5 comments about A Hero of Our Own: The Story of Varian Fry.

1. This is a must book for book clubs and reading groups! Isenberg's writing is engaging as she tells of Varian Fry's dramatic actions that saved so many people from harm. But, more thrillingly, through skillful use of private documents, she shows her readers how a man who showed little previous signs of special distinction, not content to stay a bystander, was willing to put himself at risk to help strangers whose lives were in danger. The book will spark discussions, not only of the holocaust, but of our continuing search to lead ethical lives today in the face of widespread violence, famine and continuing human rights abuses.



2. this story, of a true 'hero,' makes a compelling read. how amazing that fry managed to save so many important artists of the last century and was little known until isenberg's book. a good read while learning an important bit of our history. i will definitely recommend this to my book club.



3. I read Sheila Isenberg's marvelous book, A Hero Of Our Own, in one sitting. What made it compelling was the author's logical, step-by-step approach to the stunning chaos of her hero's dilemma.
   Varian Fry's defining year in Marseilles came alive line by line, stroke by inspiring stroke in clear logical matter of fact tones. The work is poignant and powerful, mythic documentary proof of a bona fide hero and his heroic friends confronting the petty viciousness of evil with clear-eyed will.

   A beautiful important book. This is History as it ought to be written. Should be required reading in high schools and colleges round the globe.




4. For someone like myself, who enjoys a really exciting story, preferably about a real person,one need go no further than to read "A Hero of Our Own" by Sheila Isenberg. Varian Frye, a not-so-ordinary American, feels impelled to leave his comfortable life as a writer and editor and go to France as a member of the Emergency Rescue Committe (ERC) and risk his life to save as many refugees (mostly Jews) as he can from the Nazis. Frye is the only American to be honored at Yad Vashem (Israel's Holocaust Memorial) because of his work in saving thousands of Jews. If I didn't know it was a true story, I'd think it was fiction because his adventures read like a fast-paced thriller, a veritable realization of the classic "film noir" of the forties. In fact, I feelthe book cries out to be made into a movie which I would be happy to see. Of course some of the book's revealed facts about our own State Department trying to keep refugee Jews from entering the United States when they knew it mean certain death was quite shocking and disturbing. However, all in all, I'd recommend the book to anyone who enjoys reading a fast-paced book about real heros and history.



5. Varian Fry was an American hero, risking his life to save others, unrecognized during his lifetime, but, fortunately, with Isenberg's new biography, now about to become a well-known figure. Called the artists' Schindler, Fry saved about 1,500 artists, writers, teachers, labor leaders, activists, and others from Hitler -- Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, and Hannah Arendt among the group. A Hero of Our Own tells Fry's story in a lively, compelling style. One can't wait to turn the page to find out what happens in Nazi-ridden, Vichy-controlled Marseille 1940. Who will be saved? Who will be turned over to the Gestapo? Why did Fry risk his life? This book answers all these questions in a fascinating story that is well worth reading -- as Fry is well worth remembering and honoring.

3 comments about Lucien's Story: A Memoir.

1. A memoir -- A gateway into the world of Lucien leads the reader through the tunnels of his mind as the horrors of the past ricochet into the present. Without sentimentality this story changes the awareness of even the most knowledgeable reader. The presnt is honed by these echoes of the past. Beautifully, albeit adroitly, written, the bones of this experience are clean, sparse and strong. We are helped to understand the unimaginable



2. A memoir -- A gateway into the world of Lucien leads the reader through the tunnels of his mind as the horrors of the past ricochet into the present. Without sentimentality this story changes the awareness of even the most knowledgeable reader. The present is honed by these echoes of the past. Beautifully, albeit adroitly, written, the bones of his experience are clean, sparse and strong. We are helped to understand the unimaginable



3. This is the story of Lucien Duckstein, an 11 year old boy in Paris who is deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with his mother because they are Jewish. It is also the story of Lucien Duckstein, a sixty year old scientist who eventually comes to deal with the experiences he underwent in Bergen-Belsen and the Drancy internment camp. He explores the price those childhood experiences exacted in his adulthood, especially in his dealings with his wife, children, family and the outside world. He acknowledges the cost of having created a persona which could survive life in the camps. His language is sparse, but eloquent and his pain is evident in the simplicity of his words. This is a short (60page), volume that is uncluttered by the irrelevant, that flows from the start and is stark and frightening in it's descriptions of what it was like to be a French Jew in Paris and later. His use of the present to play off against the past merely highlights the horrors that he experience

5 comments about In Lands Not My Own: A Wartime Journey.

