of the War Between the States.




2. I've had Jewish friends in Memphis and New Orleans whom I was surprised to learn had Ancestors in the Army of Northern Virgina and the Army of Tennessee. Rosen's book shows that the Civil War truly was a War of Brother against Brother no matter the ties by social status, national origin, or religion.
   
   Rosen has done quite a bit of research and presents his narrative with the recollections, diaries, and letters of the participants and their families and friends. This kind of history by correspondance has always appealed to me more than the memoir type that is carefully thought out later to put the event or individual in the best light.
   
   Rosen presents us with Jews living a normal life in the antebellum South similar to that enjoyed by their White Christian neighbors. The same predjudices and toleration for the "peculiar institution" exist for them as it does for their neighbors but I sense there is more of a toleration amongst this community for the Abolitionists Movement among Antebellum Jews than other groups in the South.
   
   When War comes young men enlist and fight for the same cause as their Christian neighbors and with the same Gallantry. First hand accounts of the struggles and hardships of the War come from the letters soldiers write home to their families.
   
   Rosen presents Jewish Life from the viewpoints of many players from well known Lousiana politician Judah P. Benjamin who held many positions in Jefferson Davis' Cabinet to less well known immigrants from Spain and Germany who started stores in rural Mississippi and Arkansas.
   
   One story that I could not find was that of Sergeant Mordecai Solomon or Solomon Mordecai of Jackson, Mississippi who won the Confederate Medal of Honor at Spotsylvania Court House in 1864 and whose Synagogue was bombed by the KKK 100 years later
   
   The book is a must for Civil War enthusiasts and may be helpful in Geneology research.



3. This is truly a beautiful book. It occupies a prominent place on my library shelf. The subject matter is fascinating, and important. Considering how Jews came to be treated in the South after the Civil War, the story of how Jews other than Judah Benjamin loyally served the Confederacy most certainly should be told.
   
   For telling this story, Robert Rosen deserves credit. But the writing in The Jewish Confederates is pedestrian at best. Most chapters consist of paragraph after paragraph of short recaps of the military service of people with nothing in common other than being Jewish. Rosen diligently did his research, then regurgitated what he found.
   
   In short, I do recommend this book for those interested in either the history of Jews in America or the Civil War, but do not expect to be captivated -- not an unreasonable expectation given the beautiful cover artwork. You will learn, but it will be a chore. Kind of like school, but there are certainly worse ways to spend some time.



4. ....that The Confederacy had Jews. Surprise...A true story: in my exam room, there is always a book on my side table. One day, this was the book; a young girl [I take care of Army Privates] went over and picked it up as if she were touching pork. She informed me that the book was a lie, because there could not possibly have been any Jews in The Confederacy. I pointed to Judah Benjamin's picture among the other Confederate heroes on my wall and told her his story, including the slave owning. She was appalled. She soon knew that the CSA had around 2000 Jews, from Private to Colonel. Then, she asked me the question for which I still have no answer: "How is it that I, a Jew, living in America, don't know that significant a part of my own history?" Sadly, she's a very bright girl, who just didn't know. Much more sadly, BOTH of her parents are history professors. The encounter happened right before Christmas break, and she informed me that she was going to ask her mother about the matter. I gave her several references, and wished her Happy Chanukkah. After the break, she said that her Mom told her that, yes, this is something they knew, but just don't talk about. Look, all of us who deal with history can tell stories of astonishing ignorance. But I've never forgotten that girl; whenever I see ignorance, she reminds me of the obligation that all us who know have to impart [gently] unto those who don't.
   
   Bob Rosen, has, indeed, imparted, and done it superbly. He gives us the story of all the major, and many of the minor, Jews who saluted the Stars and Bars. The two most prominant Jewish Confederates, Judah P. Benjamin, and Phoebe Yates Pember, were civilians, but many wore the gray uniform; Abraham Myers was the Quartermaster General, David DeLeon was the first Surgeon General [Rosen gives the bad with the good; Dr. DeLeon was a drunk, who was soon cashiered]. Major Adolph Proskauer led a charge at Gettysburg, and lived to tell it for many years. Ironically, the two highest ranking Jews killed in the war both fell at Vicksburg, and have monuments near each other. They were Colonels Leon Dawson Marks [Confederate] and Marcus H. Spiegel[Yankee]. Dr. Simon Baruch was a highly respected surgeon during, and after, the war; his son, Bernard, gained fame as a financier. Sgt. Moses Ezekiel was a VMI Cadet who fought at New Market, then was one of the finest sculptors on earth for many years. Many gave much in support; Mrs. Pember's sister, Eugenia Phillips, was a Spy who went to jail twice, and won the hearts of all Southerners by slapping Beast Butler. Rabbis Max Michaelbacher and George Jacobs were central figures in the Richmond religious community. There's even humor here; witness the "damn yankee Jew" asking a child in Norfolk for a piece of matzoah during The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
   
