5 comments about Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism.

1. One of the best books in its category of historicaldocumentation. The author has deeply research the topic, has beenfaithfull to historical facts with an unbiased approach.



2. Several readers have suggested that the prose in this book reminds them of Primo Levi, the great humanist scientist who has written poignantly of his own war time experiences. Like his other works, Stille makes the non-fiction read like a novel. He knows just what to stress and what to downplay - in other words, he emphasizes the most important aspects of the "story".

   What is so compelling is his "umbrella" approach wherein all components and shades of Italian fascism and Judaism are reviewed. There was a huge difference between the fascism of Italy and Germany despite their apparent political solidarity. The outstanding difference was that German fascism, unlike that of Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and Croatia was based on not only adoration of the race but specificially subjugation of the Jews. It is difficult to understand some of the decisions made but most of us have never had to face the start life and death choices these families encountered.

   Stille is also an eminently fair man, one who does not condemn fascism while excusing or praising dictatorships of the Left. He views all forms of state collectivism as inherently evil and this message only increases the force of the narrative. This is yet another work that should be required reading for high school students.




3. The book is five books in one.The stories of five Jewish Italian families during the WWII years.A common fate,common people and so different personalities and destinies.
   The author achieved to describe a psychological portrait of each character and their vicissitudes.I loved the book.



4. Here's an historical curiosity; apparently Jewish Fascism was a common phenomenon in Italy. Before Nazi influence caused racial laws to be passed in 1938, 1/3 of the ~50,000 Jewish folk in Italy were members of the fascist party. Jewish families often had as much as a 2000 year history in Italy (there was mention of the Jews wanting permission to cry over the tomb of Julius Caesar after his death), and the Italian Jewish experience (at least in the North, in the areas of progressive city-states, rather than Papal states) was one more or less of recent integration with the rest of the Italian people. So they tended to have political views pretty closely following the rest of the populace; or even perhaps more conservative views, such as latin-americans in the U.S. The book follows the lives of five jewish families under fascism. Some were fascist, some antifascist. Some in shades of grey. The stories were quite powerful when they strayed from the nonstandard; most of the Italian Jewish experience of WW-2 was much different from that of other European jews.
   
   Americans have a fairly unsophisticated view of WW-2; we mostly think of German and Japanese enemies, and Russian and English allies, and the terrible things which happened to the Jews in Germany, Poland and the Ukraine. There were entire theaters of war which never enter into our consciousness. Most of what happened in Italy and the Balkans is poorly understood. The stories in this book fill in some of the blank spots in this American's understanding of that period.



5. To write about a subject as controversial as the Holocaust in Italy without becoming a "partisan" is a rare achievement, but Stille has succeeded in this absorbing book. Ignoring the unsettle-able issue of what Pope Pius XII did or didn't do to help Italian Jews, he instead concentrates on the experiences and fates of five very different Jewish families in various parts of Italy during the 20 years of Fascism, including the last, terrible period of the German occupation.
   
   Stille chose his title with care; instances of benevolence and betrayal are woven throughout the stories. There are Christians who risk their lives to save Jewish friends and neighbors; priests and nuns, bishops and cardinals who offer support and sanctuary; stories of Jewish ingenuity and bravery. There are also stories of betrayals on both sides: Christians who betrayed Jews out of greed or anti-Semitism, or in pathetic efforts to save their own or their families' lives. Stille doesn't hesitate to expose Jews who betrayed their own people--a touchy subject many writers would avoid. The result is a book that reveals the complexity of an issue too often over-simplified into Jewish heroes and Italian villains, or heroic Italians and helpless Jews.
   
   What makes Stille's book so memorable, however, isn't the author's unusual objectivity; it's the fascinating stories his subjects tell. Stille interviewed many of them, as well as using diaries, letters, published writings and personal papers provided by the families of those no longer living. The book is divided into five sections, one for each family.
   
   This is a moving, at times horrifying, but enlightening and engrossing book, full of vivid details of Italian life during a tragic but deeply significant period of Italy's history.

2 comments about The Aftermath: A Survivor's Odyssey Through War-Torn Europe.

