Showing posts with label holocaust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holocaust. Show all posts

No Promises in the Wind Review

No Promises in the Wind
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The book No Promises in the Wind by Irene hunt was about a young boy's struggle to survive during the depression in the U.S. It takes place during the winter of 1932. Josh is the main character in the book. He and his father Stefan always get into arguments because his father has no job and can't provide for his family, so his father takes his frustration out on his on Josh, his oldest son. This causes Josh to leave home and embark on his adventure. His mother Mary is the one that gives Josh the OK to leave home. She feels bad for doing this, but she only sees the situation getting worse. So, Howie and Josh decide to run away together and make a life for themselves. Howie is Josh's best friend. Just before they leave, Josh's little brother wants come along. His name is Joey. Joey is ten years old and looks like an angel. There many problems that the main characters encounter during the book, the first one happens when the brothers lose their friend. Howie is run over by a train in the beginning of the book. After this, the main problem is to get money and food. Different people help Josh and Joey get food. One day while walking, they meet a truck driver named Lonnie. Lonnie is very helpful; he gives the boys meals and a long ride down south to warmer weather. He also helps Josh find a job at a carnival. At the carnival Josh and Joey meet Emily. She is an older lady. She is very kind to the boys. Josh falls in love with her, but it does not work out because of the age differences. The carnival burns down so the boys head back north to find their friend Lonnie. Along the way they have to beg to survive.
The one character that I could relate to was Josh. Because I have had similar conflicts with my father. Like Josh's father, my dad was going through hard times and most of the time took out his frustration on me. At times I wanted to leave, but I did not. My father and I worked out our problems like Josh and his father did.
I really enjoyed this book. It keeps the reader entertained the whole time. You always want to find out what is going to happen to the boys all the way to the end. My favorite part is when the boys are at the carnival. The author does a good job of describing the people and events that happen during their stay at the carnival. My least favorite part was when the man at the shoe store took the boy's money. Personally I would not change anything to this book. I think it was written well, and it gets its point across.
I would recommend this book to any one who is interested in how life was during the 1930s. Also anyone that grew up during that time period might enjoy it. This book is a fun read that keeps you entertained the whole time.

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In 1932, America was in the depths of a deep depression. A job, food to fill you, a place to sleep, and shoes without holes--for millions of people, these simple needs were nothing more than dreams. At 15 years of age, Josh had to make his own way through a country of angry, frightened people. This is the story of a young man's struggle to find a life for himself in the turbulent 1930s.

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The Nuremberg Nazi Trial: Excerpts From the Testimony of Herman Goering, Albert Speer, Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoess, and Others Review

The Nuremberg Nazi Trial: Excerpts From the Testimony of Herman Goering, Albert Speer, Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoess, and Others
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This is a collection of excerpts from the trial transcripts that will stir emotions while also making you think. Was this an exercise by the victors to get revenge from a ruthless enemy that started an unnecessary global disaster or an effort to send a message to future amoral leaders that their crimes would not go unpunished. While reading the book it becomes clear that the trial meant different things to different people. From Jackson's clear and logical opening statement to Goering's attempt to save his neck by avoiding direct questions and adding commentary to redirect the court's attention, this book was hard to put down. This is raw history with no spices added. Enjoy it, learn from it and draw your own conclusions.

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From the official record of the Nazi war crimes trial. The Indictment document, the prosecution's opening statement, selected testimony from survivors and Nazi officials, and the prosecution's summary closing statement.