   Interestingly, while the Yankees had around 10,000 Jews in uniform, and the South 2,000, it was the supposedly "racist" South that had Benjamin and Mrs. Pember. Only The Confederacy put Jews in leadership positions. Robert E. Lee and Jeff Davis strongly, and openly, supported the Jewish community, while Grant and Sherman were stark-raving anti-Semites.
   
   This is not just a great book, it's an artistic masterpiece. Great illustrations, well presented. The maps of Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans even show the modern Interstates as reference points; nice touch. Bob Rosen deserves all our thanks, even those of a goyim like me. Do not fail to read this book.



5. Mr. Rosen's book examines an aspect of American Jewish History seldom if ever addressed, South Jews who fought for the Confederacy. Yes, most people interested in the subject know of Judah Benjamin, but Rosen goes well beyond this figure in his well written, thoroughly researched book to provide a comprehensive, fascinating, and thought -provoking examination of the issues involved in the Jewish support for the pro-slavery rebellion. But as Rosen establishes, for Jews it was never that simple, with the reasons as varied as the number of individual Jews who were Confederates. This is probably an issue that many American Jews might not want to address- the idea of a group known for its support of liberal causes supporting the most unjust cause- but Rosen, a native of Charleston,S.C. and as a lawyer and a historian, did a public and intellectual service by writing this book.

1 comments about Creator of Nazi Death Camps: The Life of Odilo Globocnik.

1. Odilo Globocnik was of partial Slovenian ancestry. Like Hitler, he grew up with the belief that the Slavic and Jewish elements were corrupting and weakening the Germanic element of his native Austria. Globocnik set up the death camps of Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Settling in Lublin in German-occupied Poland, he was also responsible for the deportation (and frequent murder) of over 100,000 Poles of the Zamosc region and the terror-pacification of Polish guerilla resistance. Like Himmler, Globocnik carried cyanide in his mouth after Germany's defeat, and used it the moment that his cover had been blown.
   
   For all the emphasis nowadays upon Jews and Poles being unequal victims, the Nazi opinion of the two peoples wasn't all that different. Konrad Meyer, an agrarian economist who worked for Globocnik, assigned the following scores for "racial worth": Jews--zero percent, Poles and Lithuanians--15%, Latvians--50%, and Estonians-->50% (p. 105).
   
   The German-speaking peoples follow this north/south division: "Bavarians--and most Austrians also subscribe to this self-image--are thought of as soft-spoken, beer-swilling, sausage-eating Catholics of dark complexion, while Prussians are for the most part harsh and haughty, blond and blue-eyed Hanseatic Protestants. This division runs along the Main [Mainz?] River. The Prussians (or `fish heads') are considered to be power-hungry, stuffy, and morally rigid; Bavarians are sloppy, lazy, and inept. Hitler, who rose from the `Bavarian' camp to the position of Fuehrer by declaring the `Prussians' as an Aryan ideal, nevertheless preferred to surround himself with `Bavarians'..." (p. 88).
   
   Nazi official sometimes attempted to topple their rivals through accusations of partial Jewish ancestry. Henning von Winterfeld's wife had such ancestry, but it had been pardoned by the Fuehrer, hopefully making it a non-issue (pp. 68-69).
   
   In refutation of the Holocaust deniers, who had argued that diesel engines produce insufficient carbon monoxide for gassing, Rieger showed that Soviet tank engines actually used a combination of petrol and diesel (p. 204). Moreover, diesel engines, when run in near-throttle mode, produce more CO.
   
   Is the European Union a backdoor attempt by present-day Germany to do what she had failed in two world wars--rule over Europe? Dr. Karl Schnurer, a nonagenarian unrepentant Nazi and onetime acquaintance of Globocnik, obviously thinks so: "In his eyes, the German and Italian cultures were all that mattered with regard to civilization, and Slavic countries did not figure. Schnurer felt that the European Union's expansion of our day represented the finalization of the German `Lebensraum' programme for the east." (p. 18)

1 comments about Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side 1890-1925 (New Feminist Library).

