5 comments about The Net of Dreams: A Family's Search for a Rightful Place.

1. This book begins in 1993, when the author travels to Poland and to her parents' hometown of Huszt, Hungary (now Khust, Ukraine), together with her mother and stepfather, to rediscover her family's past and how it has shaped them and continues to influence them. Originally just Ms. Salamon was going to go to Poland, where Steven Spielberg was filming 'Schindler's List,' but her mother insisted she come along too, and that her stepfather, who had been a partisan, would come too. During their visit to Auschwitz and Huszt, Ms. Salamon began discovering a lot of things about her parents' past that she hadn't known before, or hadn't known about in such detail.
   
   Her parents were from Carpathian Rus, a region that had changed hands numerous times between Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, and Czechoslovakia over the years. They had always thought of themselves as cultured Czechs and therefore superior to the shtetl Jews in places like Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine. The area they lived in, however, was eventually annexed to Hungary during the course of the war, and they found themselves suffering the same fate as Hungarian Jewry when the Nazis invaded in March of 1944 and herded them all into ghettoes. Ms. Salamon's mother Szimi (Lilly), twenty-one at the time of deportation, managed to survive through her friendship with two sisters and an amazing belief that this wasn't really so bad, that she was going to get through it and was never in any real danger in spite of what a deadly dangerous place she was in. Her father Sanyi (Alexander), who was significantly older than her mother (about thirteen and a half years), lost his first wife and child in one of the deportations, but survived first with the partisans and then in Dachau, due to his privileged position as a respected talented doctor. After the war they reconnected and began a new life together, together with their surviving friends and relatives, first in Prague, then in New York, where some of their relatives had been living for a long time, and finally in the small town of Seaman, Ohio. Through this journey through her family's past, Ms. Salamon discovered how a lot of these events had significantly shaped their lives as she grew up, without even realising it. And unlike some books about the Shoah, this one has a much longer timeframe; it covers their lives before, during, and after the war, not just shortly before the war, during the war, and for a short period afterwards. It takes the journey into 1971, when her father died.
   
   My only complaint about the book is that it does somewhat feel as though it ends in media res. Perhaps there could have been a few more chapters to give more of a feeling of closure, covering such things as how the family dealt with Dr. Salamon's death in the immediate aftermath, how her mother met her stepfather Arthur, and whatever happened to her maternal aunts who had immigrated to Israel before it was too late. But overall it provides a fascinating portrait of one family's bittersweet history and how for many people, the war wasn't really over in 1945.



2. There is so much in this book...the history of Julie Salamon's parents Szimi and Sanyi Salamon, Jewish Holocaust survivors, it is the story of their lives before the war, what they endured and lost during the war, how they survived and met and ended up creating a nice 'American' family.
   
   Julie Salamon's personal journey includes many interesting anecdotes, a detailed family tree and insight in to her mother's seemingly neurotic ideas about life. Her mother possessed this amazing insanity, where she was able to think the wonderful while enduring the unspeakable.
   
   I thought it was so interesting to hear how Jews who survived the Holocaust would express distain for other surviving Jews because they were Polish or Hungarian or Russian. It seems that this pecking order that we endure and perpetrate against others is sometimes what gets us through our lot in life.
   
   Julie, her mother and step-father take a trip to Poland to visit in Huszt and tour Auschwitz. During their travels her mother tells her many stories of her experience during her imprisonment in the concentration camp, things she never spoke of before. I thought it so insightful to describe the time after liberation as Genesis Day One, a vast re-creation.
   
   I thought this was a very well told and well written history. My only criticism is that I felt this story was unfinished. Of course it's her life and she living so to a certain extent I certainly expected her story to continue after the book was done. But I was left to wonder how did her mother cope with the death of her father. How did she find her second husband Arthur? Did her mother find any peace in going back to Poland and Auschwitz?
   
   Perhaps she will write another book so I can find out!



3. I have been searching for this book for several years and I have finally found it(I forgot the title so it's been a long search)!I read it years ago and was moved to tears many times. Ms. Salamon describes her mothers history in such a way that you feel like you were right there with her. You can feel her joy and her pain. You get to know her before the war touched her life and all the way through her move to America and the start of her family. This was the only book I have ever read that I could not put down! It's unbelievably good!



