5 comments about Motherland: A Daughter's Journey to Reclaim Her Past.

1. Good for Fern Chapman as she attempts to make sense of family roots in a tourist-level return to Europe, even while knowing that a previous generation is largely inscrutable, fragmentary, and ultimately impressionistic. Much to the book's credit, both mother and daughter, as protagonists, explore this generational divide. The book's stated purpose of pursuing WWII understandings "Beyond the Holocaust" promises new insight into unresolved moral issues. Chapman hopes to liberate the reader from that form of simplistic guilt-conveyance which stifles further thinking about the Holocaust.
   
   Chicago-based Chapman plunges us into a post-Christian and post-Judaic landscape, a brave new world of secular humanism that hopes to compete with the centuries-rooted religious foundation that we've come to respect in the book we've come to know as the Bible. We find ourselves adrift in the modern world of American and European apostates, no longer tethered to ancient heritage, but reluctantly forced to bear the social mantle of being either a Jew or a Christian.
   
   The character Mina is representative of the WWII Christian German who never left: "I mean, I was brought up in the church every Sunday and I prayed. But we weren't a deeply religious family." Her family, dysfunctional to the point of abandoning her to the servant needs of a local Jewish family, attributes their lack of faith to the Christian disorientation resulting from the World War I, untimately a civil war in which Christians and Jews were destroying each other. World War II would be the same unfortunate imploding of the Judeo-Christian bulwark. Our sympathies to mother and daughter! Even so, Mina is forced to shoulder the guilt associated with Holocaust, even while the visitors from America remain speculative.
   
   The mother Edith deserves our sympathies as well. "After the war, however, she had little use for religion. When I asked her why, she said, 'I want nothing to do with it. Look what happened in Germany--that was among mostly Christian people. After that, I couldn't trust any religion. I just couldn't believe in God.'" Edith simply cannot fathom the horrible waste of internecine warfare.
   
   Chapman is often superb in "Getting Beyond the Holocaust" with its propaganda-like group-think. During the war, German Jews seemed to know as little about the Holocaust as did everyday German Christians. Neither knew much, if anything. This accounts for several characters offering only "symbolic" protests against Nazi incursions into their lives. Knowing more would presumably have led to ever more forceful resistance from both communities.
   
   Nor does Chapman attempt to whitewash typical Holocaust guilt formulas. Mina represents the easier vantage, i.e. that "You are a Nazi to the end of your life. You are stamped." Yet the Nazis voiced principle-based (to them, at least) complaints that might be acknowledged: apostate Jews, not faith-based Jews, were leading the godless Bolshevik revolution. Marx himself had descended from a long line of rabbis before his family's desperate plunge into Lutheranism and religious disorientation, ultimately a cogent formula for atheism, socialism, and secular humanism. Overall, the book leaves us with a sense of tragic loss among "should have been" partners in a unified Judeo-Christian Europe, rallying around the Old and New Testaments. Too bad today that a weak, self-propagandized Europe has replaced the Jews with its real historic enemy, jihadist Islam.



2. "Motherland" by Fern Schumer Chapman centers around an intriguing premise, that of a mother and daughter returning to Germany to discover what happened to the family left behind during the war, in an effort to let go of the war that plagues their relationship. The author's mother was sent as a refuge to America a year after her older sister, leaving her grandma and parents to endure the wrath of the Nazis. Feeling abandoned and unloved, the author's mother never returned until the early 1990s, still hesitant to encounter the past.
   
   For Germans, it seems as if WWII and its legacy is always close to the surface; a feeling a guilt pervades their interactions with those from other places due to the constant association with evil they must endure. Mother and daughter certainly encounter that on their journey to the small town where her mother lived her first 12 years of life. The town, while greatly changed, is still home to many former classmates. Escorted around town by a man eager to make amends for his past actions, the two discover that the past is always present, no matter how hard one tries to forget.
   
   Overall, "Motherland" is a quick-paced read, an accounting of the author's attempt to understand her mother. Yet at times the narrative reads as if the author is trying to hard; she was five months pregnant when the journey was made, and perhaps her emotional swings show through too much. The flow is often interrupted by liteary efforts at similes, comparisons which aren't necessary and do not add to the story. However, the story is one that the author needed to discover and one that she needed to tell. It is an interesting look at how someone who wouldn't necessarily qualify as a 'survivor' did survive, but still passed on that legacy of loss and war to her daughter.



3. I had begun this book and put it down--to pick it up again was a very good idea. This author has a very readable style. A great book to read if you want
   to know about the Holocaust and beyond--just like the title says--it says it all.



4. Edith Westerfield Schumer left Germany in 1938 as a twelve-year-old. She left alone. Her parents sent her to America, removing her from the threat of the Nazis in her German homeland. Her Jewish father mistakenly believed that Hitler would acknowledge his service to Germany in World War I. However, most of her family did not survive the persecution or the death camps. Edith never saw her parents again.
   
   She rarely spoke of her childhood. Perhaps so much loss could not be expressed in words. Perhaps she didn't know how to convey to her family what was ripped apart in her past. Her daughter Fern knew little of her heritage.
   
   "Motherland" tells their story through her daughter Fern's perspective. When her mother finally agrees to return to Germany, Fern accompanies her-hoping to learn about her grandparents, hoping to see aspects of her mother's childhood, hoping to better understand how the Holocaust stole her past when it stole her mother's.
   