1. I read this book while I was doing a research paper on immigrant women and their experiences in America and I was quite impressed by the amount of information it has. Unlike some books on this subject I've read, it has a nice flow to it and it reads well. I really liked the way the author organized it because it follows the immigrant women from the old country to America and very nicely describes their transition into Americans and the struggles they faced while doing this. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in this subject.

5 comments about Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir.

1. MENDEL'S DAUGHTER details the harrowing story of Martin Lemelman's mother and her family during the Holocaust. It is a story that Lemelman grew up knowing very little of. But in 1989, after his mother, Gusta, dropped a frozen chicken on her foot (causing it to be broken), Lemelman brought her to stay at his house in Pennsylvania. In part to curtail her efforts to do all of the cooking and cleaning at his house with her broken foot, and in part to have a family history that he would be able to pass along to his own children, Lemelman persuaded his mother to finally share her story. He wisely videotaped her. After her death a decade ago, he watched the recording, edited the story Gusta related by reorganizing it chronologically and augmenting her accounts with those of his Uncle Isia, who also survived. He then illustrated it with hundreds of drawings interspersed with actual documents and some little black and white photos his mother had saved from her childhood.
   
   Gusta Mendel grew up in a prosperous and well-regarded Jewish family in a portion of Poland that is now part of the Ukraine. This was a region that during World War II was invaded first by the Communists and then by the Nazis. We know from the outset of this memoir that this is a story of survival, that Gusta made it through the Holocaust. Following the historical and personal events that are depicted in this book, Gusta would eventually come to America and, with her husband, raise Lemelman and his brother in the back of their Brooklyn candy store.
   
   The rest of the Mendel family was murdered by the Nazis, but Gusta, Isia, Yetala, and another sibling, Simon, lived. The four siblings survived in the woods through two winters, digging themselves a series of underground shelters, burying the potatoes and sugarbeets they'd steal from fields in the middle of the night, and getting some help from a few people who were sympathetic to their plight.
   
   "For us, the war ended in March-April 1944.
   "Who could believe that the German army coming back to Germakivka would be the beginning of our liberation? This time, thanks God, they was coming from the East, running away from Russia."
   
   The result of Lemelman's labor of love is the real deal: an illustrated memoir which, while technically published as an adult book, will be incredibly approachable, engaging, and memorable to middle school and high school age readers.



2. Our book club read this wonderful book and everyone agreed (which was a miracle) that it was an amazing experience. From the lovely illustrations to "hearing" Gusta's voice, it was a totally memorable read. The author, Martin Lemelman, accepted our invitation to speak to our book club and he added even so much more to this story. His gentle manner was in direct contrast to the horrors of the stories he told us. Reading the book then having Martin speak to us about researching and writing it, was a definite highlight for all of us.



3. Martin Lemelman has created a beautiful memoir, with his mother's voice speaking to the reader (you can hear her adorable accent!) and tender drawings that recreate her life as a young Jewish girl in Ukraine, a life that was torn apart by Nazi invasion.
   
   I almost left this book on the shelf because - sometimes you don't want to hear another story like this. But one look at the pictures and I had to read it. I could see this book would not be like any graphic novel or any holocaust novel that I read before.
   
   Somehow you finish this book, despite the story, feeling unexpectedly happy. Why is that when there is so much sadness, when you expect only grief or rage? Well, on every page you can feel Lemelman's love for his mother and you just feel happy that this beautiful book was made for her, and that her story is shared with us.
   
   By the way, I was reading to see whether I might share this book with young people. If you find yourself beginning to approach the story of the Holocaust, I definitely recommend Mendel's Daughter.



4. I liked the book and its content and the drawings but in general I enjoy a book that has more of a story or history in in.



5. Martin Lemelman, Mendel's Daughter (Free Press, 2006)
   
   I'll admit right up front that my coolness towards this book stems from a misunderstanding on my part. I see a title like Mendel's Daughter and all sorts of implications about the father of genetics and selective breeding run through my head. The story, however, has nothing to do with the more famous Mendel I was thinking of, and my disappointment at that fact never went away as I was reading this.
   
