1 comments about My Heart in a Suitcase (Library of Holocaust Testimonies).

1. Do you know how I can contact Anne L. Fox, author of "My Heart in a Suitcase (Library of Holocaust Testimonies)?" I understand that she is working on a new book on a topic that interests me.

No comments about Inherit the Truth: A Memoir of Survival and the Holocaust.

5 comments about In My Father's House: The Years Before "the Hiding Place" (Corrie Ten Boom Library).

1. This quite-amazing book chronicles the half century of Corrie ten Boom's life before being imprisoned for helping to save Jewish people in Holland during World War II. I can't express just how profoundly this book enlightened me to the Christian way people could actually live. I haven't been around many outstanding Christians and the ten Boom family was definitely a Christian family. How blessed I am to know about them!



2. IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE makes an excellent companion to THE HIDING PLACE and TRAMP FOR THE LORD. After discovering all the stories of Corrie ten Boom from the time she went into a German concentration camp during World War II until her death, her early years had always remained a mystery. And now, IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE tells exactly what happened to Corrie during her first 50 years of life.
   
   Starting out with Corrie's great-grandfather, the book tells the story of how the early events in Corrie's life shaped her and prepared her for prison. Some of these stories will make you smile (Corrie was apparently a little rascal at times), and some will make you want to cry. Corrie's life was an amazing tapestry of love for people and her Savior. From Corrie ten Boom's girl clubs to the great halls of St. Bavo's Cathedral, you'll fall in love with Corrie ten Boom all over again with IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE.
   
   The end of the book brings everything full circle up to the point of THE HIDING PLACE, and then is followed by the Golden Tea Party (you'll have to read to find out about that!). All in all, IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE is another great read from the life of Corrie, but I do recommend reading THE HIDING PLACE first. That book makes this one a little easier to understand.
   
   Check it out!



3. She writes with the love and forgiveness that became her trademark after suffering terrible things at the hands of the Nazi's during WWII. I never cease to be encouraged, uplifted, and inspired when reading anything that she writes-this book included. Very few could have forgiven their tormentors the way that Tante Corrie did. She did it by the grace of God and her life was all the better for it.



4. As someone who voraciously gobbles up the writings of Corrie ten Boom, I have to say that _In My Father's House_ is my favorite. Anyone who has read _The Hiding Place_ , _Tramp for the Lord_, _A Prison and Yet_, or other books relating to Corrie's Nazi concentration camp imprisonment and her resulting ministry should do themselves a favor and savor _In My Father's House_. I am so glad this book is back in print and can now reach a new audience. Corrie discusses how the twists and turns of her childhood, teen years, and pre-imprisonment adulthood all came together to prepare her for her WWII and postwar ministry. She shows the evidence of God moving in her life to prepare her for her upcoming adventures. If you don't think so already, _In My Father's House_ may be what convinces you that there's no such thing as coincidence. The simply written, very basic family story of this book holds some deep implications. It may startle you in a pleasant way.

   I particularly recommend this book to parents, especially parents of young children. This book will show how God uses you to raise your child to fulfill God's purpose for his/her life. Corrie writes in a very touching way of how her parents, siblings, and extended family were so responsible for the extraordinary woman she became. This book is a beautiful testimony of how God uses families. It will inspire you to go pick up and cuddle your child while praying fervently. It will also remind you of your need to lean on God and rely on his guidance for this your most important job. _In My Father's House_ is a very powerful book.

   I recommend that you buy a copy of this book rather than borrowing it or checking it out from the library. As your glance flits across your bookshelves, perhaps a slight smile will come to your face as you notice the familiar spine peeking out at you. I return to my copy frequently and have repeatedly drawn from it for Sunday School lessons and devotional topics. _In My Father's House_ would be a valuable addition to your book collection.