4. Julie Salamon is a friend and a person I respect mightily, so I am not exactly objective. Nevertheless, I found her discovery of her family's history--and her trip to the death camps with her mother--remarkable and so compelling that I was unable to put it down. I read the book in 1996 and though I buy, read and donate hundreds of books a year, this one remains in our library. It will be a good resource for our children as they learn of the effects of the Holocaust on us all--and of human ability to overcome horrors. Alyssa A. Lappen



5. This is the most moving story of Holocaust survivors that I have ever read. While it does a great job describing author's parents' experiences in concentration camps, what makes it unique is its ability to also show how victims of that horror were able to put their lives back together and not be defeated by it. I also was moved by the author's own journey of discovery about her parents and who they were, aside from their identity as Survivors. All of us, I think, would relish the opportunity to really know who their parents are

5 comments about Literature or Life.

1. Literature or Life by Jorge Semprun
   
   This is a great book. Like Semprun's previous book on World War II, "What a Beautiful Sunday," this one uses his experience in Nazi concentration camps to tell a quite remarkable story (and stories within stories within stories), but also as a jumping-off place for wide-ranging musing about life, and art, and the dependency of each on the other (hence the apt title).
   
   The book circles around the liberation of Buchenwald and the first few weeks afterwards, with extended forays into his experiences there, previous experiences with the French underground as a student at the Sorbonne, and with a lot of discussion of writers and philosophers along the way.
   
   He starts by addressing the question of whether an experience like being in Buchenwald can be truly and fully addressed in literature - he says yes, certainly, given enough skill and commitment by the writer. Finding readers who are capable of comprehending and believing what is written is the problem. I think we have a good writer/reader match here, because I find Semprun to be startling in his clarity, illuminating, riveting and very funny from time to time (a sense of humor and absurdity that obviously served him well, and those that leaned on him for support well, too).
   
   There is a bizarrely funny scene at the opening of the book, for example, when three British soldiers, brand new to the scene in Buchenwald walked up to him, and he was so happy to see them ("I felt more like laughing, gamboling in the woods, running from tree to tree") that he tried to engage them in what was, for him, normal conversation ("Say, I bet you fellas are noticing how quiet it is here - it's the birds! The smell of the crematory has driven them off, so the usual racket you hear in the forest just ain't happening here!") - Meanwhile these soldiers are staring at him in open-mouthed horror, as if he was a talking corpse, some kind of zombie... It takes Semprun a few minutes to figure out what the problem is here, and he decides, on reflection, that their perception is correct - that he and his comrades, the survivors, are a sort of zombie, that they hadn't really avoided death - that death and what he calls "radical evil" were so pervasive in the camp that nobody there survived in the usual sense - and he said that for the rest of his life, much of it as a younger man spent continuing to put himself in danger as a revolutionary fighter of various kinds, he felt an odd sort of invulnerability - an assumption that he would not be killed or even caught because he'd already been there, and somehow been given a pass to return to finish his business here.
   
   One of his extended side trips is a discussion of Heidegger, of whom he says, in part, "Of course, there was a certain fascination - sometimes mixed with irritation - with the philosopher's language. With that abounding obtuseness through which one has to hack one's way, cutting clearings without ever reaching a definitive clarity. A never-ending labor of intellectual decipherment that becomes absorbing through its very incompletion."
   
   It seems clear to me that Semprun used his experience with Heidegger partially as a guide in his own development as a thinker and writer, because, again - he writes with exceptional clarity, and no matter how far afield his musings range, he never loses the thread or the point of a remarkable and essential story in the process.



2. Jorge Semprun spent two years in a concentration camp, Buchenwald. He was a known writer before and continued to be a writer afterwards. In this reflection on his life experience he reveals himself to be first of all a true human being , the Yiddish word is 'mensch' and it applies to him though he is not Jewish. Semprun's meditation on the meaning of his writing and the meaning of his life is a moving one, and a unique one. He is an original person with a way of thinking and understanding things of his own. Who reads this book will get to know a mind and a human being of unique distinction.