   Mendel's Daughter is an "as-told-to" graphic memoir of the holocaust by someone who lived through it. Thus, you've probably got a pretty good idea of the tone of the book. The first section covers the twenty years between the two world wars, the subject's genesis and early childhood. Then comes 1939, and the Nazi invasion of Poland, and everything blows up. The strength of the book is that Mendel's daughter didn't end up doing the same things everyone else (or so it often seems) did during the war years, and thus we get a new perspective on the lengths some people had to go to in order to survive the Nazi persecution of, well, everyone who wasn't a Nazi. The weakness is that Lemelman, who's an illustrator, doesn't quite have the editorial prowess to revise the prose (which he tells us early on is straight from interviews) into something with pace. I grant that it could have been an attempt to mirror the story, which is, not surprisingly, long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of terror, but I can't quite bring myself to believe Lemelman that much of a stylist (and it's usually a bad move anyway). I think he really did simply transcribe, unedited, the tapes, and draw around them. A bit of editing would have sharpened this book up considerably. Not enough to get me over the disappointment at the lack of the geneticist, but enough. ** ½

5 comments about From A Name to A Number: A Holocaust Survivor's Autobiography.

1. Mr. Wiener possesses many gifts, foremost of which is his ability to connect with people. I have seen him face Junior High School audiences, many to whom he is the first Jewish person they have ever met, and hold them spellbound as he recounts his life with compassion, humor, and wisdom. I have seen him embraced by those same students and their teachers afterward. Reading this book one feels the same connectedness, as he is a wonderful storyteller who can draw readers into his complex past.
   I was most moved by some of the many letters he has received from listeners and readers of all ages which are included in this book. You will experience a profound sense of hope as you read them.



2. Besides the previous comments listed in the other reviews, I would like to add what Alter means to me: He is one of the increasingly rare examples of living history.
   
   Alter is someone from another time and place who is here with us now, reporting first-hand about not only the horrors of war, but about the extreme and unique horrors this war included which surpases other conflicts. Is it possible to fully understand this? No, it takes a survivor's account to show us. And Alter Wiener is with us as a guide into one of the worst times in history.
   
   He is a resource for teaching us and reminding us not to forget. Not to forget, so this doesn't happen again.



3. Alter Wiener's book, "From A Name To A Number" is a message of survival, hope, love and forgiveness. It is a prominent and important work of history that all should read. It not only puts a personal face on the Holocaust, but reveals the horrors of Hitler to the generations who came after the war. I believe this book should be mandatory reading in our school system.



4. Alter Weiner is a very special person and it was a very special book. We "The Bad Girls Book Club" read together and he came with pictures and spoke to our club even though we were quite small. It was a horrifying experience and he tells it without bitterness and even some humor. If ever you want to realize how lucky we are in America and this time period you need to read this book.



5. We had the privilege of having Mr. Alter Wiener visit our elementary school and meet with our 5th and 6th grade students to share his story. His visit culminated a unit of study the children had engaged in to learn about the Holocaust and the reality of hate, bigotry and it's results. Our children were very solemn as they listened to Mr. Wiener's story. Afterwards, many asked questions about his experience and memories these many years later.
   
   Mr. Wiener has written a book of his experiences, losses, and journey through an earth bound hell that every adult should read to be better informed about Hitler's atrocities on mankind. This book presents a story from someone who was there and is written in an honest and comprehensive manner. In his book, Mr. Wiener answers a question for a student who asked, "how is it that you have that constant smile?" Mr. Wiener responded, "My smiling face does not indicate that my heart stopped bleeding. In fact, it has indeed been bleeding for the last sixty-seven years. I am just sending a message to Hitler and to those who had been following his racist ideology that Nazis' plan to stop me breathing at the age of thirteen did not materialize. At the age of eighty, I am still breathing and smiling."
   
   "From a Name to a Number" is appropriate for older students and could easily be part of a high school reading list. It should definitely be one of those books that all freedom loving adults should read.

No comments about Words that Burn Within Me: Faith, Values, Survival.

1 comments about Fifty Jewish Women Who Changed The World.

1. The short biographies here are well- written. But I have a number of quarrels with the selection of the book, and with its title. The phrase 'changed the world' seems to me a bit large when describing the lives of popular entertainers ( Barbra Steisand) fashion designers (Trigano) and minor literary figures (Gertrude Stein). It also seems to me unwise and misleading to select people for such lists whose contribution is to enterprises which are in some way antithetical to Judaism. I find on the list (Miriam of Nazareth) and while it is true that this central figure in Christianity is Jewish , her whole meaning as a person has to do with what is not Jewish. This point seems to me an especially point one at a time when there is a not small group of people in the world who have abandoned the Jewish religion , adopted Christianity, and still ( misleadingly) represent themselves as Jewish.
   This work does have a useful list upon which are included many figures who might have made it the list of fifty.