5. This book is simple and to the point and beautifully written. It gives the reader the insight of how human Corrie Ten Boom was and yet how much she relied on God for her direction. It is filled with humor and innocence as Corrie recounts her childhood memories, but always making it a point to let the reader know that the main focus is God. The delightful stories will stick in your memory bank. It was a very delightful book which I shall cherish and re-read in years to come.

1 comments about The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocust.

1. The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived The Holocaust is an unabridged audiobook detailing the true story of an intelligent Jewish law student who was forced into a slave labor camp during the genocidal horrors of World War II. To survive, Edith hahn Beer had to adopt the identity of a Christian friend and hide. A Nazi Party member fell in love with Edith and helped her remain concealed throughout the war. Edith's story is now documented in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. A profound and unforgettable true story, The Nazi Officer's Wife is deftly narrated by Barbara Rosenblat. 6 cassettes, approximately 9 hours.

5 comments about Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex.

1. This wonderful little book is a collection of Anne Frank's lesser known writings , found in a seperate volume.
   It shows what a phenomenal young writer she was , and hints what a great author she may have been had she been allowed to live.
   
   The book consists of fables and short stories as well as personal reminiscenses and essays.
   
   They range from 'Kitty' - Anne's reflections on the blonde little girl next door , to beautiful fairy tales (which remind me a bit of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales) like 'The Wise Old Dwarf' and 'The Fairy'-all have a wonderful lesson enclosed within.
   
   'Paula's Plane Trip' and 'Cady's Life' focus on the adventures of young girls during wartime , the latter touching on the holocaust which later swallowed up Anne's young life.
   
   A constant theme in the book is Anne's conviction that relaxing and connecting with nature , can ease one's mind from any difficulties.
   
   In 'Personal Remininscinces and Essays' Anne Frank lets us know a little bit more about life in the little house where she and other Jews hid for some years from Nazi terror.
   In a particularly poignant passage , she remarks that after the war , she would get together photos of the people in the house, which is why she spent so little time on physical description of the house's inhabitants. Anne was confident she would survive the war , and recontinue her life.
   
   A remarkable testament to the wonderful life of a child whose life was cut so short.



2. I truly enjoyed Anne Frank's Diary, now I have had the privilege to read her tales. A talent in it's purest form. I believe it was Anne Frank who said she wanted to be famous and/or to live on after her death, and of course she has in so many ways. Her diary has sold millions upon millions of copies around the world, her story told in a broadway play, countless films and documentary's.To me it looks like Anne has gotten her wish, she has lived on, more than she'll ever know. I like so many other's have wondered what kind of person Anne Frank would have been if she had survived, of course we will never know, but her diary and her story's were left behind to be discovered and to be told to everyone around the world, what a good person we could have a had on this planet, a great and talented young girl who was taken away but not forgotten.



3. Ok, so Anne's diary will almost always out shadow other stories shes written, and with good reason, but the stories here are rather well written. The 1st half of the book contains actuall stories she was writting, some short, some long, and part of an unfinished novel. The 2nd half of the story is memories of events that happend to her in her life that she wrote down.
   Anyone who likes her diary should really give her stories a read.



4. In her now famous Diary, Anne Frank said "I want to go on living even after my death". As of 1998, The Diary of Anne Frank had reached sales of 25 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. (source: TIME, October 5, 1998). It has been required classroom reading for half a century now! In a way, her wish has come to pass.
   This subsequent publication "Tales From The Secret Annex" combines short stories, reminiscences/vignettes, and even an unfinished novel to show us yet another dimension to this remarkable person. Reading these stories and little essays confirmed my personal opinion that Anne Frank was a childhood genius with unlimited potential to achieve anything she would have set her mind to. It's hard to imagine this thirteen year old girl writing with such depth and perception, while living in seclusion, terror and fear for her life. She was writing from her heart, not with an expectation of being published. And yet these stories shine with a polished brilliance, and a certain unforgettable quality. I read this book for the first time 8 years ago, and have returned to it now, remembering the stories as though I had read them just last week. My favorite is entitled "Kathy". In three short pages, Anne captures every emotion experienced by a kid who is misunderstood by her mother, assaulted by schoolyard bullies who mock and rob her and cause her to lose the gift she was bringing home to her mother.