   Through their journey Fern and Edith learn much more about each other and about the quest to reconcile the past than they expected, significantly deepening their mother-daughter bond. Fern relates with poignancy how moments from her mother's childhood are revealed during their visit. For the first time she realizes that her mother's inability to speak German without an American accent parallels her inability to speak English without German pronunciations creeping in. Her speech identifies her as different from other Americans-and other Germans. Fern learns her mother's favorite German food only to realize that Edith never learned to cook it before she was sent away. For the first time she hears of her mother's insecurities about leaving her home.
   
   They encounter people from Edith's childhood who through their silence aligned themselves with the Nazis. Their lives still echo with hidden guilt. The mother and daughter speak with others who have never overcome their anger at the Nazis and what they suffered when they tried to help and protect the Jews. The women are struck by how people's lives have never returned to normal.
   
   Their story provides insight into mother-daughter relationships and the role of roots in those relationships. The memoir was named a finalist in 2000 in the National Jewish Book Awards by the Jewish Book Council and a number of schools use Motherland to teach about moral choices.
   
   Edith and Fern acknowledge that the Holocaust has now affected three generations of their family. Somehow those who carry on must remember history and honor those cut down by cruelty, yet let go of the past moving ahead with the new generations into healing.



5. This book covers the return of a Jewess, at 12 years old separated from her parents from the Rheinland on a Kindertransport, to her small hometown, Stockstadt-am-Rhein in 1990. Her daughter, pregnant, goes with her, although unable to speak German, and writes from her younger, American Jewish perspective on this whole process of reclaiming her mother's past, her Heimat (homeland), her Motherland so to speak.
   
   As you can read, most reviewers rave about this book. It is well-written, if a bit too introspective at times (these parts a reader can skip, such as the daughter's thoughts dwelling on herself and her own children). I'd like to make these criticisms for the author, that she may rewrite it perhaps, or if it should be done in a film version, some negative feedback could also perhaps be useful in making a tighter story:
   
   1. The mother's verbatim words should be used in the text, with footnotes underneath for translation into English. Many who read this book know German and do not want to read about the daughter's struggle to make out this or that trival word. Dare I say it, the daughter might have made a better effort to know her mother's language? How else to understand her own roots, her own mother's culture, her longing for her childhood?
   
   2. Don't introduce side issues that remain unresolved. For example, a very intriguing juicy bit is thrown in, that her older sister was sent a year ahead of her to America, adopted by another set of relatives, and now that the two sisters (her mother and her aunt) are now in their late 60's, they still don't get along. This isn't worth delving into, or at least explaining a little bit? WHy leave it hanging? Why bring it up if not to grab the reader's attention? WHy not go and interview the aunt, find out her own bitter memories or reasons for spurning her younger sister an entire lifetime?
   
   2. Why no mention of this author's father? Who was he? How did he influence the family with his own traditions, career or job, attitudes and hobbies, personality? Reading this book, one could think that there was no father in the author's life. If we are to understand her pain as a daughter in not grasping her parents' lives, then surely some mention should be made.
   
   3. Why not explain her mother's cowardice in not giving her own daughter Jewish names? She says she is named Fern (for a relative, Frieda) and Brenda (for another one, Brondl). This is strange to me, for the names "Fern Brenda" certainly don't indicate the great Jewish heritage that the mother wants kept.
   Meanwhile, we hear that the German families are naming their kids Joshua and Sara, with no shame or hiding. Strange indeed.
   
   4. Why not look at Germans more as people? Her impression of a silly clerk called the immigrations controller is that of a nasty Nazi, simply because he is German with blue eyes and blonde hair, and stamps their documents with authority. Don't ALL immigration people behave this way in every airport of the world? They're SUPPOSED to be abrupt, to give people unease. Does she call the ones down in Israel with their "brown eyes and dark hair" typical Mossad types? Nasty because they're Jews? I should think not, it's lame stereotyping at best.
   
   
   Overall, this book needs editting by a non-Jewish, non-German hating professional editor, who can guide Fern into a more balanced presentation of her mother's beloved homeland. Otherwise, the hatred comes through with the stereotypical slights, and weakens the story's validity.
   
   The best angle, if a movie were to be made - hopefully in Germany's Babelsberg and not here in Hollywood, God forbid - the theme of Mini, her childhood friend. Now there's a morality play full of contradictions! Wilhelmine (Mini for short), a child six years older from a dreadfully poor family of seven kids, is sent to be a servant/maid to the well-off Jews, and becomes best friends with the daughter she is meant to serve. Then her friend is sent to America, making Mini 18 and Tiddy 12 when they separate. Mini is so enraged to have lost her adopted sister and family that she spends the rest of her life documenting the Nazis, and whether they're all prosecuted. Her own grown son, nearing 50, feels himself deprived of a proper childhood or mothering because Mini devotes herself to fighting the evils of the past rather than living in the present. She is a living testament to the folly of grudges, which the author's own mother avoiding doing - she purposefully shunned nostalgia for her lost homeland and family, until her 60's.
   
   In many respects, this daughter and her emotions, this author, is the problem in the story. She should rewrite it from the participants' point of view, either her mother's or Mini's, in the third person, and take her own petulant self out of it.
   
   Now THAT would be a mature and interesting novel.
   
   Hey, also, put in some of these pictures that she dwells on!

No comments about Safe Passage.

2 comments about Paper Gauze Ballerina: Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor.

1. This thin book written by a Holocaust surviver lacks substance and interest. Of the 90 some pages only 30 were devoted to the author's childhood, ghetto experience and concentration time. The rest of the book describes her emotions and that is basically it, her emotions at starting a new life in this country. She tends to repeat herself through the book and it lacks continunity. I am sure she and her husband are very wonderful people but her book is lacking and was disappointing and would have been fine as a memoir for her family and close friends. The print is poor and the photographs as a result are not clearly visible-blurry.