3. Jorge Semprún is one of the many survivors of the Holocaust who has left his memoirs written to the later generations. But what makes him different is the fact that he did not wrote just what he saw or lived: he wanted us readers to know the feelings, the thoughts and the worries that accompanied and still accompany a Buchenwald prisoner as well. Their words are not hateful to the Germans, nor show pity or regret towards the writer himself or his former fellows. Semprún does not analyze tha causes or the consecuences of his experience, he seems more to go through them once again, but from a diferent point of view: that of the free men. From there, he tries to explain things; not in a very reasonable or settled order, but simply as they come to his mind. The structure of the book reminds that of our own memories: fragmented, realistic, or perhaps a little more distant as time goes by; uncomplete. That lack of organisation makes the book even more sincere and pure, while still keeping a beautiful prose to tell the most amazing horrors.
   A must for anyone who is interested in the Holocaust and its survivors, who are fading silently as time goes on.



4. In this elegant piece of literary philosophy, Semprun treats readers to an extraordinarily rich remembrance of two years in Buchenwald. This work is shot through with memories of his life before, during and after the war and references to many of the thinkers and writers he has known. Passages as delicate as lace adorn chapters sound as bedrock. You could do much worse than to build a set of Holocaust readings on this foundation.

   One aspect making this an especially vibrant Holocaust testimony is that Semprun is not Jewish. While he approaches the subject of Jewish suffering with sympathy, gravity and deep respect, his reminiscences are framed by a lifetime of learning and an important non-Jewish perspective. Readers taste the suffering Semprun has experienced through continuing memories and glimpse what must have driven celebrated Jewish survivors like Paul Celan, Primo Levi and Tadeusz Borowski to suicide.

   Another laudable feature is Semprun's sure knowledge that in politics, as in everything, there is such a thing as paramount Evil, to which philosophers like Heidegger contributed. Deep thinking alone does not, according to his view, constitute righteousness. Semprun elegantly examines ends and means as well as thought processes, dramatically dismissing the moral relativism common among intellectuals these days.

   Despite the difficult subject matter, I found this work highly educational--and eminently hopeful and uplifting. Alyssa A. Lappen




5. Jorge Semprun was born in Spain and while studying philosophy in Paris, he was arrested. Accused of being member of the resistance, he was sent to Buchenwald where he spent 18 months before the camp was liberated. "Literature or Life" is his account of what it meant to survive Buchenwald, from the perspective of a highly intellectual mind. It represents a desperate search for understandiing the horrors of Evil, using philosophy and literature as reasoning tools, as well as psychological justification for survival. It is literature of the "living dead!"

No comments about The Journal of Helene Berr.

No comments about A Treasury of Jewish Anecdotes.

4 comments about Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi Occupied Hungary.

1. This book has it all: drama, humor, philosophy, and history. The author is an unprepossessing, very clever, unsung hero, who makes humane, practical, difficult decisions daily and keeps his nerve under the Nazi occupation of Hungary. The number of lives he saves can never be properly tallied. You will find yourself alternately holding your breath and then cheering.



2. I lived in Budapest for several years and became fascinated by the stories of those brave souls who survived there through the trials of the last century. This recently translated memoire is one of the best. Mr. Soros is able to convey convincingly his experiences in Budapest during the last years of WWII. Like the best memoires, it offers a window into the mind and thoughts of the author in a way which rings true and resonates with the reader. For those who are interested by the human experience in this period of history, this is a must read.



3. "Life is beautiful - and full of variety and adventure. But luck must be on your side." So begins a remarkable memoir of Jewish life under the Nazis in Hungary, _Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi-Occupied Hungary_ (Arcade) by Tivadar Soros. Soros was a thoroughly remarkable man who certainly had variety and adventure in his life, and his share of luck. There are many accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust, and Soros certainly does not minimize the death and terror that he witnessed. Unlike many such accounts, however, this is a story of optimism and triumph. Soros and all his family survived.