   Here is how she ends her essay entitled "Give":
   "If only our country and then Europe and finally the whole world would realize that people were really kindly disposed toward one another, that they are all equal and everything else is transitory!
   Open your eyes... give of yourself, give as much as you can! And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! No one has ever become poor from giving! If you do this, then in a few generations no one will need to pity the beggar children anymore, because they will not exist!
   There is plenty of room for everyone in the world, enough money, riches, and beauty for all to share! God has made enough for everyone. Let us all begin by sharing it fairly." (written March 26, 1944).

   Anne was sent to Bergen-Belsen, where some time during March 1945, she, her sister Margot and hundreds of other prisoners were stricken with typhus. Their captors, preoccupied with the advancing Allies, left them to die.
   World... read her book!




5. Also published under the title "Tales from the House Behind," this is a collection of juvenile/young adult stories that Anne Frank worked on during her years in hiding in the annex with her family and fellow fugitives. It proves that this young girl had an incredible gift for writing, and that had she lived she probably would have been received the Noble Prize for Literature. Her stories were often candid indictments of her own family life, such as Kitty, which tells the story of a young girl who day-dreams and a mother who wants her child to listen and obey rather than dream. Anne's essays show an in-depth understanding of human nature, surprising for one so young. This is a poignant book filled with fables, short stories, essays and even part of an unfinished novel. It's worth reading after you have read "The Diary of Anne Frank" simply because the diary will give you more insight to this amazing girl's life. However "Tales from the Secret Annex" stands on its own too, and like the diary should be on every school child's list of books to read.

5 comments about Anne Frank: The Biography.

1. I think this is a great book because it gives you history about Germany and the Nazi's. Yes, yes most of us have heard all about it. But this book had vivid images of unhumane things that were done to these human beings. I think this is a book that helps you realize that even now a days we have problems with our society. I think it's a book that shows you the tolerance people had in that time. Lastly I must confess that I have never cried by reading a book. However, when I finished readying this book I was sobing. It's a book that really touched me. I would definitly recomment it!



2. Anne Frank is the most interesting book I ever read. She has interesting life with her family and friends. And it talk about her diaries and letters, including the five missing pages were found in 1998. Melissa Muller is a good writer. This is a great book to read! Beware!! in this book, it talk about who betray the eight jews in the secret annex in 1944, were never been prove who were the actual person who betray them. Read the book "The Hidden of Otto Frank" and it has a theory that someone who betray them.
   The Emmy Award winning mini-series "Anne Frank" is the best mini-series I ever seen.



3. I recently went to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam which prompted me to reread the diary. When I was in my local bookstore I came across this book and bought it. I am glad i did.
   
   This book, while not telling me anything I hadn't really heard before somewhere in all the history books, manages to portray the living conditions of Jews before WII broke out in a simplistic manner. This biog gives a superb timeline as such, of the events preceding the Franks going into hiding.
   
   I also went to Dachau while in Germany, which affected me more than I thought it would, while reading about Anne's time in the camp. I knew before going to Europe and before reading Melissa Mullers book about the conditions the Nazi victims were kept in, but again this book pulled it all together. It may have been that I've been to a camp since reading anything on the subject or it may just have been the incredibly well detailed portrayal of it in this book (I suspect it may be both) but it was all brought home to me hard. As well as being detailed this became personal. In the epilogue Miep Gies writes she doesn't like to hear Anne Frank being labelled the face of the 6 million, but that is inevitable and I don't feel that it lessens the importance of any other victims.
   