2. Sophie Miklos was a guest speaker at my middle school many years ago. I have finally gotten around to reading her memoir. She and Andy, her husband, are both such great people and you can truly understand how she became and remained that caring person. Sophie continues to speak to middle school and high school classes addressing her and Andy's experiences during the Holocaust. If you've ever wondered how victims of the Holocaust survived and continued to live their lives, read Paper Gauze Ballerina. Sophie's experience will make you experience many emotions from happiness to despair to relief and truly appreciating the life you've been given. Sophie is one of my heroes.

5 comments about Passport to Life: Autobiographical Reflections on the Holocaust.

1. Passport to Life is a must read. It is clearly written and engaging. Dr. Tanay's story of survival is moving and reminds us all of how the genocide of the Nazi's must never be forgotten. Like the story of Passover, it must be retold over and over to remind new generations of the risk. This is especially true post 9-11. His last few chapters begin to look at the modern problem of Islamic fundamentalists and hopefully foreshadow another great book.



2. When you pick up this book you will not be able to put it down. The "story" is a moment-to-moment recounting of daily survival. The situations that this young boy finds himself in are beyond the imagination of most people who have grown up in a country like America. The resourcefulness and intelligence necessary for a young teenager to survive each day, not knowing what will become of him the next, are not only an amazing and fascinating story, but a LIFE of a child. Not only did Dr. Tanay survive, he also saved his mother, sister and close childhood friend. His father suffered at the hands of Amos Goeth, infamously renowned for his role in the Plascow camp depicted in Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List". Dr. Tanay's insight into his own plight, the plight of European Jewry as well as the psyche of hatred in religion and ideological movements is intelligent, moving and educational. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the human spirit and the analysis of societal and religious movements that can lead to assertions, beliefs and actions that are generated by arrogance of opinion.



3. Bring your thinking cap and your Kleenex box as this autobiographic analysis of the Holocaust years will grab both your intellect and your emotional senses. The writing style generates empathy and is sophisticated, yet easy reading. Amazing is Dr. Tanay's ability to add palatible, forensic psychological analysis to the terrifying events of his youth. His emphasis on thoroughness and accuracy is startling. His accomplishments as an adult, he recognizes, are dwarfed by his accomplishments in just four years during his teens. This very detailed and personal story of luck, skill, ingenuity, deception, devotion and love makes unique and fascinating reading. This should make a great film- I hope Spielberg is reading. This is a required read for Holocaust scholars and a desired read for those who "enjoy" a story of a boy's ability and will to be a survivor.



4. "PASSPORT to LIFE' by Dr. Emanuel Tanay brilliantly describes the heroic survival of an adolescent to save himself, his younger sister and his mother, through unbelievable circumstances, during the German occupation of Poland and Hungary in WWII.
   This autobiographical story describes a different type of holocaust survival, than those in the Nazi concentration camps.
   Mark Fintel (A holocaust survivor)



5. Passport To Life: Autobiographical Reflections on the Holocaust is the firsthand story of Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a successful forensic psychiatrist and a Jew who survived the depredations of Nazi genocide during World War II, when he was only a child. After the war, his experienced hatred and the threat of murder in his native Poland, but relative peace and asylum in Germany, and later moved to America. Sixty years later, his testimony is not only a narration of and reflection upon the genocidal atrocities he personally witnessed and experienced. It reveals the struggles of survivors to cling to life to be heroic and resourceful, in a situation where lack of power and arms among Jews in general meant that direct resistance against the Nazis would only guarantee personal extermination. Passport To Life is also an erudite and scholarly treatise on the nature of hatred, and the core human impulses that are all too easily channeled into sadistic and masochistic fervor ("you have to be carefully taught not to hate", the author warns), whether by organized religion, ideology, totalitarian government, or other sources. Passport To Life is particularly vital in that it deconstructs mythologies that have arisen about the Holocaust. For example, the author was personally present in Warsaw at the time the Uprising began, and warns against characterizing it as a true rebellion, since it claimed the lives of very few German soldiers and had zero military impact upon the course of the war. Rather, he characterizes it as a mass suicide of Jews who preferred to die from German guns rather than be sent to Treblinka. Since World War II there has been a tendency to overdramatize or exaggerate Christian rescues of Jewish people; Tanay respects the nobility of those who did so but also carefully delineates examples in which the truth is lost to the need to mythologize history and a few make good men into saints rather than confront the overall horror of what really happened. Tanay further dissects with clinical expertise the nature of hared itself, demonstrating that the most virulent hatreds are perpetrated against individuals or groups the hater knows nothing about, or believes fantasies about; hatred is not borne of logic or reason, and therefore rationality is no defense against it. Emphasizing the critical importance of broadcasting a counter-message to the many widespread propaganda of hate today, including but not limited to hatred against unbelievers spread within specific Islamic states, Passport To Life offers the key to understanding and hopefully preventing worse geneocidal deprevations in the future. Though it deals with complex psychological issues, Passport To Life is written in plain terms that invite no confusion regardless of the readers' level of familiarity with history or psychology. Passport To Life is far, far more than an autobiographical memoir. It is more than a record of Holocaust atrocities. It is quite literally the embodiment of its title, an indispensible contribution to Holocaust literature shelves and psychology shelves, and bears the absolute highest recommendation to school libraries, public libraries, Holocaust literature collections, scholars and lay readers alike. Do not pass up this book.

5 comments about An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog).