   His memoir begins in 1944 when the Nazis occupied Germany. Soros realized that "Since we can't stand up to Hitler's fury, we must hide from it." He and his family hid, but since they had to be seen in order to take care of daily needs, they took on the aspects of Christians. This involved his forming close relationships with a series of forgers, and once he took care of his immediate family's documents, he took care of other relatives, and then friends, and clients. "If anyone asked for my help, one of my principles in life was never to say no - if only to avoid diminishing their faith in human beings." Amidst narrow escapes and harrowing close calls, Soros kept a sense of humor which frequently emerges on these pages. As a "Christian," Soros was able to obtain cigarettes when those were denied to Jews, and since he didn't smoke, he would leave them at a watchmaker's, so that people with stars could get some. He went to the watchmaker to get his watch fixed, and asked the price. "How can you ask such a thing? It's on the house," the watchmaker said, and then whispered to the woman working beside him, "This is the Christian gentleman who brings us the cigarettes, you know." Soros says, "At least the Jews got to see that there were still a few decent Christians." Much of the humor is tinged with humane sadness; according to one of his sons, Soros used to say, "It is amazing how well people can bear the suffering of others."

   This wonderful memoir has been in print before. Soros, that practical idealist, as an Esperantist wrote the original in Esperanto in 1965, three years before his death. In libraries of Esperantists the book has been an outstanding volume from the literature the planned language has produced. It is here translated by Humphrey Tonkin, a linguist whose name is familiar to all American Esperantists. It includes brief, loving memoirs by his sons, one of whom, George, has become one of the world's richest and most influential people. If there is room on your shelves for history with hope, written by a thoroughly humane and lovable man, this book is perfect.




4. This book will add another view of the Holocaust that few have seen before. When I told my wife I was reading the book, she said, "Isn't it depressing?" Naturally, any book that comes close to so much unnecessary loss of life will make the reader sad, and that is appropriate. On balance, though, this book will probably leave you feeling more optimistic than you were about what can be accomplished by well-meaning people.

   Tivadar Soros was a Jewish lawyer in Budapest when the second world war began. Hungary had been an ally of Austria, so the Nazis did not occupy the country until March 19, 1944 as they began to fear betrayal behind their retreating forces in the Soviet Union and the Balkens. The country was liberated by the Soviets in January 1945. Unfortunately, the Nazis used this ten-month period to murder as many Hungarian Jews as possible.

   But Mr. Soros also had had an unusual experience earlier. He had been a prison of war in Siberia during World War I. From that experience, he had learned that those who are prominent are in danger from totalitarianism, after seeing the prisoners' represenative shot to terrify the prisoners. Mr. Soros had been offered that "honor" just recently and had declined. He soon escaped from the prison camp, and had a most difficult time getting back to Hungary through the midst of the Russian Revolution. Where he had been idealistic and vocal before World War I, he came back determined to enjoy each day as though it might be his last. This exasperated his wife, who knew he could accomplish more.

   This perspective served him well when the Nazi occupation arrived. As in other countries, the Nazis relied on Jews to follow orders. There was a Jewish Council whose families were exempt from the deportations who helped organize others into the death camps and ghettos. Many people voluntarily wore the yellow star. Wanting to cut off the potential leaders, one of the first groups being rounded up were lawyers. This was being done in alphabetical order, so Mr. Soros had a little time to prepare. Rather than complying (as did over 600 Jewish lawyers from Budapest who were killed in the Holocaust), Mr. Soros decided to resist. He quickly justified this on the moral grounds of self-defense.

   Deprived of his livelihood and his property, Mr. Soros decided to use camouflage to protect his family (wife, two sons, and mother-in-law) by pretending to be Christians under assumed names. Although he knew nothing about how to undertake such a deception, he soon learned to acquire forged and real papers. He also shared what he learned with anyone who asked for his help. Those who were wealthy, he charged as much as he could. Everyone else, he either charged nothing or only what forged documents cost him.

   To be safest, the family continually lived apart from one another, meeting occasionally for coffee or a swim, and moved frequently. He helped them learn their "cover stories" and helped them practice how to react if braced by Nazis.

   There are many surprises in the book. Mr. Soros occasionally called on "Christians" for help who turned out to be other Jews using false papers. Some actual Christians took up wearing the yellow star, and the Nazis left them alone. While many people would not help, few turned Jews in to the Nazis. Some people would help for either profit or humanitarian reasons. You just had to keep looking until you found them. Most lost their nerve eventually and were either caught or stopped helping.

   Mr. Soros estimates that about 5 percent of all Jews in Budapest eventually obtained false papers. He also describes what happened to those who tried other ways out, like bribing Nazis such as Eichmann.