   This is a superb biography and I recommend it be read in conjunction with Anne franks Diary. I also recommend visiting the Anne Frank House should you ever have the opportunity to be in Amsterdam



4. From the years of 1939 to 1945 mankind endured the darkest period of evil and brutality that has gone unparalleled in the modern (and ancient) era. One wicked man's irrational, murderous hatred and insatiable lust for power, combined with the cruel, sociopathic personalities of cowardly henchmen such as Hoess, Himmmler, Goering, and Eichmann, to name a mere few, swept the continent of Europe into total devastation and near destruction, destroying dreams and cancelling the futures of the soldiers who fought for both sides, those who were simple bystanders in bombing raids, and others who simply had the misfortune to be considered "undesirable" and who perished in inhumane, intolerable conditions in horrendous concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Neuengamme. The dreadfulness of their pain and the senseless of their deaths cannot be imagined, described, forgiven, or forgotten.

   One of the millions who was murdered during the Holocaust was Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who lived in hiding with her older sister Margot, their parents Otto and Edith, Hermann and Auguste Van Pels, their son Peter, and Dr Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist, in Amsterdam, Holland, in the secret annexe of the office building which still stands at 263 Prinsengracht. As a literary work and historical document, Anne's diary is perhaps one of the most important volumes to emerge from the twentieth century. However, when reading it, one must remember that it was written by an ordinary teenage girl who was forced to exist under extraordinary and wearisome conditions that would have strained the patience of the Lord himself. Neither Anne nor her co-habitants saw anyone but each other and their benefactors day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out. Hence I feel that the above situation must be considered when reflecting on her often harsh views of her fellow annexe dwellers.

   Melissa Muller's book is a great companion to the diary but should not be read instead of it - to do this would be severely shortchanging to oneself. It provides a rounder, fuller narrative of the times, places, and people in Anne's life and of those that decided her fate. From the rise of the Nazi's and their use of bullying tactics as their tyranny and terrorism begins, to Anne's formative years, and a broader, wider, more objective description of the Frank's life in hiding. Particularly heartrending are the chapters in which Melissa Muller describes 4 August 1944, the day the annexe dwellers were arrested, betrayed, like Judas betrayed Jesus, for a symbolic twelve pieces of silver, and previously little known details of Anne's life in the death camps Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen as she bravely fought, and bravely lost, the battle for survival. The tears will fall as the words are read, as they will fall as we share the moment that Otto Frank learns of the terrible fate of his daughters. To lose a beloved spouse is bad enough, but to lose your child, to lose both your children, is an unfathomable and unimaginable grief that never fades even with the passage of many years. And Otto Frank was only one of many parents during the war whose children would never come home..............

   Yes, this is a great biography of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who became world famous because of her diary, who became world famous because she expired in a concentration camp. But Anne is not merely ashes or dust - her soul lives on. And what of her diary? Her diary, the contents of which she guarded so fiercely, has become a gift to millions.




5. This is one of the most poignant biographies that I have ever read. As with most teenagers in the late 60's and in the 70's, Anne's diary was required reading in our highschool. I remember reading it, but not paying the attention I should have, because as a teenager, her story seemed to be a part of a world that no longer existed. Teenagers cannot appreciate the reality of that time, and though I grew up during the angst of the civil rights era and the Vietnamese War, it was not until some other life happenings occurred that I can now appreciate her story. This includes becoming a mother and an activist for disability rights, and seeing for myself in small and distant ways, man's inhumanity to man.

   Muller did an exquisite job in the biography. She avoided speculation, which seems to be a problem for writers of biographies. Anne's story cannot be fully appreciated without more knowledge of her family and the people who protected them. As Anne and her father lived without bitterness for their fate, so too did Melissa Muller write with patience and understanding far beyond the abilities of most of us.

   The book is eloquent in its simple praise for the goodness of people who made the right choices during that conflict between good and evil. I hope that reading of the courage of Miep Gies and her husband, and the others in the business formerly owned by Otto Frank, will inspire all of its readers to stand up for what is right whatever situation we may find ourselves in.