1. I am writing this in response to the reviewer from Bloominton.

   First , let me correct an inaccuracy. Reuven married Pat after the end of the War (I believe in the late 40's/50's). The cover details are incorrect in suggesting he was married in 1941 but this was simply not picked up at the time. Apologies.

   Reuven wrote the story in the late 60's and tried to get it published - we even have the envelope in which it was returned from a prospective publisher. We do not know why but perhaps there was less interest than there is today. When Reuven died his obituary in the London Times (of which we have a copy) makes specific mention on the unpublished manuscript and an excerpt was actually published in the Sunday Times at around the same time.

   After he died, no-one tried to get it published and the typescript remained with Pat. Following her death several years, it passed to her niece, Janet. It was only after Janet's death that my wife and I (my wife is Janet's daughter)found the typescript when clearing out the family house for sale. We then contacted a literary agent and eventually signed a publishing contract.

   I cannot tell you exactly when each page was written but I can swear that the document we found is the document that was published. We still have the original typescript - it is all on similar paper and on the same typewriter. There is no evidence to suggest anything suspicious at all.




2. The value of first hand memoirs is unquestionable. The author's long voyage through occupied Europe and later his service in the British Army elevates this book to a testimony of a hero. Yet, one wants to be sure that it is a true and real testimony.

   The first doubt about the book's completeness as a testimony is a fact that the author did not mention his wife throughout the work. Only the biographical note on the cover states, to a complete readers' surprise, that he married Pat Kearey (a British national?) in 1941. One starts wondering in what circumstances was he married and how that marriage influenced his citizenship status in the Nazi occupied Europe. We the readers are left to believe throughout the book that he was a Polish citizen and his only connection with Britain was a letter from a British diplomat in Belgium confirming his intention to join the British army...Another serious doubt in the reader's mind arises when the author tells us about his conversation with a ""young, fairish, slender" German soldier in France (p.54).

   That occurrence is simply very hard to believe - Ainsztein was a fugitive not only with false papers but also with a letter from a British consul, and, as he himself says, he looked "unmistakably Jewish" (p.56). Furthermore, looking at the construction of the book, one notices certain changes as the book progresses. The times when the author lived in Brussels are full of detailed information, including last names of friends. Full names disappear completely in the part of the book which talks about the Spanish prison. And then, after the author joins the Air Force, the language of the memoirs changes to the point that to a suspicious reader it looks like a different person writing.

   It is possible that Ainsztein kept writing these memoirs over a 30 year period after the war. Unfortunately, the editors don't provide us with even a hint of an explanation what was happening with the manuscript during the 20 years after the author's death. It is somewhat puzzling that Ainsztein has not published this book during his lifetime - after all, he was an accomplished historian with several publications to his credit. But there are also several places in the book that will raise eyebrows of serious historians.

   To use one example, already on page 5 Ainsztein says: "by applying discriminatory laws they (the Poles in the pre-war Poland) prevented Jewish youths from obtaining a technical or university education and closed all government, army, state, and municipal careers to them". A brief consultation with works of such historians as Joseph Rotschild ("East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars"), and Ezra Mendelsohn ("The Jews of East Central Europe Between the Wars") shows that 10-20% of all students in Poland before the war were Jewish.

   There were also several Jewish officers in the Polish army, some of them decorated with highest honors, or even in the rank of a general. And, there were absolutely no discriminatory laws against Jews or any other nationality in pre-war Poland... Here, the reader is obviously left with a serious neglect on the part of the author, who could have simply done his research before putting on paper statements that have been long proven untrue.

   Overall, with all its serious faults, this book is certainly of interest for anybody studying the darkest periods in Western history. Personally, I am left with an impression that there is a "story behind the story" and that it shouldn't be the case...




