4 comments about Escape and Return : Memories of Nazi Germany.

1. Escape and Return is the memoir of a life defined by the tragic, great force of World War II and the Holocaust. Written in a direct, chronological style, Fritz Ottenheimer's story takes you through a dark period in human history while taking you through his own life; a life filled with the tragedy of families and communities decimated, but also with triumphs, love and, yes, laughter. While not attempting to be an exhaustive study of WW II or the Holocaust, Mr. Ottenheimer's book has plenty of direct, first-hand information on everything from pre-war life in small German towns, to his own personal experience as a U.S. soldier assigned to Germany at the moment of Nazi defeat;the irony of his return a mere 6 years after fleeing Hitler and setting to the job of "de-Nazification" of his prior homeland is a riveting and deeply moving story.

   While the title of the book is Escape and Return, there are actually more "returns" in later years as Fritz Ottenheimer returned on his own personal journey to the town and land of his birth,where he was welcomed back and invited to tell his story to a new generation as well as his ongoing efforts for personal reconciliation. This book,(which has also been published in Germany) reads like an oral history, suitable for adults and teens(paired with the Ann Frank story as supplemental readings for WWII history) who want to learn more about this "black hole of history." (Ottenheimer's words.)




2. Mr. Ottenheimer has written an extremely insightful book about the events leading directly up to the Holocaust, the Allies drive to push Nazism out of Europe at the end of the war, and the restoration of normalcy in Europe after the war - all events that the author experienced first hand. The book also reflects upon how this era is addressed in the schools and teachings in Germany today and even parallels events of that era to world politics in our era. This book is extremely well-written and easy to read. I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in history.



3. WWII is an interesting but sad topic. Many books have been written about it. This, Mr. Ottenheimer's book, is a combination of most of them. As a native of Konstanz, Germany, he gives us very accurate information about the living condition before and during the coming crisis. He could escape to the USA shortly before Germany invaded Poland. Later he returned as a member of the US Army. This gives him the unique possibility to see the war from both sides. He wrote about everything you could imagine: Life in pre-war-Germany, war-refugees in the USA, military training, military engagement in Europe and even about his relation with people from the old continent. Living in Switzerland (I just got 20), very close to Konstanz, it was very interesting to read about that nearby town. Too many things have never been said. I would recommend that book to everyone to read for it is unlike any other auto-biography. It reads so easily like a novel (not too difficult for foreign speakers neither). You hardly can put it away, it is so captivating.



4. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a reader of many Holocaust/World War II books, I am very impressed with Mr. Ottenheimers well written story. He made his family & other characters come alive for the reader & made us care for them & cry for them. It is an event in our history that must never be forgotten & it must happen "NEVER AGAIN."

1 comments about Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality: A Sourcebook.

1. A great anthology of sermons, prayers, stories, personal testimonies to delve in and return to.

No comments about Ambivalence: Adventures in Israel and Palestine.

2 comments about Yiddish Folktales (Library of Yiddish Classics).

1. This book is a treasury of Yiddish folktales just like my grandfather used to tell us. They seem simple and obvious at times but they always contain a deeper interpretation when considered through the eyes of our ancestors and their concerns. The tales are thought provoking at times and humorous at others. My only wish is that there were more allegorical tales which are my favorite, also, it might be nice to have a little author commentary on the origins and meaning of each or even just the major lessons. The artwork- jewish folk art is also beautiful and fitting. Altogether a great book for bedtime stories!



2. This is a great read. Many tales have similarities to standard fairytales, but they have a wonderful richness not found in the usual blanded-down stories. The book has 178 stories, some as short as a half-page, so it's also great if you only have short snippets of time. My husband and I enjoyed this book for ourselves, and will definitely read these tales to our future children. I cannot recommend this more strongly

5 comments about Mischling, Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany.

1. I picked this book up at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum bookstore by chance a year and a half ago, not realizing that it would quickly become my favorite book ever. I've read it more times than I can count. Each time it is like talking to an old and familiar friend. I feel like I know Ilse intimately, though I have never met her. To me these are the trademarks of a masterpiece.



2. Mischling, Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany was an excellent book. There are a couple problems such as the situations inflicted on the people were not explained because the book was written by a child who did not understand or was aloud to hear what was going on. The ending was very weak because it was predictable and didn't explain what had happened to the father.