   The book is far more compelling than any spy novel I have ever read. It is also more inspiring because it shows what a committed "victim" of an evil regime can do. While other books portray Jews as being tough in concentration camps or in the Warsaw Ghetto, secretly hiding out in attics owned by friends, and being slaughtered, this one shows the side of a vigilent self-defense operating from an immediate defiance of the illegitimate authorities. This model needs to be well understood by everyone.

   Contemporary readers will also be fascinated to read about the rest of Mr. Soros's family, which includes the then 14-year-old George, who is now one of the world's richest men and famed fighter against totalitarian regimes. What an incredible family! The book also contains introductory comments by both sons, which will interest you as they recount the remarkable father they knew whom you will meet in this amazing book.

   The book was originally written in Esperanto, and was only recently translated into English for the first time.

   Everyone who wants to prevent future Holocausts must read this book!

   After you finish reading it, think about what you could do today to help someone else retain or gain their freedom and safety from injustice.

   Be prepared to save yourself . . . when all else fails! Saving someone else today increases your allies for tomorrow!

5 comments about American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party.

1. I enjoyed this book and felt it was a fair treatment of the subject. Dr. Simonelli is a highly respected historian and can be seen providing insight on networks such as The History Channel.
   
   I found that many of the other negative comments on this web site appeared bias to begin with.
   
   I would suggest reading the book and treating it as what it was meant to be. Overall 5 stars.



2. Not that the discerning reader can't get a lot of good info out of this book but it appears to me that the author went out of his way to portray Rockwell as a loser, a misfit, and someone in need of psychiatric care.
   
   Simonelli somehow managed to get access to much of Rockwells personal correspondences but it seems that he selectively used them to point out instances of turmoil and sadness in Rockwells state of mind. He especially uses Rockwells feelings of despondency about his wife, who was the daughter of the Icelandic ambassador to America, leaving him and taking their children back to Iceland with her. I don't think its a particuarly radical statement for me to say that feeling sad about losing your wife and kids is a sign of being normal. Simonelli somehow manages to twist this into an example of Rockwell being an insane loser.
   
   The other bio of Rockwell, Hate by William Schmaltz, is a far superior and unbiased account of GLR's life and highly recomended. However I can only recomend American Fuehrer to somebody who is researching Rockwell and knows how to read with a discerning eye.



3. Rockwell is another in a long line of haunted personalities mining the hatred of Jews for his own benefit. The same psychosis, blame the Jews and the Blacks for all the abuse he received as a child. Instead of facing his psychological problems, Rockwell scapecoated them and ended up being killed by one of this own supporters, a small band of latent homosexuals, who channelled all their fears and rage into hatred of minorities.

   But what is interesting is the man before me charges that the Jews control the media, and distort the news. How do they do this? Do they meet at a Chinese restaurant every Sunday to give out orders in controlling the world. Who is the top Jew? Larry King, Barbara Walters, Noam Chomsky, or maybe Michael Moore, who is really a Jew hiding his identity.

   If the Jews control the media, why is it everytime I pick up a paper I see favorable pictures of Palestinians, and unfavorable pictures of Israelis, even when they are innocent civilians riding in buses and eating in restaurants?

   Yes, there are a lot of Jews in the media, but when does that become a crime, and what type of personality, sees all Jews acting in a conspiracy?

   This is the same type of person who feels humiliated by anyone who is more talented and competent than him, a perpetually impotent type of personality who is looking for a rationale for his failure in life and love.

   The great crime of the Jew is that he has been successful, and to the perpetually impotent personality this is something that can never be forgiven. Personalities like Rockwell perpetually exploit this hatred, which is basically a hatred of life and love in all its forms. Their true focus is not the Jew per se, but all talent, all ability, all life-positive action.




4. Rockwell may have been the only hope to how our world became today.
   America no longer the same country it was say 30 years ago.
   mass non-white immigration from third world nations flooding America has taken away the spiritual beauty of this once proud land.Rockwell was our only hope.if he live today.the Nazi Party
   may have gotton a good start.Rockwell was indeed the Greatest man who walked this nation!



5. Simonelli's book has two main virtues. First, he had a great deal of access to Rockwell's correpondence and papers and quotes from it liberally. Second, he had a great deal of access to the files of Jewish organizations and individuals who opposed Rockwell.