   My heart still aches for the waste of human potential. And yet, Anne fulfilled so much of that potential and continues to inspire long after her life was over. Much of my heartache was felt for her parents, who in their desire to be with their children, left it until too late to get their children to safety. I understand their choices, and I know they must have lived with the knowledge that they put their children at great risk and berated themselves.

   My admiration for the people in Holland and other occupied countries who helped those singled out for destruction on the basis of race and prejudice is immense. I continue to be surprised at how much was done by people who were not perfect, and at their own risk. This is a near perfect biography, in writing and in intelligence. I wish there were more like this out there...
   Karen Sadler
   University of Pittsburgh

1 comments about Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust.

1. I had to read this book for a class, I am a senior at college. I attend school around the PIttsburgh area, so I am proud to know that this is from here. There is a story Robert Mendler who is a great speaker. he spoke to my class a few weeks ago. It is good to know that the stories are being written down so generations to come will know what happened and how people survived.

5 comments about Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood.

1. I read the book and believed it.NOW IT TURNS OUT TO BE FICTION!!!!
   MORE AMMUNITION FOR THE HOLOCAUST DENIERS.
   IF AMAZON IS TO SELL...PLACE IT IN FICTION PLEASE...!!!!



2. After some investigative reporting by the media, it was discovered that this alleged "true story" of a Holocaust survivor was anything but. The facts? Binjamin Wilkomirski is actually Swiss-born Bruno Grosjean Doessekker, and his experience was about as real as that of the supposed "fellow survivor" who corroborated his story, Laura Grabowski.
   
   How did Grabowski play an indirect role in unmasking the author? She claimed to be an orphan who suffered torture at the hands of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele and was later adopted by an American couple, only to have these stories be exposed as equally untrue (her childhood photos show a happy, healthy American girl w/not even hints of the emaciated sate commonly associated w/those who spent time in concentration camps). Additionally, she was revealed to actually be Lauren Stratford, author of the equally fictitious-but-presented-as-a-true-story "Satan's Underground", which detailed her alleged involvement in Satanism and the sexual abuse she endured from the time she was a young girl (something she'd also had a history of lying about since her late teens); as it turns out, "Grabowski" was actually the surname of her maternal grandparents.
   
   Don't the Wilkomirskis and Grabowskis of this world realize that their exploitation of one of the most despicable events in history is not only self-indulgent and unbelievably selfish, but giving credibility to those misguided Holocaust-denying racist groups? Such lies will allow these scumbags to convince the lesser-informed folk out there that the attempted extermination of an entire race was also nothing but lies, which I'm sure never occured to these self-indulgent storytellers as they proceeded to betray countless REAL survivors, who have already suffered enough as it is.



3. Just follow the money trail, the political bantering and incessant self-victimization (which always seems to lead into getting paid one way or another) and you'll see why the most powerful of the jewish lobby (yeah, I'm not afraid to say it) will still ENDORSE IT after it has been proven to be a complete fabrication.
   
   And they wonder why the "extremists" have so much credibility even before people look at all the facts. I've read this book and got a great laugh out of the rediculous claims, and the writings of a man obviously an older version of someone whom would be on the Jerry Springer show today if faced with a different self-victimization issue.
   
   I was already well informed this book was a fabrication in advance, so I can't say "I'm smarter than you all whom were fooled"...heck, even Elie "Weasel" fooled me the first two times around. Looks like his credibility is crap as well. I'mglad I have relatives that were on both sides of WW2; as camp munitions auditor, fitness/activity trainer (A Sergeant's job! He was denied citizenship in US but later came from Canada in about '80), a Luftwaffe infantryman whom both stayed at the conc camps, and himself taken POW when wounded in Belgium (yes many Luft Inf exist so stop emailing me, you don't know history) and a US liberator of Buchenwald...I'm glad REALITY doesnt match the whining stories of crybaby rich jews exiled after the war...so many millions of survivors all rubber-stamping eachothers stories about human soap and lampshades, all proven false by MAINSTREAM science. Like I said, follow the money trail...