1. I have read a great deal about the Holocaust, including personal accounts, but this one stands out for several reasons. Because it was written just after World War II, it has an immediacy and authenticity that others written later might lack. It's amazing that it was only published a few years ago, and it still isn't well known, though it deserves to be. It's really a kind of primary source document. But it's also great literature, really well-written and moving and ultimately (despite some of the horrors so graphically depicted) it is uplifting, a testament to the human spirit's capacity to retain its dignity despite everything. Highly recommended.



2. I have read a great deal about the Holocaust, and I've read quite a few personal accounts, but this one is extraordinary. It has an immediacy that comes from having been written just after World War II, so that it is in essence a primary source document. But it's also a great piece of literature, a love story, and (despite the graphic horrors it describes) it ultimately is uplifting. Everyone interested in how humans can survive horrendous trauma with dignity intact should read this book.

1 comments about Rememberings: The World of a Russian-Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Studies and Texts in Jewish History and Culture, 9).

1. Being an avid reader, I rarely read a woman's perspective on history, but Pauline Wengeroff's story opened my eyes to Jewish history from a totally different viewpoint. The story is magnificent and a must for independent minded women of any age. People of the twenty-first century will be able to identify easily with a woman of the 1840-1860's. Conditions of life change, but people don't.

3 comments about The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps 1939-1944.

1. This is a deeply affecting work, compulsively readable, yet always painful to read, account of the slow garroting of the Jewish community in Vilna. From one page to the next, one is amazed (even now) at the viciousness of the Fascists and the humanity, ingenuity, courage of those they oppressed. God and the devil are both in the details and Kruk gives us plenty of all three.



2. Herman Kruk was a librarian. Even as the Vilna [Vilnius] ghetto was reduced to inhuman conditions, Kruk risked his life to smuggle books into the public library he set up. While the Nazi regime tried to reduce Jews to a subhuman status, with harsh labor, restrictions, and eventual extermination; Kruk helped to initiate literary contests, plays, and lecture series. His diary reflects the intellectual and cultural activities of the ghetto, as well as the minutiae of the library.
   
   Kruk's diary is an overwhelmingly human document. His tears for the destruction of his beloved Warsaw and the personal horror felt when hearing rumors of the massacre of Jews elsewhere in Europe are not diluted or diminished by his desire that his diary become a publicly read record of the destruction of Jewish Vilna.



3. While I may or may not agree with the other reviewers' suggestions, I am puzzled by one thing: their inability to call things by their name. I am specifically referring here to their use of terms like "Fascists" or "Nazis". Is the war in Iraq being fought by "Republicans"? Was it the "Nixonites" who committed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam? The Germans may be trying to whitewash themselves - and they have indeed been doing so since the end of the war - but why is the rest of the world playing by?
   
   Otherwise, I heartily recommend Kruk's compelling book to anyone interested in 20th century history - and the general history of mankind as well.

5 comments about Am I A Murderer?: Testament of a Jewish Ghetto Policeman.

1. This is not a review, only a personal note. I read the book in its original Polish edition. And having read a number of books on Holocaust and supposed Polish participation in it I just expected some new information on this subject. But this first hand account of what happened to the Otwock Jews and of barbaric behaviuor of Poles from Otwock cannot be more persuasive on the existence of common guilt of the Polish nation for not fighting Holocaust and what's more for taking part in it. Let's not jugde the caught by the horrible times "policeman" His writing stops beating of your heart. After one long evening of reading I went to sleep and had the worst nightmare of my life: I was put into a transport to Treblinka



2. When I read Perechodnik's book years ago, I was profoundly moved by the experiences of the writer in the war years. Having just travelled to Germany and seen some concentration camps, I started reading avidly on the Holocaust and the experiences of survivors and perpetrators. The poignant title of the book was the thing that caught my eye and it remains one of the most startling and powerful accounts of the evil that took place in WWII. It is amazing that this first-hand account survived and I wish it was as highly circulated and read as Anne Frank's diary. Perechodnik's account lets us into the sacrifces one has to make in extreme situations and the guilt he feels throughout the war for abandoning his wife and kid entreats us. A harrowing experience. Let us never forget the humanity in us.