3. I found the story fascinating and certainly worth preserving for future generations. After having read many of such publications, what strikes me in this one is a straighforward hate towards anything Polish. Germans seem to rate much higher on the author's personal scale than the Poles. Author's prejudice can be seen especially in those places where physical characteristics of a nation are used to "prove" its moral decay etc. Germans might be more appealing physically to the author than Poles, but it is still them who murdered 6 million innocent people of Jewish origin.
   Certainly, the situation of Jews in the pre-war Poland was not heaven, but it was not hell either. Their situation was pretty much the same as that of their fellow countrymen in the United States of that time.
   If Poland was such hell, how could one explain that Wladyslaw Szpilman (the hero of the movie "The Pianist") was an official pianist of the Polish Radio and after the war he made a brilliant return to the National Philharmonic in Warsaw?
   It is not up to me to judge the author's personal experience. It is only puzzling that he claims to be a historian, and as such he should have taken a more professional stand in these matters.



4. The editorial reviews shown at this website accurately summarize the book, and I will not rehash them. I just want to add my strong personal recommendation. Ainsztein's odyssey/exodus was of particular interest in light of my recently having seen Polanski's "The Pianist". I found the book to be compelling reading, and believe that Jewish readers would find it even more so.



5. In Lands Not My Own is unassuming and modest but all the more powerful for its understated charm.

   Ainsztein was clearly a thoughtful but heroic man. His book chronicles a most incredible flights across war-torn Europe. Written with all the elegance of a Conrad novel, this book takes us right into Ainsztein's own personal heart of darkness.

   In many, many ways , this book is as important as Anne Frank's diary. It should be compulsory reading on evry high school history, and indeed English literature, booklist.

   It is rare to find a historical memoir that is so well written, so well observed and so elegantly portrayed.

   If you buy only one book today, make sure it is this one!

2 comments about A Conspiracy of Indifference: The Raoul Wallenberg Story.

1. The title of this book is unfortunately an accurate description of Raoul Walllenberg's fate. Why wouldn't (or couldn't) the United States step in to save a man they later named an honorary citizen from the Russian prisons? Or for that matter, why did Sweden abandon a countryman of family stature the likes of a Rockefeller in the United States? This book is part biography, part mystery novel as to what may have happened to Raoul Wallenberg. Gersten explores in depth each possible angle beyond the well-known factors of his life, yet allows the reader to make up his own version of the truth behind his tragic disappearance. One can only wonder how many heroes there would be in the world if they were all treated this way. I did not know who Raoul Wallenberg was before I read this book, and now I will never forget him.



2. Ronald J. Gold, a Chicago lawyer, said this about the book:

   I found the book very interesting. Why did the Russians grab him (Wallenberg)? What was so special about him that they would go to such extremes to keep things secret? Did they kill him or did he just waste away?

   The legal issues were interesting but basically showed that even well-respected lawyers allowed their vanity to get in the way of the objective. Did anyone ever honestly believe that you could successfully sue the Soviet Union in a federal court? The only reason they won initially was because Mother Russia had defaulted and the trial judge was compelled to rule in their favor.

   I think the above shows, however, the value of a book like this. Although I had heard of Wallenberg and saw his name listed on the path of martyrs in Israel, the real issue is that he saved Jews. The book must have taken countless hours of research and the author should be proud of his effort.

No comments about Awaiting a Miracle.

3 comments about Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story.

1. In 1944, near the end of World War II, 35-year-old, Shohei Ooka, was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army. After suffering from malaria and starvation he attempted suicide when American troops had landed on Mindanao and the situation looked hopeless for Ooka and his (mostly dead by then) comrades. He was captured and nursed back to health by the American forces.
   
   As he writes in ''Taken Captive,'' Japanese prisoners had to deal with their depression, and guilt at having shamed themselves by giving up when their comrades had died in battle or committed suicide. Captivity was strange to the Japanese prisoners because the Japanese military had taught them that the US military were savages and would kill them if they surrendered. Ooka wrote that they had a hard time ''accepting the Americans' warmheartedness with simple gratitude. Whereas they saw themselves as dishonorable captives, the Americans treated them as human beings, and this . . . confounded them completely.'' Over time, the prisoners became lazy and fat.
   