4. When I read this book several years ago, I did not understand how anyone could have believed it. Having known several true Holocaust survivors, and heard their stories, I certainly didn't.
   
   Now, there have now been several clear and thorough exposes of the fraud perpetrated by Bruno Grosjean Dossekker, who falsely claimed here to be one Binjamin Wilkomirski, a child survivor of the Holocaust. Stefan Maechler, The New Yorker, 60 Minutes and several other publications prove beyond any doubt that Wilkomirski is no such person and that Fragments is a fiction.
   
   Every possible lead has now been followed; each detail in Dossekker's narration of "events" has been compared with historical records from such leading Holocaust scholars as Raul Hilberg and Lawrence Langer, accounts of other child survivors, interviews with members of the Dossekker and Grosjean families and more.
   
   The strongest evidence, unearthed by Stephan Maechler, is the fact that in 1981, Dossekker/Wilkomirski contested the will of Yvonne Grosjean, whom, in a letter to officials in Bern Switzerland, he called "my birth mother." Dossekker/Wilkomirski received a third of her estate.
   
   Other evidence includes Dossekker/Wilkomirski's use of Laura Grabowski to "corroborate" his story. Grabowski claims to have known him in a children's home in Krakow. In fact, Grabowski is an American citizen of Christian faith who has since her youth fabricated stories about her victimhood, the most well-publicized being a book called Satan's Underground.
   
   The Social Security number of said Lauren Stratford is the same as that of Grabowski, who subsequently used it to make a false survivor's claim. Furthermore, Satan's Underground and this volume contain startling similarities.
   
   --Alyssa A. Lappen



5. It is in Fragments now, a total hoax.

   A Holocaust survivor memoir that has received prestigious literary awards and lavish praise has been exposed as a hoax.

   In Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood, Binjamin Wilkomirski describes his ordeal as an infant in the Jewish ghetto of Riga (Latvia), where his earliest memory is of seeing his father being killed. Wilkomirski also tells how he survived the terrible rigors of wartime internment, at the age of three or four, in the German-run concentration camps of Majdanek and Auschwitz.

   First published in German in 1995, Fragments has been translated into twelve languages. In Switzerland, the country where Wilkomirski lives, the book has been a major best-seller. Two documentary films and numerous personal appearances by the author in schools throughout the country have helped promote the memoir.

   The American edition was published by Schocken, an imprint of Random House, which heavily promoted the book with teachers' study guides and other supplementary materials.

   Jewish groups and major American newspapers have warmly praised Fragments. The New York Times called it "stunning," and the Los Angeles Times lauded it as a "classic first-hand account of the Holocaust." It received the 1996 National Jewish Book Award for Autobiography and Memoir, while in Britain it was awarded the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize, and in France the Prix Memoire de la Shoah.

   The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC -- a federal government agency -- was so impressed that it sent Wilkomirski on a six-city United States fund-raising tour last fall.

   This past summer, though, compelling evidence came to light exposing Wilkomirski's memoir as an literary hoax.

   Although he claims to have been born in Latvia in 1939, and to have arrived in Switzerland in 1947 or 1948, Swiss legal records show that he was actually born in Switzerland in February 1941, the son of an unwed woman, Yvette Grosjean. The infant was then adopted and raised by the Doessekkers, a middle-class Zurich couple. Jewish author Daniel Ganzfried, writing in the Swiss weekly Weltwoche, also reports that he has found a 1946 photo of the young Bruno Doessekker (Wilkomirski) in the garden of his adoptive parents.

   Comparisons have been drawn between Wilkomirski's Fragments and The Painted Bird, the supposedly autobiographical "Holocaust memoir" by prominent literary figure Jerzy Kosinksi that turned out to be fraudulent.