3. Calel Perechodnik personally experienced very little anti-Semitism previous to the Nazi invasion of Poland. He and his wife had an opportunity to move to Palestine, but opted to remain in the country of their birth. The young engineer lived a low profile life in his hometown of Otwock, and expected the lives of Jews to only improve as the overall Polish culture turned more secular. Calel respected his Jewish traditions, but perceived himself as primarily a cosmopolitan man who took organized religion with a huge grain of salt. Everything, however, dramatically changed for the worse once the Nazis became the occupying power of Poland. The anti-Semitism of the Roman Catholic majority thereafter ceased being dormant and subtle, and many of these ordinary citizens became vile monsters. Virtually overnight they treated their Jewish friends and neighbors as akin to vermin requiring elimination.

   The author attempts to save his wife and young daughter by becoming a ghetto policeman. The German Nazis cynically realized that Jewish men could best keep their fellow human beings under control. False hopes were conveyed to the Jews promising that their situation would be secure if only they cooperated. "Jews perished first of all because they didn't realize in time what level German cruelty and barbarism would reach," added the author. The 27 year old Perechodnik is forced to choose the less of evils. Ultimately, his family is not spared and the author is trapped in an environment where treachery, greed, and murder are the norm. Perechodnik's chronicle is not easy reading. It is a moral duty, and not in the least bit pleasurable. The reader will constantly be challenged to dwell upon the horrific choices of Perechodnik. The awkward question of how we would behave under similar circumstances is inevitable.

   There are a few other books mandating your legitimate interest. Only a few months ago, the Holocaust scholar Jan T. Gross released his superb work "Neighbors" which deals with similar atrocities committed in the Polish town of Jedwabne. Peter Wyden's "Stella" published in 1992 concerns a young Jewish woman who for purely selfish reasons betrayed her friends to the Nazis. Only the very thin veneer of civilization separates us from barbarism. Thus, we are obligated not to ignore the unpleasant truths about the recorded depths of human depravity. Increasing our knowledge betters our chances of curtailing future horrors.




4. Calel, suffered deadfully with the most horrendous guilt imaginable when believing he was saving his wife and child from the Otwock Treblinka bound transport in being a "Jewish Policeman" and having certain "priveleges" with the SS who in fact condemned them to death, as at the last moment a reprieve was denied them. The book is invaluable as it was written during the Nazi occupation of Poland and Calel's description of an unseen Treblinka is very detailed, proving that the Jews of the time mainly knew of their fate. Personally speaking though his mother and father wouldn't have needed the Nazis to kill them as if it were my parents i'd have finished them off myself. What vile people they were, making me realise how unselfish my own family actually are. This is a must read for anyone with a "close knit" family, you wont be able to get your head around it. I hated them. I cannot believe the War had this effect on all people be they Jews or Gentiles and that these monsters were just off a minority or there is really no hope for family's of the future if this is to be the norm.



5. Before WWII, Perechodnik wasn't admitted to a Polish university, yet he concluded: "Besides, I want it clearly understood that I personally did not come in contact with anti-Semitism." (p. xxii). This adds to the refutation of the claim that prewar Polish anti-Semitism had been an inevitable and constant companion of Polish Jews, and that assimilated Polish Jews suffered from anti-Semitism as much as the unassimilated Jewish majority.
   
   The author provides eyewitness comments on the 1939 war, while in eastern Poland: "I don't deny that there were Jews--old-time Communists--who disarmed Polish detachments, but can one blame this on all the Jews? I believe that the number of Jews who fell with arms in hand while defending Poland was larger than the number of Jews disarming Polish detachments." (p. 2). [Probably true, but military service was compulsory and, in any case, loyalty is not a favor but a due.]
   
   Perechodnik believed that the 1939 war had brought Poles and Jews close together (p. 1), although this cooled somewhat in the following year or so (with Polish denunciations of Jews being "scattered incidents": p. 5). And, despite his later bitterness towards Poles, he recorded observations that don't support the modern notion of Poles habitually delighting in Jewish sufferings. Poles in trains passing the Ghetto lowered their heads, made the sign of the cross, and prayed: "May they rest in peace." (p. 41). On another occasion, Poles stood silently as they saw the blood marks on the pavement of murdered Jews. (p. 55).
   