1. Here's the story: gay Jew (really a half-Jew under Nazi racial law) survives Holocaust in Berlin, despite spending lots of time risking his life by helping ferry other Jews to safety in Switzerland. I didn't find this book as enthralling as I had hoped; either the writing style or the translation left something to be desired. In particular, the last half of the book read like a laundry list of lovers and rescued friends. (Unlike another reviewer, I actually liked the pre-Holocaust half of the book better).
   
   Having said that, I still learned something from this book; I got a real sense of the differences between "full Jews" and persons of mixed blood. Full Jews typically got deported to concentration camps, no ifs, ands or buts. But if the experience of Beck and his family is any guide, half-Jews stood a pretty good chance of survival if they kept their noses clean. Because Beck's mother was born Christian (though she converted to Judaism) his parents were never deported (despite numerous close calls), and Beck got in trouble with the Gestapo only because of his rescue activities.
   
   Another interesting fact: throughout the book, Beck mentions various hunchbacks he ran into. What is it about early 20th-century Germany that produced so many hunchbacks?



2. Beck, Gad. "An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Germany, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.
   
   Triumph of Will
   
   Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
   
   We all have a great deal of trouble understanding the Holocaust and what it did to so many people. We have been slowly getting the stories of the Nazi persecution if gays and if one was both gay and Jewish, he had real troubles. Gad Beck was a man like that but he survived and was able to tell his story as he does so eloquently in "An Underground Life". Even though his book begins slowly, it picks up pace quickly and as you read your mouth falls open to see stories about man's inhumanity to man. When the Nazis began their reign of terror he was living underground and was sought by the Gestapo. Beck was an organizer and helped many who lived illegally by finding them shelter and food as well as providing a listening ear and support in any way that he could. The fact that he was gay was secondary to the fact that he was Jewish.
   In this memoir Beck brings to life both the cruelty to the Jews but the cruelty to the gays as well. This is a shocking and horrifying account as he writes about a gay man's coming of age in Nazi Germany. It is an erotic tale but also shows how love should be considered. This was probably the first time in the modern age that the gay spirit managed to triumph over intolerance and bigotry--even against the greatest crime ever against humanity.
   The fact that Beck survived in itself is miraculous but even more amazing is that he was able to write about what he endured. When Robert Plant published "The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals" in 1986, the door was opened to a new aspect of the Holocaust. Several personal accounts followed, but few have been published that talk about the Nazi treatment of gays ad I imagine that this is because so few survived and those that did could not think about what they had endured. This makes this book that much more valuable.
   Beck's own story is unique in that he was born of a mixed marriage in 1923 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother thereby not Jewish according to strict Orthodox law. Nonetheless, the Nazis did not care--if he had a drop of Jewish blood, as far as they were concerned, he was Jewish. As the Nazi party rose to power and began their housing relocation plan, forced labor and transport to death camps, Beck organized a resistance movement to hide others and to smuggle food and drugs to them, He even once wore a Nazi uniform to rescue a doomed gay man from the camps. He does not in any way disguise his sexuality and he gives details of his own sexual liaisons. He gives us an amazing picture of the horror of Nazi rule. He was one of the fortunate gay men whom his parents loved and accepted his sexuality and was very lucky that the Christian side of his family felt the same. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, he was forced to attend a Jewish school to reinforce his identity and to be visible to the ruling party and he immersed himself in Judaism and embraced the idea of the Zionist movement. He also embraced a great many men and he hides nothing about his sex life (except for actual sexual descriptions) as well as writes openly about his secret political activities. He rose in power in the Zionist movement and became a central character in working to establish a Jewish homeland. He survived the Nazis by living illegally in Berlin. Because of that he was able to write this wonderful memoir.
   This is a book that holds you from the beginning to the end, so much so that you want a sequel. He embraced his gayness at the same time that he embraced his Jewish--at a time when it meant death to be either. There are stories of betrayals and back stabbings and secret meetings and the memoir reads like a combination thriller/spy novel. That he survived s incredible and even more incredible is that he endured all that he did.



3. Here is a memoire of life in Berlin during the Nazi regime from the perspective of a gay Jew. Gad Beck was an organizer and friend to many who lived illegally during that period, finding shelter and food and providing friendship and support. That he was openly gay was not important during that period - there were more important thiongs to worry about.
   
   I found this book at the bookstore of National Haulocost Museum in Washington DC on a recent visit. It fits in perfectly with that museum, in that it fleshes out the life in hiding. If you have an interest in the struggle for human rights and length to which people will go to survive, this is an excellent read.
   
   One fact that is underemphasized in the book is Beck's youth during this period. By the end of the war he was in his younger 20s. Yet he had accomplished so much and had the strength of one much older. Bravo!



4. Gad Beck brought to life not only the cruelty to the jews but also the cruelty of the gay and lesbian people of the Nazi Era. I had to do a research paper for a Holocaust in Literature class I took my junior year in high school...and I was entralled the whole time I read this book. It shocked me, it horrified me...and I loved it.



5. Beck gives us a glimpse of a gay man's coming of age in Nazi Berlin. It is not only erotic but holds up a light by which all aspects of love should be measured. Once again, the Gay Spirit has triumphed over bigotry, intolerance, and in this case even the holocaust.

5 comments about The Oasis: A Memoir of Love and Survival in a Concentration Camp.

1. This is a very powerful book which I think everyone should read. I could not put this book down. Usually I do not feel strong enough about books to write a review, but this book is different. Since this is a true story, the readers can really see what life was like for the main characters. This is the most amazing love story ever!!!



