1 comments about Oskar Schindler (Importance of).

1. After seeing "Schindler's List," I was curious to know the real Oskar Schindler. I wanted enough history to place Schindler in the context of his times, but it was the man himself who intrigued me. This book did not disappoint me. Schindler was a flawed man who showed great nobility when he found other people's lives in his hands. A carouser and a womanizer who failed in his marriage, and a less-than-successful businessman, he was nevertheless one of the most courageous men of the twentieth century, risking the most fearful reprisals to save his Jewish employees from murder by Nazis. The beauty of this book is that it is not inaccessibly deep--most children grades 6 and up can read and comprehend it. Because movies sometimes seem unreal to children, this book is a fine way to show them that Schindler was not a superhero, but a superior human being in ways they can admire. As an Assistant Librarian, I am happy to report that Mr. Roberts' version of the life of Oskar Schindler is an outstanding item in the biography section of our children's room, but that it circulates widely among our adult patrons as well.

5 comments about Magda's Daughter: A Hidden Child's Journey Home (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series).

1. I could not put it down! It is funny and sad, the life's ironies are well described. This is more than a holocoust story. Anybody, who is interested in the effect of war on children should read it. This is a feminist book in the best meaning of the word feminist. A woman's strugle for identity, which is well decribed here, is one of the most important goal of the feminist literature.

   We are living in a time, when children are victims of wars. We should think about them and their future.




2. The perspective of a Jewish child growing up in the sureal world of German occupied Hungary tears at your heart. An amazing adventure of survival. Surprising, very good



3. I am a New Yorker who reads on the subway commuting to the office. On two occasions I missed my stop because I was so engrossed in "Magda's Daughter".

   This book is a tale of human adaptation and resilence. When I finished the book I was in great admiration of Ms. Blaikie. She is a woman of strength and insight.

   It certainly made an impression on how lucky I was to be born in the US after the war and reminded me of the immense suffering caused by the Nazis and the horrendous consequences of the Holocaust.

   Thanks for such a good read. It was a pleasure to get to know Ms. Blaikie.




4. Evi Blakie is one of a "new" group of Holocaust survivors - the hidden children who spent their earliest and most formative years living false identities. These children began their lives when the war was over, trying to forge a new and genuine identity, trying to just to "normal" after spending their entire lives thinking war was normal. Like more recent children of war (in Rwanda, Bosnia, etc.) they must spend their entire lives trying to figure out who they are. But what makes this book so wonderful is that it not only tells a story not previously told, and not even that it is a more universal story than we would like to believe - but that she writes well - with strong language and vivid imagery that holds the reader spellbound throughout the telling - and breathless at the end.



5. What I like best about this book is its straightforwardness. It is not mushy nor is it unnecessarily upsetting. Rather it is an honest and clear-eyed account of a wonderful woman, her colorful family, and their harrowing experiences during and after WWII.
   My 14-year-old daughter read it also and talked about it for weeks. Ms. Blaikie is her new hero. And she is one of my heroes too.

1 comments about Mostly Morgenthaus: A Family History.

1. As I tend to be quite impatient with most biographies, it may well be that I have underrated the worth of this one. But the truth is, I didn't find the story of this remarkable family particularly riveting and had to get very far along before I found something of interest. Apart from the story of Henry Morgenthau Sr.'s efforts to stop the Armenian genocide, I only came alive while reading the account of Henry II's activities and experiences as Roosevelt's trusted advisor during World War II. According to the author, Henry III, Jews around FDR "almost without exception... avoided or downplayed the significance of Jewish questions"... and even "misinterpreted news of the Nazi scourge." Also memorable is the author's description of anti-semitism in the State Department, the sympathy and humanity of Secretary of State Sumner Welles toward the victimized Jews of Europe, and the bitterness of FDR and Eisenhower toward the Germans. After that, I confess that my eyes glazed over once again.

5 comments about To Life.

1. Some of you are probably wondering why I wrote this review and how I had the nerve to criticize a book in which a Holocaust survivor told their story. So first I must say that I am NOT belittling the horrors that Ruth Minsky Sender went through or minimizing her astounding bravery as she faced them, I am critquing the way this book was presented.

   Picking up right were "The Cage" left off, "To Life" chronicles Riva's (Ruth's) life immediately following her liberation from a concentration camp. Horrors still plague Riva, and she finds that the heartache of discovering the deaths of her family member and friends and attempting to rebuild her life is in some ways as horrible as the Holocaust itself. But Riva carries bravely on, marrying fellow survivor Moniek, having children, and wondering what her future holds.

   The values of hope, courage, bravery, optimism, selflessness, and love shown throughout "To Life" are totally precious and the finest aspect of this novel. While portraying the intense grief she endured following WW2, Sender also portrays her (and her family's) determination to focus on their new life and make the best of their situation. Although many of the book's settings and happenings are depressing, Sender refuses to make "To Life" a book without some happiness and much hope for the future. For its portrayal of many excellent ideals, "To Life" is to be commended.

   So, as I have said before, I am not attacking the author when I discuss the less-than-perfect aspects of this book. Really, I think the "book" would have been excellent were it simply shortened somewhat and made into a final "section" of "The Cage." Many of the happenings in "To Life" were repetitive, and the happenings in the author's life shared through this book would have been even more moving and gripping if they were shortened somewhat; it would have heightened their impact.