   Reaction by Jewish Holocaust scholars to the new revelations has been instructive, because they seem more concerned about propagandistic impact than about historical truth. Their primary regret seems merely to be that the fraud has been detected, not that it was perpetrated.

   In an essay published in a major Canadian newspaper (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 18, 1998), Jewish writer Judith Shulevitz arrogantly argued that it doesn't really matter much if Fragments is authentic. Her main misgiving, apparently, is that the deceit was not more adroit: "I can't help wishing Wilkomirksi-Doesseker [sic] had been more subtle in his efforts at deception, and produced the magnificent fraud world literature deserves."

   Deborah Dwork, director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at Clark University (Worcester, Mass.), and co-author of Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (Yale Univ. Press, 1996), agrees that Fragments now appears to be fraudulent. At the same time, though, she expressed sympathy for Wilkomirski, saying that when she met him he appeared "to be a deeply scarred man." Amazingly, Dwork does not blame him for the imposture, "because she believes in his identity." Instead, she takes the publishers to task for having "exploited" Wilkomirski. (New York Times, Nov. 3, 1998).

   Deborah Lipstadt, author of the anti-revisionist polemic Denying the Holocaust, has assigned Fragments in her Emory University class on Holocaust memoirs. When confronted with evidence that it is a fraud, she commented that the new revelations "might complicate matters somewhat, but [the work] is still powerful."

   Daniel Ganzfried reports that Jews have complained to him that even if Fragments is a fraud, his exposé is dangerously aiding "those who deny the Holocaust."

   American Jewish writer Howard Weiss makes a similar point in an essay published in the Chicago Jewish Star (Oct. 9-29, 1998):

   Presenting a fictional account of the Holocaust as factual only provides ammunition to those who already deny that the horrors of Nazism and the death camps ever even happened. If one account is untrue, the deniers' reasoning goes, how can we be sure any survivors accounts are true ... Perhaps no one was ready to question the authenticity of the [Wilkomirski] account because just about anything concerning the Holocaust becomes sacrosanct.

   Wilkomirski himself has responded to the new revelations by going into hiding, although he did issue a defiant statement describing the climate of discussion about his memoir as a "poisonous" atmosphere of "totalitarian judgment and criticism."

5 comments about Will to Freedom: A Perilous Journey Through Fascism and Communism (Modern Jewish History).

1. I am a PhD student doing Operations Research - more specificly, Mixed Integer Programming - that is why I purchased this book, just because of the curiousity about the autobiography of a brilliant mathematician in our field.
   
   I started this book in the end of Feb and couldn't help stopping digging into his unbelievable and inspiring life stories and have already started the third time. Everytime I get new gains and thoughts. First, it is definitely a good encouragement for my research work, by his enthusiasm and passion for knowledge and mathematics; in addition, I always can judge my attitude to life and people by learning from his experience and his eternal optimistic awareness. Here is a book, where you can find faith, justice, intelligence, honesty and love.



2. This memoir lays out in exquisite prose a touching, insightful journey through a series of challenges that are almost incomprehensible to those of us who have grown up in happier times. As I read I could not help but wonder how I would measure up to the ethical and moral standards set by Professor Balas. His academic excellence and stature are well known to all of us who have worked in any field related to mathematical programming; this book makes it clear that in addition to being an exemplary academic in every way, Professor Balas is also a very great gentleman, in the best British sense of the word. I can only say I am proud to have known him.



3. If ever I get imprisoned I'll remember to use a coffee-stained napkin and stale bread to make a chess set. I also learned from Egan Balas that to exercise in a confined space one takes an odd number of steps - else one walks in circles. Algorithmic ingenuity enabled him to successfully take up mathematics in his late 30s, against the conventional wisdom that good mathematicians do their work when young, and become an outstanding professor of industrial administration, applied mathematics and operations research at Carnegie Mellon University.