2. Not only is this a compelling novel made even more amazing by the fact that it is a true story, but the writing and the way the author captured the story - and his characters - leaves me in awe. The author did a wonderful job of portraying a camp from the inside and included enough historical facts to educate his readers, yet not weigh it down (which would be incredibly easy and sometimes happens in novels of this genre). I've read many books about this time in history - from historical documents to autobiographies and this one is among the best in its blend of fact and "personal story". You never for a second aren't aware that these people are real and lived through this amazing challenge. It will touch you forever and you will think about this amazing couple and incredible love story for a long time to come.



3. Blanka meets Mirek in Dachau after managing to survive Auscwitz. When she arrives in Dachau, she is only thinking about surviving the present and doesn't feel much of anything. Mirek befriends her and she begins to feel again-- love, hate, fear, everything.

   This story of courtship that began during a time in a concentration camp is compelling and strange. This is more than just a WWII concentration camp story; it is timeless because it shows how hope might be killed due to human depravity and despair, but it can also be restored through love, family, and feelings. There is so much more I could say about this book that just can't be expressed in a review-- so I'll just say READ IT!




4. This book is wonderful. It is so honest in such a dishonest time of history. You find yourself rooting for the main characters with all of your passion. You get to feel like you know Mirek (Karel) and Blanka like they were family. This book is such a pleasure. I will read it again and again until my copy if so worn, that I will have to buy it again.



5. My mother, a Holocaust survivor, never talked to me about her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. This novel gave me a vivid picture of what it was like to survive such an ordeal and the deep scars that such an event can imprint on peoples lives. I am grateful to Blanka and Mirek Friedman for making public such a personal account of their love story and more importantly to Petru Popescu for using his obvious literary talent to bring such a story to life. The novel evokes life in a concentration camp with such force that by the end of the novel I got the feeling that I have experienced life in camp Muldorf.
   Many years ago I read some of Petru Popescu's Romanian novels. His English writing is as powerful as it was in Romanian. Great book, I strongly recommend it.

5 comments about Julius Streicher: Nazi Editor of the Notorious Anti-Semitic Newspaper Der Sturmer.

1. This book proves what is perhaps the only important thing about Julius Streicher - his unimportance. Yes, he wrote anti-Semitic polemics and yes, some people did read them but the simple fact is that Dr. Streicher had absolutely no influence on Hitler nor the policies of the National Socialist government. In fact, he was such an irritant, that Hitler himself had him kicked out of office as Nuremberg Gauleiter in 1940. Aside from continuing to publish Der Sturmer, Dr. Streicher remained in relative obscurity and retirement until arrested by the allies in 1945.
   
   After Germany's defeat, Streicher was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity yet the prosecution at Nuremberg did not produce one witness to attest that official policy regarding the Jews could be traced back to either Der Sturmer or anything else Dr. Streicher wrote or advocated. Streicher had no position in the German government either before or during the war nor was he ever consulted nor were his views ever solicited whenever Hitler formulated policies.
   
   European political thought was rife with anti-Semitism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Dr. Streicher's writings were certainly no different than many other writers and agitators of the time. Why was Streicher singled out for trial and execution? No one knows. The legal basis for his conviction and execution does not exist under any rule of law and can only be traced back to a desire for simple vengence against a man only the Allies took seriously.



2. About the only biography of Julius Streicher, the man who was hanged for exercising his freedom of speech - this was his only crime, whether you share his point of view or hate it and the man himself.



3. Originally founded in May 1925 as a platform to attack STREICHER's inner party rivals, the infamous weekly DER STÜRMER quickly became notorious. During the remaining years of the Weimar republic and throughout the twelve years of National Socialist rule (the last issue appeared in February 1945) DER STÜRMER was Germany's leading and most low-brow anti-Semitic newspaper. At the beginning, it was a local paper, but it quickly turned out to be successful nationwide. 25000 copies were sold at the time when HITLER came to power in 1933, but publication quickly rose and peaked at around 700000 in the late 1930ies. (During the war circulation figures went down dramatically due to paper shortages.) There were also thousands of elaborate display cases throughout Germany, each displaying the current issue.
   Nine special editions (about topics like Jewish sex crimes, Jewish conspiracy, ritual murder, Jews in Czechoslowakia and Austria, and ritual murder) were published, with up to 2 million issues printed of each. The newspaper's appeal was also not limited to Germany:
   "New outrages from the Stuermer were regularly denounced by the world press. But there were many who looked on Streicher's work more sympathetically. A single issue in 1935 contained replies to readers in Greece, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, England, Australia, and the United States. Photographs of foreign readers were printed regularly. In the United States, Nazi organisations mailed copies to those interested. Even those unable to read German could absorb much of Streicher's message by looking at the cartoons and photographs. Branch offices of the Stuermer were opened in Vienna, Prague, and Strasbourg once Nazi armies had marched in, and a Danish edition was attempted in 1941." (p. 172)
   In addition to his editorship and his duties as Gauleiter of Franconia STREICHER also published illustrated anti-Semitic children books, a short lived anti-Semitic medical journal and even academic books.
   
