1 comments about Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History.

1. This is a nice biography of Gershom Scholem who virtually single-handedly transformed Kabbalah into a legitimate field of academic study. This was not an easy task. It has been hotly debated whether Scholem actually cared about Kabbalah and the Kabbalists or whether he merely treated is as an objective area of scholarly interest. Either way, he made it his life's work and was eminently successful in his endeavors. Scholem knew the great psychologist/psychiatrist Carl Jung (though strangely Jung has very little reference to Kabbalah in his voluminous works). But, Scholem, at least to some degree, seems to have absorbed some of Jungian psychology. My favorite quotation from this volume is: "For the Kabbalists, symbols are not arbitrary or subjective, but have an essential inner connection with what they symbolize. Symbols are therefore the residue of divine names in human language. The great faith the Kabbalists had in language was a result of their belief in symbols as the bridge between human and divine language. In the modern, technological world...the disappearance of public symbols has become, according to Scholem, a 'great crisis of language'" on page 125. I think this is right on the money. I think it useful (as a Knowledge Manager) to get some context or background before trying to transform mere information into actionable knowledge. A book like this can help.

No comments about The Stories and Recollections of Umberto Saba (Sheep Meadow Fiction).

1 comments about Arthur Szyk: Artist, Jew, Pole.

1. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in both art and history. I found it well documented and scholarly. The author includes many of Szyk's beautiful full-color illustrations.

No comments about 42 Keys to the Second Exodus: Memoir of a Life, the Seeds of Which Were Planted in Egypt and Flourished in Canada.

2 comments about American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957-1965 (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture and Life).

1. In four brief, well-researched chapters, Fermaglich shows how Stanley Elkins on slave personality, Betty Friedan on oppressed women, Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority, and Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of survivors, drew an analogy between the Nazi experience and aspects of American society. Moreover, she demonstrates how these analogies, such as Freidan's between the concentration camp and the suburban home, proved to be extremely productive for other thinkers, in a host of ways and disciplines. Important conclusions are that these thinkers were part of a liberal moment that stressed universal values and the human condition. Even if they did not stress Jewish issues, Fermaglich intelligently indicates how these four thinkers were influenced by tensions in American Judaism, and how their work belies the now common view that thinking seriously about the Holocaust did not arrive until the late 1960s and early 1970s. A book full of intriguing connections between thinkers and ideas, ideas and social contexts.



2. Dr. Fermaglich was my professor on American Jewish History when I was in college. To this day I consider her class to be one of my favorites. I was very glad to see her book on amazon and purchased it right away. I am not at all surprised of the fine quality of this book. Dr. Fermaglich really knows her subject and with every page, you do discover something new about Holocaust survivors in America. As always, strong and concise points throughout the book; very thorough research.
   
   Thank you, professor, for sharing with us your knowledge again!

No comments about From Lwow to Parma: A Young Woman's Escape from Nazi-occupied Poland (Library of Holocaust Testimonies).

No comments about Judas Maccabaeus: Jewish Leader (World Leaders Past and Present, Series I).

2 comments about The Warriors: My Life As A Jewish Soviet Partisan (Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust).

1. Too often have I read memoirs from Jewish partisans who served either with the Poles, Ukrainians or in this case Russians and Byelorussia and the sad fact that they had to face anti-semitism within these partisan groups and detachments. Again and again they would prove themselves to be resilient fighters, brave soldiers, and heroic warriors when the time came in the heat of battle. Some lived through it all but many more would die and their stories need to be heard, understood and remembered. Not only suffering from the Germans and their local collaborators but also at the hands of the same people whom they sought out for help and protecting and more so to simply join to seek vengeance. This book is a small glimpse into that world, a world where the enemy might be a man you called a friend not too long ago and someone whom you entrusted your life to in a split second decision when had yet to lose faith in humanity and the generous spirit you know people must have deep down inside. Yet the end result more often than not was betrayal, death, starvation, torture, and torment. Stories abound of the dozens of actions undertaken by these partisans and the huge amount of damage they were able to do to the Germans and locals who were helping them. At the same time we are also told about the German responses to these actions, local people who might have had nothing to do with it were robbed, beaten, and killed for simply being at the wrong place and at the wrong time. War is war, I only wish that the author had included everything in this book, sadly he himself says that he left out stories of 'cruelty, inhumanity, and atrocity.' I think that was a mistake on his part, the more we know the better informed we'll be and hopefully we might avert something like this from ever happening again.



2. There is a wealth of information in this book, notably a detailed map of relevant locations. I primarily focus on matters not elaborated by other reviewers.
   