3. This book is a treat! You can't read it just once; I've been re-reading it for about fifteen years! Ms. Koehn makes the point that "war is hell" simply by stating her experiences during wartime as they unfolded. And the character study of Ilse's two grandmothers, one practical and one refined, is one of the best in literature, particularly when the gruff one's true colors are revealed at the wonderful ending. Would that all autobiographies were as terrific as this one!



4. I must admit, I have not read this book for many years, in fact, not since I was in the third grade. A rather insightful teacher assigned me this book, and it has profoundly enriched my understanding of the holocaust, evil, and human nature, by allowing me to see a humanized portrait of NAZI society at a very early age. As I have been raised Jewish, I have been nearly bombarded with information about the holocaust from a Jewish perspective (not that I regret this). However, I feel that we can only come to understand such a great evil if we understand that its perpetrators were as human as its victims, motivated by the same kinds of fears, hopes, false rationalizations, etc. that in some small way motivate every human being from time to time. This book is an excellent way to introduce this humanizing element to a young reader, and it helps to make sense of a senseless event in our history.



5. Mischling, Second Degree is a great book! It will keep you interested from the first page to the last. The ending of this book is wonderful, and the begining is great too. If you like books on the Haulocost, you'll love this one!

1 comments about The Triumph of Wounded Souls: Seven Holocaust Survivors' Lives.

1. This book presents an inspiring look at the success of seven holocaust survivors, against overwhelming odds. Although many holocaust books have been written, this book presents a different, timely and necessary slant. Well researched, annotated and written. A book definitely worth reading!

3 comments about Yom Kippur a Go-Go: A Memoir.

1. In Yom Kipppur a go go, the author revels in difference, like so many of us who live here in the San Francisco area. He moves between several sub-cultures and gives plenty of yummy details from both an outsider and a newish insider perspective. This slice-of-life engaged me, made me laugh and made me ponder the integration (or lack of) varying parts of my own life.



2. Compelling book by a great author. Found another of his books, Nevermind the Goldbergs and fell in love with it. Read this one in a day, and it's a compelling and funny story that I couldn't put down. Defintely recommend it!



3. 
   Matthue Roth's autobiography is the story of a young man who has decided to become an Orthodox Jew in the way punk rock kids go straight-edge. Like, you're born one way, but then it gets serious.
   
   What's more he decided to move to San Francisco and hang out with a ragtag bunch of, I don't know, San Francisco people that I can only assume would have knocked his rabbi's socks off. Which I don't know much about. I came to this book as a Christian-raised East coaster who lacks a big picture in most of the matters described herein.
   
   Simply put, I was blown away.
   
   Whether these memoirs are half-remembered or utterly fabricated is impossible for me to say - for all I know every word of the novel could be direct from a diary and true as gospel - but I have never encountered such a touching and fascinating insight into the process of being a twenty whatever year old kid and moving somewhere looking for something and finding what might have possibly been what you were looking for, and maybe not.
   
   Fascinating because of the detail. When sometimes, after a few too many drinks, I might think to myself how interesting my life has been and, if events were laid in the proper order, it might actually be interesting, could actually feel like a book. Roth seems to have drunk just enough to remember it all perfectly and beautifully. His descriptions of ennui and hopelessness read like boredom preening its fur with waves of electricity rippling down the novel's spine.
   
   Many could easily compare this to Dave Eggar's blockbuster knock 'em sock 'em of young man memoir a few years back. And the comparison isn't too off; these are two stories of two men moving to SAN FRANCISCO, a city that effectively doesn't exist as there is no place in the world that could independantly serve their very different needs. And yet, while in neither of these tales the city provided the satisfaction which the authors originally saught, both have their endings. And as a reader, it was I that was satisfied.
   
   Matthue Roth is a generational misfit, a man who looks to tradition while riding the waves of the Pacific future. His story is a story of shock, awe and exposure that while different than my own is a part of my generational history. Read this book.

5 comments about The Defiant: A True Story of Escape, Survival & Resistance.

1. The Defiant: A True Story Of Escape, Survival & Resistance is the personal memoir of Shalom Yoran, a young man who dared to become a Jewish resistance fighter in Poland during the grim years of World War II. Yoran's story (and the story of the brave men and women who fought with him), is brought forward from a manuscript which he drafted fifty years ago while recuperating in an Israeli hospital. A vivid and memorable account of survival and fighting back in spite of atrocity and anti-Semitism on all sides, The Defiant is a welcome and highly recommended addition to World War II History collections, Holocaust Studies, and 20th Century Jewish History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.