   In spite of this wealth of primary sources, however, the book is disappointing and prefunctory. It seems that after all his archival sleuthing, Simonelli lost interest in his subject matter when he actually sat down to write the book. This leads to a distorted picture of Rockell's ideas and personality. A much fuller picture is found in the Schmaltz biography HATE.

   One case in point: Simonelli's discussion of the case against John Patler, Rockwell's convicted killer, leaves out crucial pieces of evidence, giving the impression that the case against Patler was weaker than it actually was. Then Simonelli goes on to air the conspiracy theories blaming Matt Koehl, William Pierce, and others for the murder. These may seem plausible to the reader only because the case against Patler is stated weakly. This is VERY MISLEADING and quite simply unjust.

   Simonelli actually does a better job of documenting how Jewish organizations first tried to terrorize and intimidate Rockwell, and then, failing that, resorted to a very successful press blackout to deny him publicity and prevent his ideas from being heard and debated. Simonelli demonstrates just how powerful the Jewish control over the media is, and how Americans are fed a version of reality that is distorted to protect and advance Jewish interests. This is a frightening thought, because if they did it then, they can do it now too.

   The bottom line: I recommend this book as a supplement to Schmaltz's HATE, but not as a substitute. If you read one book on Rockwell, read HATE.

1 comments about When Memory Comes (George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History).

1. April 2008 - I read this book when it was first published. A very beautifully written and translated memoire of a Jewish boy raised as a Catholic in order to save him from the Nazi death camps.

5 comments about Child of the Holocaust.

1. I haven't read this book in probably 25 years, but it is a part of who I am today just the same. I still vividly remember certain events and even remember parts of some sentences from it. Having always loved books, I read the first addition of Jack Kuper's memoir when I was about 10 years old, after picking it up from a used book dealer. It made lasting impacts on my young mind. This book was part of how I came about rejecting the racist views held by my family. I'm grateful to Mr. Kuper for having shared such painful but powerful memories.



2. "Child of the Holocaust" offers an insightful look into the life of a young Jewish boy trying to keep his identity hidden in a war-torn Poland during World War One. It is deeply emotional and frighteningly realistic. When the main character, originally called Jenkele, is hiding from the Gastapo in a haystack with his uncle, you almost feel as though you are there beside them, living through the freezing temperatures, the lice, vermin, and constant threat of being discovered.
   Not only does the book offer the point of view of that of a young Jewish boy, it also offers an insight into German and Russian soldiers, young men called to honour by their countries, but whom would rather be at home with their families. Its perspective is refreshingly different from the usual cold-blooded murderer portrayal of German soldiers.
   I definatly recommend this book for anybody, even if the Holocaust isn't a subject that normally appeals to them.



3. I read Child of the Holocaust and thought it was an intresting portrayal of a young Jewish boy running from the Gestapo in Poland. I found myself immersed in a book filled with fear, hardship, and luck. The boy, originally named Jenkele, was a clever boy who I thought was more courageous than anyone I had ever seen. Plus the author described the story so well, that I thought I was part of the action. The book incorporates suspense, sadness, and the harsh reality of Hitler's Holocaust. Although the book was great, there were it's moments I didn't like. One of the moments I didn't like was when Jenkele and his friends were told to beat some sick kittens to death with sticks. There were also parts that were unrealistic. An example of an unrealistic part in the book is when a militia who turns over Jews to the Gestapo let Jenkele go not once but twice. Overall the book was great, and I recommend it to all people interested in the Holocaust.



4. While in the bookstore of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, I purchased Child of the Holocaust. Four years later I finally read it last week. I could not put it down. My heart bled for the danger and sufferings for young Jankele. This is one of the fastest paced books about survival that I have read of late. I believe that it is important for the youth of today to read such works and should be put into high school libraries. My only criticism is that further information about Jankele and his family was not included. I was hoping for a sequel to come from Jack Kuper. I can see this being made into a Spielburg masterpiece because this story should be told and what appeals to our youth now are only tales where they play a significant part.