   Some of the former prisoners of war, Ooka writes, ''still refer to the camp as 'paradise' and speak of the time they spent there as the best year of their lives.'' Ooka, who died in 1988, became one of the most well known post-war writers in all of Japan with this book and he takes the reader on a travel from soldier, to prisoner, to a fear of disgrace upon returning home, and back to a father and family man. An excellent book that will show that not all Japanese soldiers were war criminals and psychotics ready to die for the emperor. Ooka held Japanese soldiers who "went amok" in China in great distain.



2. Taken Captive a P.O.W. Story by 0oka Sh0hei, is about a Japanese man name 0oka Sh0hei who was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army to fight the American Forces On January 25, 1945. Being captured from the Americans. This book is is an okay book. There was some action in it,wich was great. It was okay to thouse who are interested in an middle-clsss scholar who tries this to survive the life of the prison. this would be the book for you. If you are interested in action, i would not sugest this.



3. For eight months during 1945 I served as a Japanese interpreter (U.S. Marine Corps) at the Japanese POW Camp on Guam. I met and interviewed many Japanese prisoners during that time. This is the first account published by a former Japanese POW that I have seen since the War. American POWS have published but no Japanese for reasons made obvious by the author. I was on the outside looking in. To view prison life from the other side of the fence was most interesting, The book is superbly written. It is factual and honest.For anyone who fought the Japanese in the Pacific this book will open windows and offer to you a view that you might never have expected to look upon. T

2 comments about The Human Race.

1. "Weg! -get the hell out of the way! -he said to me in a rasping voice. I shrugged it off ... but I still existed, and I shrugged it off ... the insults of these people are no more able to reach us than they are able to get their hands on the nightmare we have become in their brains: for all their denying of us we are still there." (p. 51)
   
   These victimizers could live next to you, could walk by you any given day on the streets, they are not German, they are human of any nationality, in this case Spanish: "Sometimes the SS man laughs and jokes with the doctor. And yet, before he was given the job, the SS used to beat him. But now he wears a white coat; he sleeps in a small heated room; he doesn't have to go to roll call; and he eats, and he's pink ... the Spanish doctor rapidly turned into a particularly good example of the kommando's aristocracy." It makes one ashamed to be Spanish, human. And there's no such thing as sin, they say.
   
   It's a hard read because of its sadness, hellish misery, absence of what well-intentioned people call humanity but is nothing but sin and evil. The author cries his soul out, pours his deepest self in words of sorrow, in pages that seek comprehension, but from whom? The author does not say. If its from his readers no help can be given him now.
   
   This is the best account of the experiences of a man in a nazi prison camp during the European Holocaust. Buch better than the popular Primo Levi book. This is a deep, slow-paced, intellectual, thinking-man's guide to survival in Holocaust Europe. There are detailed descriptions of ways of feeling, of sentiments and relationships that are tacit, hard to describe, but which the author in his characteristic French style achieves perfectly.
   
   I strongly recommend to read this book, with a little patience. It takes its time to get into it fully, to grasp the implications and all the meaning of what's going on physically -but specially- psychologically. The book is not spiritual, because there's no spiritual faith. But if humanity is not enough to account for the gravity of the things told here, then who or what to appeal to? If we trust in man alone, and man does these things, then who are we to appeal to? It would be an useless exercise of intellect.



2. This is the best and most moving account I've ever read of life in a concentration camp, better by far than Primo Levi, better even than Viktor Frankl, and better even than One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, all of which are saying a lot. The book pulled me into the daily life in a way I've not encountered so strongly before. Antelme has a gift for providing details that immerse the reader in the experience, and he has a novelist's skill with characterization. This is a powerful, meaningful work.

2 comments about The Dawn of Hope : A Memoir of Ravensbruck.

1. This thin little book contains some of the memories of Genevieve de Gaulle Anthonioz (niece of Charles de Gaulle), from the time she was imprisoned in Fresnes Prisons during World War II. A young Catholic, she was jailed because of her efforts as a resistance worker.