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All But My Life: A Memoir Review

All But My Life: A Memoir
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These lasts words, Gerda Weissmann hears ring out over the crowd of Jews as they are herded away like cattle to an uncertain end. The person shouting them is her mother who is about to be ripped from her life. The Nazi's have taken everything she holds dear, family, home, friends and now she will fight for all that remains, her life and dignity.
This book is a remarkable slice of time and life, written by a true survivor who lived through the times that tried men's souls. As she wades through the atrocities of a Nazi occupation, concentration camps, and a death march amidst freezing temperatures, to be liberated by her one true love, she is true to her mother's request. This is an amazing story that will stay a part of you forever. I am astonished at her strength of spirit and her continued belief in the future. A book doesn't get much better than this. Kelsana 6/19/01

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All But My Life is the unforgettable story of Gerda Weissmann Klein's six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. From her comfortable home in Bielitz (present-day Bielsko) in Poland to her miraculous survival and her liberation by American troops--including the man who was to become her husband--in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in 1945, Gerda takes the reader on a terrifying journey. Gerda's serene and idyllic childhood is shattered when Nazis march into Poland on September 3, 1939. Although the Weissmanns were permitted to live for a while in the basement of their home, they were eventually separated and sent to German labor camps. Over the next few years Gerda experienced the slow, inexorable stripping away of "all but her life."By the end of the war she had lost her parents, brother, home, possessions, and community; even the dear friends she made in the labor camps, with whom she had shared so many hardships, were dead. Despite her horrifying experiences, Klein conveys great strength of spirit and faith in humanity. In the darkness of the camps, Gerda and her young friends manage to create a community of friendship and love. Although stripped of the essence of life, they were able to survive the barbarity of their captors. Gerda's beautifully written story gives an invaluable message to everyone. It introduces them to last century's terrible history of devastation and prejudice, yet offers them hope that the effects of hatred can be overcome.

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The Girl in the Red Coat Review

The Girl in the Red Coat
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While I still don't know why some people survived the Holocaust and others didn't, I do know why Roma Ligocka survived: she provides testimony.
Her story begins as a toddler tells her tale of fear in the Krakow Ghetto. Scarcely more than an infant when the Jews were forced to wear Jewish stars on their clothing, she absolutely knew no other way of life. When an aunt said that she'd have men at her feet because of her beauty, she wondered if they'd be dead; that's what she knew.
She watched the snatching of her grandmother before her very eyes, as she hid under a table. Her father was forced to go to Auschwitz. Her mother begged for places for them to stay throughout the war.
The first half of the book deals with Roma's life before the end of the war. The second half deals with her life after the war: how events, seemingly minor, during the war, left permanent scars in her mind.
While this memoir deals with topics such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, failed marriages, show business, prejudice, and addiction, this is not a book ABOUT those topics. This is a book about a woman who saw "Schindler's List" and recognized herself and her family as subjects, and who had the courage to reflect, document, and move on. This is a story of survival.
(purchased via my amazon.com wishlist)

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The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale Review

The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale
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The title of this review consists of words I don't use too often. But this is a masterpiece that deserved its Pulitzer Prize and then some. What makes Spiegelman's work so moving is the juxtaposition of a supposedly lighthearted form, the comic strip, with the greatest evil and suffering in human history, the Holocaust. Spiegelman's parents miraculously survived the concentration camps, being among very few survivors, getting by on luck and (in the case of Spiegelman's father) a lot of resourcefulness. This is their story, from the point of view of the father, who lost nearly all of his relatives. With the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats, this work pulls no punches in describing the true horrors of the Holocaust, and Spiegelman's minimalist artwork makes the images all the more disturbing. You don't get this kind of emotion, terror, and brutal honesty in standard written accounts of the period. But underneath the direct suffering of the Holocaust, the true theme of this book is the lasting effects on the Spiegelman family, including the father's lasting agony and the mental illness shared by both Spiegelman's mother and himself, who hadn't even been born yet. The strained relationship between father and son are the true heart of this tremendous work. I haven't been this blown away by a work of literature in a very long time, if ever.

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At last!Here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust" (Wall Street Journal) and "the first masterpiece in comic book history" (The New Yorker).It now appears as it was originally envisioned by the author: The Complete Maus.It is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father's story.Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive.Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in "drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust" (The New York Times).Maus is a haunting tale within a tale.Vladek's harrowing story of survival is woven into the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father.Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits.This astonishing retelling of our century's grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors.Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.