5. Jack's mother sends him to live with a Polish family, away from German occupied Warsaw. When he comes back to visit he finds that his family has been taken away by the Germans. In vivid, realistic prose, the author recounts his wanderings from one family to another, often having to escape for his life from neighbors and even from the people who had previously befriended him. This is a fast paced book that reads like a novel. It also ends like one, leaving you uncertain as to whether it is a work of literature or a true story. Having read many other accounts of this kind, it has the ring of truth and captures in all its heart-wrending detail themisfortunes of Jews in Poland during the Second World War. /subm

5 comments about And the Sea Is Never Full: Memoirs, 1969-.

1. After ten years of silence about his experiences in the hell of the Nazi reign, Elie Wiesel has unleashed a literary and humanitarian career, utilizing his pen and memories as means to spread peace and stop hate and violence. And the Sea is Never Full, the memoirs of Elie Wiesel from the year 1969, is more than the attempt of a Holocaust survivor to come to terms with the world that betrayed him; it contains lessons learned by one who has seen the worst of humanity and who still finds the avenue for having faith in people. That avenue, for Elie Wiesel, is God.
   Born to devout Jewish parents on September 30th, 1928 in Sighet, Hungary, Elie Wiesel spent his childhood absorbed in literature and the study of Hasidic Judaism by request of his father, Shlomo Wiesel, who encouraged Elie to take upon the knowledge of Judaic history and culture. He lived his life very peacefully in Sighet, a town with an enormous population of Jews, with his parents and his three sisters. This happiness was viciously torn away from Elie when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944 and the Wiesel family was sent to the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. This time marks the beginning of the observations and influences that would lead Elie to devote his life to human rights and nonviolence work, as he narrates in And the Sea is Never Full. 10 years pass. These memoirs are an addition to the endless list of literary works that Elie Wiesel began after writing Night in 1958, his first narrative about his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, the vision of his father's torture to death, and the deaths of his mother Sara and sister Tsipora. Taking on an extensive amount of literary writings and responsibilities, Elie Wiesel's writing and political activism for the African apartheid, Israeli, and other conflicts earns him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for the influence of his pressure for peace.
   The memoirs have one clear focus, and that is on the power of hate, indifference, and religion. And the Sea is Never Full relates the actions and thoughts of Elie Wiesel molded by his Holocaust experience, though it is filled with Judaic parables dispersed throughout the text as Elie Wiesel encounters new people, each one portrayed in a very raw and human light, each one a child of God. Elie Wiesel presents himself, more than anything, as a Jew and unyielding worshiper of God. He lives his life by the ideals that his Jewish childhood taught him: "It is because it is difficult if not impossible to sing, to pray, to hope that we must trip. [...] Let one person, just one, extend his hand to a beggar, a fugitive, a refugee, and life will be become meaningful for others" (Wiesel 29).
   His words constantly spell out his own reflections on the events that occur in his life after 1969; And the Sea is Never Full is more a diary, a journal into the mind of a man struggling to do everything in his power to prevent the repetition of the Holocaust. Wiesel is a master traveler in his text, darting from country to country, city to city to participate in committees for Holocaust remembrance events, UNESCO planning, and to teach at City College in New York and at Boston University. We meet and lose Bea, one of Wiesel's sisters who survived the Holocaust; we meet Gorbachev, Francois Mitterrand, Hiroshima survivors, and officials of the KGB. We visit Israel and become completely involved in the strategy and hardships of securing an Israeli state, while learning about Wiesel's observations and involvement in the world events of the time. No unpleasant descriptions or life characterizations are spared. The writing is opinionated and passionate. The story is true.
   While And the Sea is Never Full achieves its goal for being the personal statement of a Holocaust survivor, a global activist, and a writer, it leaves the reader confused as to what Wiesel's thoughts are concerning violence. He does not leave any room for doubt on his beliefs for peace and the importance on avoiding human indifference, but he contradicts himself with his pride in the Israeli army and its military strategy. It leaves us wondering what he respects more, an ideal or a country. What does he believe is the solution to the hate and conflict in the world? As a leader, educator, and activist, his memoirs would do well to present more of his opinion on the state of the world.
   And the Sea is Never Full is a captivating account of a man who saw much of the world and created a change in every place he visited. It leaves the reader wanting to learn more about Elie Wiesel's past and the little events and images that led to his activism and writing. Night is a common educational tool, but rarely is Elie Wiesel as commonly discussed as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. And the Sea is Never Full presents his thoughts loud and clear, pushing for more knowledge and understanding into the influences of human evil and human forgiveness.