   He tells stories of his lives - escaping death narrowly - "according to my own taste", making it one of the most compelling biographies I have ever read.
   This would be an extraordinary thriller if it were fiction - but it's not, it's real. The highly personal account of how a Transylvian Jew became a revolutionary worker, a dapper diplomat, a tortured prisoner and a creative academic takes one through some absolutely awful scenes. Balas' craftiness enabled him to survive and his toughness under severe torture protected his friends. This is not some second hand account of Communist and Nazi hate, Balas drags the reader through his pain and suffering. There are happier moments - such as when he comes out of prison and addresses his daughter - not realizing that he's speaking to a younger sibling born in his absence and that his daughter has grown considerably.

   For anyone who wants to understand willpower and survival in Hungary and Romania during the 2nd world war this is a must read. Besides historical interest, the story's suspense makes it an ideal gift for thriller and spy story readers.




4. Professor Balas from Carnegie Mellon University is one of the most respected members of the Operations Research community. I am a big fan of Professor Egon Balas, having read his papers on the "Lift and Project" method in solving mixed integer programming problems.

   Nothing moved me as much as this book though. I agree with the reviewer from Toronto, the book is definitely a great scientific mind at work, where Egon describes clearly and in vivid detail all that he went through, without any bitterness or resentments.

   A triumph of the human spirit against all odds and adversaries!




5. Truly a fascinating story. I was born in Romania and went to college in Cluj during the late sixties. The period of time between 1945-1954 was always a mystery to me. Egon Balas has opened my eyes on many aspects of my country's secret past. The book is very engaging and kept me captivated until the end. Egon's story is representative of what happened to Transylvanian Jews who were communists before and after the war. While not all stories have happy endings like Egon's, I know of many people with similar stories. None of them talked to me in so many details and so eloquently as Egon did in his book. I am greatful to Egon for making this very personal account of his life public, so that the story of the communist Jews of Cluj is not lost forever. Great book !

1 comments about The Smell of Humans: A Memoir of the Holocaust in Hungary.

1. When you see the title and subtitle, you might expect an unrelentingly grim report--so unfortunately familiar from the genre of accounts by Holocaust survivors. Instead, after reading Erno Szep's story a few weeks spent digging trenches in a slave labor camp, you close the book not weary of a cheerless tale, but wishing you could have found out more--especially after Szep returned to Budapest just in time for the Soviet siege and the Nazi/Arrow Cross defense. In a series of very brief episodes, he relates with all the detail he can bear his view of the Jews in Budapest as most of its "able" men first were rounded up, then sent off to work under the sneers and beatings of the Arrow Cross. He conveys vividly the feel of forced labor and little food, the monotony, the damp, and the hunger increasing as their supplies and energy dwindle and the toil takes its toll.

   Unlike some other Hungarian translations of texts, this one by John Batki, a scholar who left Hungary as a teenager, manages to render into very colloquial but never casual English what must be marvelous Magyar prose. Szep's style evidently is cosmopolitan, with a snap and joie de vivre that persists despite his subject matter. Imagine a less taciturn, more convivial counterpart to Primo Levi. My only withholding of a fifth star in the rating: a stereotypically verbose and clumsily experimental preface by Dezso Tandori that reminds me of the worst of translated Hungarian stylists too enamoured of their own cleverness to remember their reader's attention span. Stick with Szep's own "autobiographical statement" and Batki's remarks. How I wish Szep had written much more! (1884-1953)

   Parts of his story shed new light on old events: the process by which were extended, denied, and re-extended passes by the Swedish (although Raoul Wallenberg's not mentioned by name--perhaps postwar Hungarian censorship may have been a factor?) and Spanish embassies; the fate of those who had grown up entirely Christian by birth and belief but had Jewish grandparents; the more recent converts hoping the excape the yellow star; and the printers. In this last vignette, Szep wonders why that largely socialist union, in WWI, allowed its members to produce so much propaganda for the capitalists. If they had simply refused to print the disortions of the ruling class, Szep muses, perhaps war would have been averted. Hmmm.