   In a scene reminiscent of Lanzmann's SHOAH, Polish Jews gave a warning (not mockery) you-will-die gesture to Belgian Jews, who scoffed at it. (p. 107). And, unlike Jan T. Gross and his fans, who speak from their safe perches, Perechodnik didn't think that Poles had some kind of a general duty to risk their lives by hiding fugitive Jews. (p. 101).
   
   Perechodnik cuts the Polish Blue Police (Policja Granatowa) some slack in their thefts from Jews by recognizing the fact that the wages they were paid were non-livable. (p. 31). He doesn't go far enough. Poles themselves lived in crushing poverty under German occupation, and this fact readily explains their eagerness to acquire Jewish properties. In fact, Poles who stole from Jews said that: Jews were already doomed by the Germans, Jewish wealth had originated from Polish soil, and, were Poles not to take Jewish property, it would be taken anyway--by the Germans. (p. 6, 57, 72, 99). Of course, stealing is virtually universal in wartime, and even the Jewish ghetto policemen frequently stole from each other. (p. 88).
   
   The Ukrainian police was vicious. They often shot Jews in the Ghetto, at close range, for sport (pp. 33-35, 44, 105). As for Perechodnik's own Nazi collaboration, which included the dispatching of his relatives to their deaths at Treblinka, he wrote of having a stony heart (p. 104), of believing that he would outlast the Nazis (p. 106), and asking the question of the memoir's title. (p. 54). He then fled the Ghetto and was aided by a succession of Polish benefactors (e. g., p. 101, 159-167, 182-183) before his reputed suicide.
   
   Ironic to the modern thinking that blames Christianity for the Holocaust, Perechodnik, an atheist, concluded: "We are puzzled about where such hatred by Germans of Jews comes from, how much of it is the fault of the Jews. My opinion is that, setting aside inborn German sadism, the desire to murder for the enjoyment of killing, and the lust for gold, I ascribe the entire blame to the Jewish religion. One cannot enjoy the hospitality of other peoples and consider oneself a chosen people, better and wiser...Yes, the Jewish religion had divided us from other people with a Chinese wall, had inculcated in us a psychology of distinctness..." (pp. 171-172; see also p. 151).

1 comments about In the Ghettos: Teens Who Survived the Ghettos of the Holocaust (Teen Witnesses to the Holocaust).

1. This book, In the Ghettos, is (in my opinion) a very good and factual book. It gives the straight facts. In the Ghettos has very good photoghraghs right from the ghettos. It also gives interviews of people who survived the Holocaust. In the back of the book there is a glossary, timeline, and index, which i found very convenient with all the big words. This book tells about some major ghettos and in the front of the book it has a map of all the ghettos, labor camps, and extermination camps. On the back cover it tells of the eight books in this series of books. So if you enjoy this one as i did you can read the others.

No comments about Inheriting the Holocaust: A Second-generation Memoir.

No comments about The Fate of Holocaust Memories: Transmission and Family Dialogues.

No comments about Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess.

3 comments about Jewish Sports Legends: The International Jewish Hall of Fame (Jewish Sports Legends).

1. One or two paragraphs each containing stats and awards. I was expecting more fleshed out biographies, perhaps outlining any adversities these folks had to endure, Jewish or otherwise. No or almost no personal information.



2. The International Jewish Hall of Fame has plenty of reasons to be proud - and most are listed in this book. Not meant to be a complete biography, it gives sample snapshots of these legendary athletes, coaches and sportswriters. Obviously there is a rich and deep heritage in the Jewish community and this books fosters that well.



3. This book has a valuable introduction tracing the development of Jewish participation in sport in the modern era. It also contains 'portraits' of individual Jewish athletes of distinction. It is a valuable resource .
   However when one wishes to inspire the younger generation it is helpful to tell stories of the struggles individuals made to make their way . But perhaps for that , another volume is necessary.