5 comments about From Ashes to Life: My Memories of the Holocaust.

1. As a child in Hamburg, Germany, Celia Landau led a cultured and privileged life. Her father Benjamin had a study full of books and frequently entertained renowned visitors, including philosopher Martin Buber and Rabbi Paul Holzer. This began to unravel when the Nazis came to power. In the summer of 1934, the family traveled to a German spa in Bad Schwartau. As their visit ended, the spa's owner gleefully announced that Hitler would deal with the Jews. The next fall, nine-year-old Celia's grades began to falter as former school friends labeled her "Drechtjude." In 1937, the family were forced out of their condominium at Hohe Weide 25. In October, 1938, her father was carted to prison, then deported to Dachau. In February 1941, a Gestapo agent deliver his "ashes" in a cigar box.

   Eight months later, Celia, now 16, was deported with her mother Sala and sister Karin to Lodz. Here they shared an unheated room on Zgierska Street with Julie and Julius Eichengreen and five others. As the vast majority of Jews were shipped like cattle from Lodz, the couple made Celia promise, if ever she went to New York, to find their son, who had left Europe years earlier. On July 13, 1942, Celia's starving and sick mother Sala died.

   Before being herself deported to Auschwitz in August 1944, Celia starved and scraped to survive, and lost her sister Karin as well. Her one friend from that period, Elli Sabin, traveled with her in the final transport from Lodz to new horrors. Here she came face to face with the dreaded Dr. Mengele, slaved for some months in an outdoor construction site at the Neuengamme subcamp and in the Blom and Foss Shipyards. In October, she was transferred to Arbeitslager Sasel. Here, to gain access to important files, she promised to transfer her family's house in Altona-Luna Park outside Hamburg to an SS guard. The ploy worked, and she memorized the names and addressed of 42 Nazi guards.

   In March 1945, Celia Landau was again transferred, this time to Bergen-Belsen, the disease-ridden camp where Anne Frank and her sister died of Typhus. Fortunately for Laudau, a month later, the camp was liberated, on April 15, 1945. Here she told a British major of her exploit, and was swiftly introduced to Lieutenant-Colonel J.H. Tilling, of Britain's War Crimes Investigations unit. When friends Elli, Hela Dimand and Sabina Zarecki corroborated her story, the British swiftly transferred Celia Landau to Hanover Germany, where she helped bring 17 Nazis to justice.

   Her assistance to the British War Crimes unit gave Celia new opportunities. What she did with them is but one of the things that makes this book fascinating. This is the story of an extraordinary woman who sought revenge only through her own good deeds.

   The one thing missing from this book is what gave her the courage to go on. Alyssa A. Lappen




2. How Cecelia (aka Lucille) survived is beyond imagination. What determination.



3. I was extremely impressed with this book. The author decribes in detail her life before anti-semitism and how it started to change. Her story is emotional and touching.

   She was born Celia Landau and changed her name to Lucille. She and her sister Karin were the products of a very close knit family completely torn apart by the Third Reich. Her father gets sent off to a labor camp and a year later they are delivered a box of what supposedly contains his ashes. Eventually Celia, Karin and mother are sent to the Lodz ghetto where surviving is difficult and their mother eventually dies of starvation. Celia's account of this is very sad and moving. She then tells a story of a tender love affair with Szaja in the ghetto, and befriends an elderly couple named Jules and Julius who ironically after liberation, she winds up marrying their son when she moves to New York.

   She and her sister Karin are then sent to Auschwitz. Poor Karin is so devastated and having trouble surviving day to day after losing both her parents. Celia's heart is again broken when Karin is not chosen in the selection and is loaded up into a truck and never seen again.

   Celia is only weeks away from death when Auschwitz gets liberated. She goes into detail her life after the camps including her testimony during war crimes trials that helped put many of the SS in prison.

   She also tells her experiences of going back to Europe in 1991 for the first time since she left. The hostility and indifference against Jews was still alive.

   This book is highly recommended. Well written.




4. This is a very well written personal story about this most awful period in our world's history.



5. I had a hard time putting this book down. Eichengreen does a good job of telling her story - it wasn't confusing and I didn't come away with a lot of unanswered questions. Obviously someone who didn't experience the Holocaust first hand will never fully appreciate or understand it, but I feel like I gained some insight into through this book.