   Zissman describes a time a prewar Poland during which he had a rosy view of Communism. He does not explain how he could have thought this in view of such things as the ruthless totalitarianism and the removal of Jews from top positions in the Soviet Union by Stalin in the mid-1930's. Or how could he be ignorant of these facts?
   
   In 1939, the Soviets occupied then-eastern Poland, a territory with a mixed Polish-Byelorussian-Jewish population. Zissman essentially confirms some historians (e. g., Jerzy Robert Nowak) as to the major cause of Jews being sent to Siberia: Jews manifesting their intent of going to the German-occupied zone (p. 29).
   
   Zissman describes the existence of a Polish militia which briefly served the Germans after their 1941 invasion: "Then they began arresting those who had worked for the Soviets." (pp. 41-42). Later, the Germans shot the Poles along with the Jews (p. 47). Poles who continued to serve the Germans clearly did it under duress: "If he [the Polish guard] dared show any mercy to the Jews, they [the Germans] would shoot him or send him to a concentration camp." (p. 53)
   
   In common with some other Jewish sources (e. g.,Deliverance: The Diary of Michael Maik, a True Story), Zissman confirms the fact that Germans, not Poles, were the main killers of Jedwabne's Jews: "Later on, some Jews who had fled Jedwabno for Derechin told us that when the Germans first entered their town, they had herded all the Jews into a barn and set it ablaze. Anyone who tried to get out was cut down by machine-gun fire." (p. 42). [The discovery of WWI-vintage bullet casings at the site doesn't disprove their connection with the Jedwabne massacre. The Germans probably relegated obsolete weaponry to the shootings of unarmed civilians.]
   
   Bor Komorowski gave an order for the AK to liquidate bandits who were preying on Polish farmers. Apropos to this, Zissman mentions bandit bands of Soviet soldiers who had been trapped behind German lines after the 1941 invasion (p. 78). Later, Zissman was a member of one of the "pozorny" groups that masqueraded as the AK: "When carrying out `bombings' [bandit raids], we impersonated Polish Underground fighters, the point being to discredit the White Poles with the farmers. From the farms, besides food and clothing, we took naphtha, saws, and axes--the farmers would miss these things most of all." (p. 149). How many crimes attributed to the AK (including the killings of fugitive Jews) were actually the deeds of the "pozornys"?
   
   After the Soviet "liberation" of Poland in 1944, Zissman was approached by a Jewish NKVD officer and invited to join (pp. 161-162). He did.
   
   Zissman comments on the reaction to Jewish owners returning for their properties: "Besides not wanting to give up their loot, they [current owners] feared being sent to Siberia as collaborators. Many were ready to kill any returning Jews." (p. 161). Could the fear of being accused of Nazi collaboration, ipso facto for possessing Jewish property, been itself, in many other such instances, a significant motivator for killing returning Jewish owners?

No comments about Good Morning.

3 comments about A Wolf in the Attic: The Legacy of a Hidden Child of the Holocaust.

1. "A Wolf in the Attic", a memoir by Dr. Sophia Richman adds a valuable perspective to the literature of the Holocaust. Dr. Richman was a hidden child in Poland who survived to tell her story of what it meant to transcend such an ordeal and then go on to try to strive for and fit in with normal life. This work is a unique exposition of a journey to overcome a traumatic past and to engage fully in life under renewed circumstances yet with the past just under the surface. The process of coming to terms with this dicotomy is at the heart of the work and is very moving. Dr. Richman has created a compelling narrative which reveals the two faceted experience of a life of achievement and momentum amidst unconscious symbols of tragedy. The fact that the author was successful in so many ways in overcoming her trauma is an inspiration. Her story is a special one amongst Holocaust memoirs. Dr. Richman's work is highly recommended for its humanity, complexity and poignancy.



2. I thought the book was excellent! I have read dozens of books about the Holocaust and this document certainly offers a different and vital perspective that has not previously been covered in the literature. As you progress through the book, it is quite clear that the after-effects for Holocaust survivors are persistent and nagging, and greatly affect them for the rest of their lives. Sophia Richman's experience demonstrates that tragic events that surround young children can stalk in their minds like "A Wolf in the Attic".



3. "Memoirs, the signature literary form of the 21st century, speak to us
   privately of the most intimate aspects of life. The fact that Sophia Richman is a
   child survivor of the Holocaust as well as a psychoanalyst and applies both of these vantage points to her life narrative, takes this memoir into new territory.
   She writes of the realms of childhood, adolescence and adulthood through the
   prism of someone whose very existence once depended on keeping a
   secret. This is an engaging and very special book in the memoir literature and one that will inspire
   readers as well as writers who have difficulty formulating and then articulating their
   own story."