   The focus of the book under review is an analysis of the publication history and the content of the weekly, and not so much a biography of STREICHER, who by all accounts was a rather unpleasant man. Born on 12 February 1885 in a small village near Augsburg in Bavaria, Julius STREICHER was a school teacher by trade and a highly decorated veteran of world war 1. While he was politically active before the war in mainstream avenues, he embraced anti-Semitism by 1919. According to BYTWERK (p. 8) it is not exactly known why. (I wonder whether the numerous communist uprisings (Berlin, Munich, Hungary, among others) usually lead by Jews, would have had anything to do with it?)
   Anyway, thus began his infamous political career, which led him to be editor of his newspaper and Gauleiter (local nazi party leader) of Franconia. He beat up political opponents with a whip, was sexually insatiable and embezzled funds that should have gone to Reich accounts.
   Being an early party member, already involved in the 1923 Munich beer hall coup, and because of his loyalty and propagandistic efforts, HITLER long protected him, but could not help him in the long run.
   The account of the intrigues that led to STREICHER's downfall as Gauleiter of Franconia following a party trial in February 1940 (he remained editior of his weekly) makes particular interesting reading. (STREICHER even ordered one of his accomplices to commit suicide! The man complied.)
   BYTWERK has obviously put much effort in his book, analysing every aspect of the Stuermer newspaper, from the crude caricatures by cartoonist "Fips" (Philippe RUPPRECHT, who ironically originally worked for a Social Democrat newspaper) to various changes in the focus of reporting reflecting political changes and the infamous pillory column, introduced in 1933. Fanatical readers often sent in letters denouncing
   Germans who e.g. did their shopping in Jewish shops, dated Jews or made business deals with them, accompanyied with addresses and pictures. (Occassionally whole photo essays were provided).
   I have some issues with the book despite the interesting subject (there are very few books about STREICHER available). Firstly, there are some translation issues. For instance the names of two fringe groups STREICHER briefly belonged to following the ban of the Nazi party after the failed coup are not provided in English. (I am native speaker of German, but the book was written for an English speaking audience in the first place.) Secondly, there are some misleading explanations. Of the first radical party STREICHER joined, the German Socialist Party, author BYTWERK writes, "it was despite its name a right-wing group holding many of the traditional values that Streicher supported" (p. 9), while a more accurate description would be a folkish socialist political party. The American church that reprinted the ritual murder special edition in 1976 is indeed "an anti-Semitic organisation", but it is apparently also a Christian Identity group.
   Thirdly and more importantly the book tends very much toward political correctness and the usual German bashing, the afterword with author BYTWERK speaking out against GOLDHAGEN's view regarding German eliminatory anti-Semitism notwithstanding.
   Without wanting to play devil's advocate it is evident to me that author BYTWERK did not devote much space for arguments in STREICHER's favour at the Nurmberg military tribunal (e.g. that many of his anti-Jewish attacks in his newspaper were in response to foreign threats of annihilation of Germany etc.)
   The book is profusely illustrated and also has three sample Stuermer articles (one of them incomplete) and two tales from the children book THE POISONOUS MUSHROOM.
   Recommended for anyone interested in analysis of propaganda, but be aware of the shortcomings.



4. 
   
   I should start by saying the title of Randall Bytwerk's book, JULIUS STREICHER, is a bit misleading. STREICHER is not strictly speaking a biography; only about fifty of its 200 pages are devoted to the life of the man who from 1923 - 1945 was Hitler's chief anti-Semitic propagandist, agitator and "Jew-baiter." The rest of the work is essentially an examination of his newspaper, DER STUERMER, and the various methods it used to stir up anti-Jewish bias in Germany. One might call the book a study of how Streicher and the STUERMER (Stormer or Attacker) laid the emotional (if not the ideological) foundations for what happened to Europe's Jews during World War II.
   
   Streicher is more or less a forgotten figure now, but he played a fairly crucial role in the struggle of the Nazi Party to attain power in Germany, and long after he himself had fallen from the Party's graces, he continued to enjoy Hitler's personal protection. A coarse, depraved, bullying man with a hair-trigger temper and a pugnacious attitude, Striecher had precisely the sort of characteristics which would endear him to Hitler: he was of common birth, a Bavarian, had won the Iron Cross in WWI, and held militant socialist, nationalist and anti-Jewish opinions, which he was more than ready to defend with his fists. Hitler respected Streicher for his courage and energy, and frequently told his confidants that DER STUERMER was the only news publication in Germany he read from cover to cover. He was not alone. Simon Weisenthal contended: "The SS who murdered our families had DER STUERMER in their field packs." His execution at Nuremberg was largely due to this fact, and it remains a controversial act: was Streicher truly guilty of anything except big-mouthed bigotry, or was he murdered (as many contend Rosenberg was) simply for what he thought and wrote?
   
   A good way to address this question is by asking, What sort of paper was the STORMER? The most common description by Western historians is "a vile anti-Semitic rag", one which combined salacious gossip, detailed conspiracy theory, and quasi-pornography in an attempt to produce an emotional, rather than intellectual, reaction in the reader. If Alfred Rosenberg was the intellectual pillar of anti-Semitism in the Third Reich, Streicher was its vulgar streetcorner shill. THE STORMER is a nasty, villainous piece of work, and it is Bytwerk's thesis (just as it was the Allies contention at Nuremberg in 1946) that the STORMER was responsible for creating an atmosphere of hatred which made things like Krystalnacht and the Einsatzgruppen possible. Bytwerk uses many examples to show that while many Germans found the STORMER to be disgusting nonsense or at least in incredibly bad taste, its cumulative effect was to benumb the German populace to their fate. If it did not necessarily produce hatred, it certainly produced indifference ("Machts nicht," as the Germans say).
   