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Letters from Rifka Review

Letters from Rifka
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I started reading this book because it won an impressive number of awards:
National Jewish Book Award
International reading Association Children's Book Award
Sydney Taylor Book Award
American Library Association Notable Book
School Library journal Best Book of the Year
Horn Book Outstanding Book of the Year, and
Booklist Editor's Choice.
However once I started reading it, I was taken with the simple and compelling story.
The book consists of a series of letters written by 12 year old Rifka to her cousin in Russia. They start when in 1919, to avoid persecution, Rifka and her parents and two older brothers have to suddenly leave Russia in the middle of the night with just a small backpack and the clothes on her back. One of these few possessions is a book of Pushkin's poetry given to her by her cousin Tovah. Their destination is the United States where two of her brothers already live.
To calm her fears and give her something to do during the lonely hours of travel, Rifka starts to write letters to Tovah in the blank spaces in the book. The story evolves through these letters which Rifka knows she will not be able to mail until she reaches the US. In the book, each letter is preceded by a quote from a Pushkin poem.
Rifka's trip is not easy. She gets separated from her family and it takes over a year before she learns if she will be reunited with them. At a time when Jewish children are normally surrounded with family celebrating their coming of age, Rifka is alone and in charge of her own destiny.
The book excels in character development, historic accuracy, and plot. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in immigration stories, Jewish history, or young women's literature.

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Jewish Wisdom: Ethical, Spiritual, and Historical Lessons from the Great Works and Thinkers Review

Jewish Wisdom:  Ethical, Spiritual, and Historical Lessons from the Great Works and Thinkers
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Like many of my most valued books, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's `Jewish Wisdom' arrived by accident, not through deliberate choice, but rather as a result of my having missed the reply deadline for one of my book clubs.
The full title of the book gives a greater sense of the scope of this 650+ page book: `Jewish Wisdom: Ethical, Spiritual, and Historical Lessons from the Great Works and Thinkers'. This statement in the subtitle comes very close to an encapsulation of the Jewish faith for me -- it is an ethical way of life; it is a spiritual way of life; it is a way of life with high regard for history; it is a way of life with high regard to teaching and learning; it is a way of life that has accomplished great works and produced great thinkers. All of these things benefit the whole of humankind. `Two thousand years ago, when a non-Jew asked Hillel, the leading rabbi of his age, to define Judaism's essence, the sage could have responded with a long oration on Jewish thought and law, and an insistence that it would be blasphemous to reduce so profound a system to a brief essence. Indeed, his contemporary, Shammai, furiously drove away the questioner with a builder's rod. Hillel, however, responded to the man's challenge: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour: this is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary; now go and study" -- a model statement that has defined Judaism's essence ever since. As Hillel knew, the right words at the right time can inspire people for generations.'
Rabbi Telushkin has written or edited literally hundreds of books, and many of them consist of collections of writings or quotations. One of the things that sets this apart from other books of quotations and writings, both Jewish and non-Jewish, is the running commentary that speaks to the importance in the ongoing development of Jewish life and faith of the writings presented here. Indeed, some quotations appear more than once, because they have a relevance to more than one topic.
Rabbi Telushkin concludes with a fifteen-page bibliography, which reads as a 'best of' list of Jewish literature (and is a frequently-addressed reference source for me when looking up Jewish information of almost any field). At the front of this bibliography, he starts by listing the top-ten collections of Jewish quotes and texts -- what other book of quotations references even one, much less ten, other such collections?
A truly inspiring book, a wonderful reference, a thoughtful and insightful collection -- this book will not gather dust on the shelf. For those who are not Jewish, this book contains the key to following Hillel's instruction to 'go and study'. For those who are Jewish, this will serve as a solid addition to the library of essential facts and useful opinions and impressions from culture and history.

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