2. More and more survival accounts are starting to come out in regard to Jewish partisans, whether they were Soviet or Polish. This is one of the most interesting accounts I've read and goes to show that Jews did not just sit by and idly wait for death, on the contrary they tried the best they could to come to grips with reality and take revenge for what was happening to them and their families. A quick and compelling read, the author wrote all his memories down right after the war so that they were still fresh and much of what he describes rings true and is worth knowing and acknowledging. A worthwhile account of a struggle rarely remembered or thought about.



3. A well written story. Consise and able to take the reader on a journey. Full of lessons in life, and examples of what a person is able to live thru and do in their life.
   
   Amazing perspective from a person who was not only able to survive unbelievable odds but do so with a determination and stile.



4. I read the original hardbound edition of this book maybe five years ago, after chancing upon a copy with no prior knowledge of its contents or author. I read the book quickly, and recall being on the edge of my seat with each turn of a page. The author, named at birth as born Selim Sznycer, tells briefly, of his family's flight from the Nazi invasion of western Poland to the eastern, Soviet-occupied town of Kurzeniec, where they remained until the Germans bombed there too, killing his parents.
   
   Rather than surrender to a certain death, Selim (who later changed his name to Shalom Yoran) and his brother Musio fled to a deeply forested swampy area, at whose center they constructed a hidden bunker with some friends. There, they struggled merely to stay clothed, warm and fed. They had little to trade and no money with which to buy, and were reduced to infrequent forays into villages several miles distant, where they could steal enough rags and potatoes to survive. Lighting fires was difficult; the smell or sight of smoke could attract attention.
   
   At one point, Yoran left the hovel to search for food only to return and find several comrades dead. He and his brother then fled further east, and ultimately joined the Soviet and Polish partisans. This was not only an act of extraordinary defiance, it was itself fraught with danger, as both the Polish peasants and Russian partisans with whom they fought were themselves highly distrusting, and hateful, of Jews. At first, Selim was not trusted with guns. He was left to fight with sticks, a fake rifle, and in one case, a pitchfork. But gradually, a few comrades developed trust and respect for him, as he became an expert at bombing the railroad tracks carrying German supply trains. He derailed several trains; the sabotage stopped German war materiel transports--and required extensive new track construction, significantly slowing Germany's war machine in the region.
   
   Ultimately, the author survived and fled Europe for Israel, where he broke through the British blockade, joined the Israeli air force and built a successful Israeli business. Although Yoran necessarily survived only by fighting, success (as I have written before) is the best revenge. And for Yoran, that came through building a new life, business and family in Israel.
   
   --Alyssa A. Lappen



5. The Defiant is the story of Shalom Yoran (born Selim Sznycer)
   , and his time spent with the partisans fighting the Nazis in Poland. After three years on the run , with his family , from Nazi mobile killing units , the Nazi terror finally caught up with them and in the little town of Kurzeniec , 1 040 Jewish men , women and children where dragged from their homes and hiding places , murdered and burned. Included among those slaughtered where Selim's parents.
   
   Selim and his brother escaped into the woods and joined the partisans , and heeded the last words of their mother to survive and take vengeance for them.
   
   This is the story of the partisan guerilla warfare against Nazi terror.
   Although Selim fought among non-Jews , he always fought first and foremost as a Jew - with them but not as one of them. He dreamed of having his own country , of fighting for it and even dying for it-that is what kept him alive. The dream of surviving and living in the Land of Israel as a free Jew and building it.
   After the war , his dream was fulfilled , and having escaped the Soviet Army that tried to draft him , and the British blockade that tried to keep Jews out of Palestine , he settled in Israel and joined the airforce , becoming a prominent businessman in Israel.
   The Zionists in Europe where always the backbone of Jewish resistance to Nazism.

1 comments about The Land & People Jesus Knew: A Visual Tour of First-Century Palestine.

1. This book is great for anyone who just wants to learn of the culture of Jesus' world. It is easy to read and the illustrations are accurate of what it would have been like. However, the illustrations are not high quality, just sketches of sorts but still gives a good picture of the time period.
   
   For anyone who just wants to learn a little more of Jesus' world, this book is great!

No comments about Elie Wiesel: Conversations (Literary Conversations Series).