   As a book, STREICHER is a bit of a mixed bag. The biography of Streicher himself is entertaining but fairly superficial - it left me hungry for more. The examination of the STURMER's message and methodology is very interesting, and Bytwerk has some penetrating insights as to the nature of propaganda. The main flaw in the work is his examination of anti-Semitism - not because it is factually inaccurate but because it is too partisan. When tackling radical ideology, a historian has three courses open to him: sympathy, neutrality or antipathy. Sympathy is always to be avoided, but many historians seem to think that objectivity amounts to the same thing. Afraid of appearing pro-Nazi, they spend too much time attacking its ethos and not enough time trying to explain the more legitimate sources of its appeal. No less a man than George Orwell has said that in order to fight fascism, it is necessary to understand that it contains some good as well as much evil; and any honest study of German anti-Semitism must start by recognizing that (whatever its origin) German Jews did have a disproportionate representation in import-export business, the diamond trade, banking, the legal profession, the medical profession, publishing, music, entertainment, and teaching (particularly at the university level), among other vocations. This applies to involvement in communist politics as well. This was bound to cause resentment and breed conspiracy theories, and it would hardly be "anti-Semitic" to admit this before entertaining a discussion of why the STORMER found such fertile soil. But when Bytwerk mentions these sort of things, he usually is quoting them as statistics taken from the STORMER, which leaves the reader with the assumption that they must be false. He is willing to expose the innumerable instances where Streicher lied, exaggerated, took statements out of context, or used logical fallacies to support his arguments, but he seems unwilling to grant that the conditions which led to such a surplus of anti-Jewish feeling in Germany were sometimes rooted in everyday reality, and not merely a product of Streicher's strident and incessant Jew-baiting. Obviously, it's ticklish to discuss these things, lest the historian be accused of validating the Nazi ethos that "the Jew was our misfortune", but I think anyone intelligent enough to read a history book of this nature can tell the difference between an explanation of bigotry and an apologia for it.
   
   Having said that, I maintain that STREICHER is a solid and important work by a diligent historian who perhaps attempted a bit too much for just 200 pages (this could be two books; a bio on Streicher and an analysis of his paper) but does not come off any worse for the attempt. I would recommend it to any collection of history on the Third Reich.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   



5. Many people are familiar with the fact that Julius Streicher was one of the Nazis executed as a result of the Nuremberg trials. Most aren't clear on what Streicher's crimes were, however. In this book Randall Bytwerk reveals what it was that Streicher did to deserve having his neck snapped like a twig on the gallows in 1946.

   Julius Streicher was one of Hitler's earliest comrades during the Nazi rise to power in the 1920's and 1930's. Streicher helped Hitler gain a foothold in Nuremberg, which helped the Nazi regime consolidate its hold on Germany. Streicher's main role, however, was as a sort of common man's Joseph Goebbels. Streicher was a teacher by trade, and a fairly effective one at that. He had the rare ability to motivate his students by instilling his enthusiasm for any subject into the minds of his pupils. Streicher used this ability later in his duties for the Nazi party. Streicher published the notorious anti-Jewish newspaper Der Sturmer, which pumped out the most strident and hateful propaganda on the "Jewish Problem" for over twenty years. Bytwerk examines how effective Der Sturmer was on the common German, and how the newspaper went about reducing Jews to the status of non-humans. When this status was reached, the result led to the concentration camps and mass murder.

   Included in the book are many reproductions from Der Sturmer, most of which are cartoons that present Jews as animals or as evil, deformed creatures bent on the destruction of Germany. Many cartoons attempt to show Jews as a threat to German women or girls, thereby appealing directly to German manhood and nobility. Bytwerk convincingly argues that these cartoons and articles were quite effective in conditioning the German people into a state in which they regarded the Jews as pure evil. As propaganda, Der Sturmer was a masterpiece. Bytwerk points out that while it convinced Germans that Jews were evil, its most important accomplishment was that it created an atmosphere of indifference. Most Germans didn't run out and attack Jews after reading this stuff. What they did do was not stand up when laws began to appear that stripped Jews of their rights. In other words, Der Sturmer convinced most Germans to do nothing to help Jews.

   One of the best parts of the book is when Bytwerk examines the history of German anti-Semitic thought. The Nazis were building their particular programs on a foundation that had been created by other authors in the past. This foundation allowed Streicher's propaganda to work much faster and accomplish more in a shorter time. The dislike and distrust were already in place. All Streicher did was to bring it up to date and articulate it in a way that was easy for the common German to understand. Since Der Sturmer was so effective, I disagree with Bytwerk when he states that Streicher was not a bright man. Streicher may have not been a brilliant party organizer, but he certainly accomplished what he set out to do. With all that Streicher got accomplished, and the way he did it, I'd say he was a genius at propaganda, and one who rivaled Joseph Goebbels, who Bytwerk seems to think was Streicher's intellectual "better".

   This book is a worthy read, although it is out of print and might be somewhat difficult to find on a local level. Try Amazon.com's search service. Wherever you look, try and pick up a copy. It will be well worth the time.

3 comments about One Woman Against the Reich.

1. This is a very inspirational book of faith in action. Maria the mother is so concerned for her 4 children and husband as WWII breaks out in Germany. The family are Christian and they are against the NAZI party views. They continue to resisit joining even though it would make like easier as in more food etc.
   
   This is a family who pray together each day and believe that God indeed hears and answers their prayers. Her worst fears start to come true as her husband is called to duty to serve the "Fatherland". With much prayer he is thankfully assigned to the Red Cross Hospital in their own town and he drives an ambulance. Much safer than a front line assignment.
   
   Their oldest son Reinhold is drafted at the age of 17 and sent to training. He is then immediately sent to the infantry. He had at times during his life adopted some NAZI views as he and his brother Kurt were required to attend Hitler Youth. Things change along the way which I will not tell you all the details.
   
   This family lives thru almost total destruction of the town. There are injuries along the way but God was faithful to protect them during the entire war.
   