   She watches a co-worker being beaten to death for trying to wash out her underwear. One of her jobs is to sort through huge piles of dirty, bloody prison uniforms from those who are murdered, to find scraps and buttons that can be reused. Her single cell is flooded with smoke from the ovens. She spends much time in solitude, reflecting on how she will handle her own early death which she is sure is imminent.

   She is never marked for extinction, and so has a slightly different view of life in the camps than the tellers of most books I've read. Life in one of the worst prisons in France during WWII is not pleasant, although through she can receive mail, smuggled in Christmas presents, and medical care when sick.

   In her isolation, she survives by befriending the cockroaches in her cell. She secretly makes a Christmas handkerchief for the Jehovah's Witness who brings meals around. She observes the lives of those destined to die, and is deeply moved.

   Realizing that the only way to bear witness is to survive, she does. It took 55 years for her to be able to write her story - she spent those years raising her children and working to improve the lives of the homeless.

   Translated from the original French, the tenses used are a little unsettling, without any obvious reason. The text switches from past to present sometimes within the same paragraph. It could have used more editing after the translation.

   However, for those interested in the Holocaust, this is a very quick read, and offers a look from the eyes of a young non-Jewish girl. A worthwhile read.




2. A most moving book. You learn of the terrible sufferings experienced in a concentration camp, and the later fruits they would bear.

1 comments about Rescued Images : Memories of a Childhood in Hiding.

1. People of my generation or younger, born after the mid nineteen-sixties, are caught in a strange place when it comes to learning about, and relating to, the events in World War II Europe. We come too late for direct experience, yet before the greater distance of the generation following us. In a sense, we will, if we are thinking people, shoulder the task of passing on the facts, impressions, and enormous lessons from this period, but without first-hand knowledge. "Rescued Images" is a remarkable book which should do much to provide us with a tool which is both entertaining (as extraordinary as that may seem) and profoundly moving. Jacobsens gentle, yet strong voice, is made even stronger by her montages, which are simultaneously beautiful as they are emotionally raw. When she is old enough I will sit with my daughter and we will read this book together, in honor of the triumph of the human spirit, and in memory of the worst of human failings. Parents and schools should add this volume to their shelves, it will remain timeless.

3 comments about Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

1. This was an excellent book, very touching and very emotional, and Anne is a hero, a brave little girl.
   
   When the war occurs, Anne and her family take refuge in The Secret Annex which is the back of a house. She writes down
   her thoughts and feelings routinely, as in a diary. Abruptly, the
   entries end.
   
   It isn't until the afterword that we learn of her terrible fate. The sad part is that the incidents in this book
   really happened. I give this book 5 stars:)



2. Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young girl
   
   I think this is a great book. Anne Frank shows great emotion and tells her life in the "secret annex." She tells about her love life and how her experiences were in this life. I think people should read this book. It's educational in a way and will let you understand a little about what went on behind closed doors.
   
   Anne's diary explains how she felt during her time in World War II. She was very unhappy about having to leave her home and go into hiding. While she was in hiding her and her family were captured by the Germans and taken to Jewish camps. Then after they were captured her father found Anne's diary and gave it to the world to read. Now we the people have all access to the thoughts of Anne Frank.
   
   She was a young Jewish girl that lived a sad life. Anne had a good since of humor, a pretty smile and the heart of a true young girl. This girl who bared all in her diary will live on forever even though she is no longer with us. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about how life was in hiding during the Holocaust. It maybe sad, but this is a amazing story.
   By: Sarah age 13



3. Anne Frank is about a girl who wrote a diary about her life. The main charecters are Anne and her family. The main problems are that they're Jewish and the Germans were prejudice against Jewish people at that time. The Germans were sending them to concentration camps. My favorate character was Anne because she is a really brave girl who writes a diary about her life and her terrible tragedy.

   I could relate to Anne Frank because I come from another country where I was born and I also was having security problems there. I think I feel the same things she felt because sometimes I feel fear to be in Colombia, my native country. That's what she also felt.

   I liked the book a lot, and I didn't have a favorite part of the book, because I liked the whole book...

   I would recommend this book to people because I think it's really interesting and it's a true story. If I had to be someone in the book, I would be Anne because I would like to be recognized as a great writer in history.