   Hopefully no one takes offense from this review. The events in this book deserve to be shared and heard, and I believe that it is important to relieve what Jews suffered AFTER the Holocaust, I just believe the author's story could have been told in a different and better format.




2. After I read The Cage, I just had to read To Life. It is such a moving and touching story! Ruth Minsky Sender, the author of these two wonderful books, came and visited my school. She is an amazing women! She spent the day telling the facts that arent in her books. She is such a precious and delicate women that has so much information to offer.



3. The author makes the book "real". The descriptive words used in this novel makes you get the feelings that the characters in the book feels. Every piece of the book can be painted into a picture. After years and years of agony. The families get split up during the Holocaust. The family reunites together and sharing the adventures they had from moving camps to camps. A scene that I really enjoyed is the scene when the main characters get freed from the death camps and the gas chambers. I enjoyed this book because I like war books, and I recommend this book to people that want a little bit of action and to people that like history. After I read this novel, I realized that people shouldn't be racists or a whole new war might begin.



4. I quite liked this book, particularly because it's a sequel to 'The Cage,' and there just aren't that many books of this nature out there currently, about what happened to the survivors after the Shoah and how they picked up their lives in the first five or so years afterwards, when they were coming to grips with everything that had happened, searching desperately for relatives, finding out they may have been the only survivors left, rebuilding their lives, and immigrating, be it to America, Israel, Canada, Australia, or someplace else. The first part of the book is quite good, the part right after Riva and her friend Karola are liberated and eventually make their way back to Lodz, only to find they appear to be the only survivors of their families and no one has come back to look for them yet; after that the two girls move on to the city of Wroclaw, where they eventually have to part ways and move on to different DP camps, though not before each have gotten married to men they met and fell in love with in that rather short time period. And because of the way in which Grafenort is liberated, the girls are pretty much on their own and have to fend for themselves and make their own way to safety and back to Poland; they didn't want to stick around for another group of Russian soldiers after the ones who liberated them just left, or for personnel such as doctors and relief workers to come, the way it happened in other liberated camps such as Bergen-Belsen. They really had to rely upon themselves.
   
   I think the book could have been more gripping and personally involving and intense had there been more details and character development; it's not that I didn't like the characters and feel for them, just that a lot of these very emotional situations and interactions are related in almost a matter-of-fact way instead of really delving into more deep and complex descriptions. Maybe that's because most of the chapters are so short; I know this is intended for a younger audience, but I've read a lot of YA and older JA books on this same subject which had a more emotionally harrowing, personal, and memorable feel to them because there were more details and not as much repetition or frequent skipping of blocks of time. The obvious bravery, courage, love, and hope against hope Riva, her friends, and her family experienced in these years would have been even more obvious and emotionally involving had they just been developed in more depth more often instead of being told in a formulaic brief way.



5. My daughter just loves this book. She read it three times and now asked me to get her more books written by this auther.

No comments about Encounter on the Narrow Ridge: A Life of Martin Buber.

No comments about The Search Warrant.

1 comments about Deadly Carousel: A Singer's Story of the Second World War.

1. How would your life change if your were an established and beautiful singer in Budapest and your city was invaded first by the Germans and then by the Russians? I am sorry Spielberg has so far missed this book as it has all the ingrediants for a spell binding movie as well as being a fantastic read. This is the true story of the life of the author's mother and it's well written and thouroughly enjoyable.

2 comments about Teen Voices from the Holy Land: Who Am I to You?.

1. Sad, amusing, wise, naive, and touching, these anecdotes, observations, and speculations by Jewish and Arab teenagers will long reverberate in the mind of the reader. Each account reflects the mind and temper of a thoughtful, self-aware individual poised between the innocent hopefulness of childhood and an adult's growing consciousness of the complexity of life and the history it brings. For Jews and Arabs living in the Holy Land, that history has, for a hundred years, been particularly burdensome. For the reader, news and events emerging from that area will likely have the joy and the weight of new names and faces inextricably attached to it.



2. TEEN VOICES FROM THE HOLY LAND: WHO AM I TO YOU offers up an intriguing survey by author who asked young Palestinians and Israelis to describe their lives and dreams for the future. Their words offer insights into not only their lives and experiences but their perceptions of past, present and future, making this a top pick for any spiritual collection or library strong in Middle East issues.

No comments about The Day the Holocaust Began: The Odyssey of Herschel Grynszpan.

1 comments about Convoy To Auschwitz: Women of the French Resistance (Women's Life Writings from Around the World).

1. I am so glad that this book was translated to english and published here in the States. Please, don't get me wrong, but it is "nice" to have a book about other victims of the Nazi death camps besides Jewish accounts. It serves to remind us and teach us that others too were sentenced to those Death Camps. Many gypsies, resisters, communists, christians, and lesbians, all from different countries, EVEN GERMANS, were sentenced and died at the camps. This book in particular is a Who's Who, a list of a convoy of resisters (mostly communists) from France (mostly french, but there were other nationalities as well) who lived and died together. Each name has a story, some more than others. Stories from the survivors and from what relatives that could be found after the war.

   It's amazing that this book was first published in 1965 and is only now being published here in the US. But I'm glad I got to read it.