   The story is told by Helmut the youngest boy. His sister Ruth brother Kurt helped fill in the places and events before his birth.
   
   I highly recommend this book. Although it takes place at one of the worst times in history it leaves you with a deeper faith and trust in God.



2. This is a timely book for today. Maria Ziefle was a strong Christian woman, and was very concerned about the Nazi influence on her family. As they dealt with the Hitler Youth, Nazi neighbors, the draft, horrors of war, pressures from "the Party", the heartache of seeing so much wickedness, and so much more, Maria prayed that their family would remain alive and faithful to God.
   
   Today in America we do not live with the horrors the Ziefle family faced. But as our culture becomes more Godless, our children can innocently be drawn into it, just as Kurt was attracted to the Hitler Youth. Parents must be vigilant in prayer and in teaching their children what is good and right and honoring to God. This woman's story will be an encouragement for many parents. Especially as the book was written by her son.
   
   Everything was not ideal in the Ziefle family. Georg was not the family's spiritual leader; his wife was. Everyone may not agree with certain stands they chose to make, but ideal families exist only in fiction, and to agree with everything in a book, we must write it ourselves.
   
   Many photographs are included throughout the book of the people and places described. The story unfolds in an easy way, although the events make for less than easy thoughts as we comfortably read about the Ziefle's struggles. The war is not the focus, but rather the experiences of a Christian German family who did not support the Nazis. Readers of all ages will enjoy this biography, but parents in particular will be blessed by the account of a woman who fought for her family.



3. This vivid story of life in Germany during the worst part of its history is told by one who lived through it. Memories of that awful period in human history are fading fast as those who experienced it are dying. This page in human history should not be forgotten. The book is especially timely in the light of the war in Iraq. This is not a story of battles but of the day-to-day life of a Christian family during the time when Hitler and his minions ruled Germany. The Ziefle family held fast to their Christian faith in the face of danger and ridicule. The book recounts their walk of faith day by day. They suffered both physically and emotionally, especially during the five years Reinhold, the eldest son, was a prisoner of war despised for being part of Hitler's army. It is a reminder of how to live one's faith in the midst of opposition and threats. Sharing this family's experience is helpful in thinking about what is going on and will go on in Iraq as the people there learn to live with the effects of war.
   Georg and Maria Ziefle had four children, Reinhold. Kurt, Ruth, and Helmut.
   Both Reinhold and Kurt served in the German army. Ruth under took many daring adventures to care for the family and its needs. Georg was not forced into the army because of his work for the Red Cross and the fact that he was disabled from World War I. Maria and she narrowly escaped being forced into service of the German war machine. Their faith was tested many times but they all survived the war and lived productive lives after the war. Helmut, who wrote the account from his memories and with the help of his siblings, spent many years as a professor at Wheaton College.

1 comments about The Persistence of Hope: A True Story.

1. This is a book I couldn't put down. Its a first person narrative of a young Jewish artist and his parents running from Belgrade to Southern Italy. They were first living in refuge camps, and finally hiding in the mountains in Northern Italy running from the Nazis.
   
   I wanted to know how they survived in the camps and who allowed them to leave and who hid them once they out in the Italian hill towns. The Italian people who hid them were amazing. Its a story of the human spirit. A man who saved his parents and brought them to America.

2 comments about Tomorrow Will Be Better: Surviving Nazi Germany.

1. This is an honest, unflinching memoir written by a Christian German who was sent to prison and later two Nazi concentration camps as a teenager for rebellious behavior during World War II. People interested in this subject and time period will appreciate the detail with which Meyer tells his story. He also does an excellent job of capturing the essence of his adolescent personality and outlook during those long-gone days. One editorial review complained that there was not enough explanation of how he felt at times (for example, while leaving his homeland, Germany, after the war), but his emotions at that point are self-explanatory to any reader who has been paying attention. For example, he was tortured and almost killed by the Nazi government of his "homeland", so by the time he left, he was not exactly sentimental about it. It is also fascinating to read about the outlook of his family members and friends; it gives the reader an idea of what Nazi Germany was like from an "Aryan" German perspective. The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis (Sandpiper) , Hitler Youth , Swing Kids , Sophie Scholl - The Final Days



2. Walter Meyer's memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Better: Surviving Nazi German, speaks out to inform the world that the horrors of the Holocaust were not an exclusively Jewish experience but that it also included Hitler's own German people as well as other non-Jews. Many scenes that the author details have been chronicled many times in books and documentaries about the Holocaust, but these are familiar to the world as exclusively a Jewish nightmare. Meyer informs the world that this is a misconception. His voice helps to create a more complete picture of atrocities suffered by "millions of humans," not at the hand of the enemy, but by his very own government. Meyer reminds the world that Hitler was brutal in his quest to eliminate "any opponent of the Third Reich, regardless of race, religion, or nationality."

   Meyer was arrested during World War II and, after botched escape attempts, sent to the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp, where his weight declined to eighty pounds and he contracted tuberculosis. Realizing that if he didn't escape, death was certain, he devised a plan, and survived by sheer determination.

   Meyer has been a resident of Austin, Texas, since 1963. He earned doctorates in History and Philosophy of Education, Psychology and Human Sexuality, was Assistant Director of the University of Texas' Center for International Education, and taught languages as well as philosophy. He has represented a number of Texas Governors as Ambassador of Good Will. He served as an interpreter to President Lyndon Johnson, and painted His Holiness Pope John Paul II on commission.

   This book was a finalist in the Nonfiction Category of the Ninth Annual Austin Writers' League Violet Crown Book Award and honored with a Special Citation for Nonfiction in 1999.