2. I do appreciate an author with a point of view about things and if nothing else Wiesel has that. His autobiography tells the story of a man with a mission, a passion, and strong convictions.



3. Elie Weisel in my eyes is a great man. He is the witness of the most horrible evil in human history , who somehow managed to help make the character of that Evil known to the world. He is a devoted writer and a foremost spokesman and defender of the Jewish people. But he is also has a special role in working to help the suffering and the persecuted throughout the world. Years ago in Biafra he was there to try and help the Ibo. And since then he has time and again placed himself at risk to help others. As a teacher and writer his work bears not only the mark of his poetic and G-d haunted soul, but of his enormous devotion to the good of humanity. This volume picks up the story of his life when at forty he decides to make a more determined effort to help the suffering of humanity. It tells the story of journeys and struggles .Often he is met by opposition but he is fueled by the determination to stand for the suffering. As a truthteller he dared confront the President of the United States over the obscenity of Bitburg . His deeds go before him and his words are a light to mankind. May G-d bless him and his work for the future.



4. I loved the first biography by Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea. I loved his objectivity, his detached but sharp view on the incredible and often cruel incidents that happened in his life, as well as his reserved but firm believe and philosophy you can see behind it. I was fascinated by the personal story of this incredible person and was impressed by the power of his quiet words that was much powerful than too emotional accounts on the tragedy that we often hear.

   However this book, And the Sea is Never Full, is very different from the previous volume. It is much more emotional and more centred around his phiolosophy on his religion. I am giving only 3 stars, not because it's not good - people who are interested in Wiesel's religious believe and stands most likely will find it interesting - but because I expected more stories on his life (and philosophy behind it) not believe itself, and found this book a bit too personal, as if written for himself rather than for readers.




5. Easily one of the best autobiographies of the last half of the century (when coupled with Volume One). It is almost hard to believe that a man with such vision, such drive, such intelligence could have written almost an understated autobiography which reads as easily as any novel on your summer reading list.

   I strongly reccomend that anyone who wants to learn and be inspired by one man's drive to remember and honor (amd ensure that no one else forgets), read both volumes of this elegant autobiography.

1 comments about Night.

1. I recall when I first read 'Night', it was just after Elie Wiesel had given a lecture at my university. It was in the mid-1980s, and the lecture hall was standing-room-only. Wiesel's presentation moved us to tears, and moved us to anger, and moved me to want to follow up on his words by reading what he had written.
   
   This is supposed to be fiction, but in a style that seems to be typical of many modern Israeli novelists, it is so close to the truth of the actual events that transpired in Wiesel's life that it might as well be treated as autobiographical. This is actually part of a trilogy - Night, Dawn, and The Accident - although each element stands alone with integrity.
   
   How does one deal with survival after such atrocities as that at Birkenau and Auschwitz? How can one have faith in the world? How can one accept that a people so closely identified with a powerful God can ever accept that God again? Where is God in the midst of such things?
   
   Wiesel himself as spent his life in search of such answers, but doesn't provide them here. Why then would one want to read such accounts as these? Wiesel was silent for many years, until he was brought into speech and writing as a witness to the events. Wiesel proclaims that there is in the world now a new commandment - 'Thou shalt not stand idly by' - when such things are happening, one must act. One must remember the past in all its personal aspects to both honour those who suffered and to forestall such things happening again (which, given the the depressing repetitive nature of history, is a difficult task).
   
   This is the longest short book I've ever read. It is one that has stayed with me from the first page, and I've never been able to shake the images brought forward, the misery and suffering, the existence of evil and brutality, the sadness and desolation. We live in a culture that likes to gloss over pain and suffering, mask it with drugs and other things, and always end the story with a happy ending.
   
   There is no happy ending here - even Wiesel's own survival is a questionable good here. How does one live after this? How does the world go on?
   
   One thing is certain, we must never forget, and this book is part of that active remembering that we are called to do.
   
   George Guidall's narration gives dramatic emphasis that one might think unnecessary, given the subject matter. There are harrowing pieces and poignant times made more powerful by the reading. This really isn't a book for drive-time listening, but the audio component can add much to the experience of this tale.