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

No comments about Visible Spaces: Hannah Arendt and the German-Jewish Experience (Johns Hopkins Jewish Studies).

5 comments about Mosaic: A Chronicle of Five Generations.

1. A well written and researched true story. Many, who have grown up after the holocaust, will find it hard to imagine what people went through only a generation ago . Diane was fortunate enough to have many members of her extended family survive (though they have scattered around the world in their effort to do so) and we are fortunate she has written the story of their survival. Readers that are fearful of books about the holocaust that have gruesome details can easily read the book as it is more a book about survival.



2. Excellent account of life in pre-WW2 Poland and the devastating years of the war itself. What is so remarkable is that the survival rate of this family was comparatively high compared to other Holocaust stories - mostly as a result of a family that saw the terror coming, and fleeing outside of the eventual jackboot sphere, with Diana's immediate family living precarious daily lives through their sheer wits in Nazi occupied Poland. How remarkably easy reflect our own lives against these - just to be grateful and marvel at the human spirit, read and be grateful.



3. First i'd like to thank Ms. Armstrong for writing such a wonderful and powerful book. I could really relate to it and i'm sure many readers have as well. Ms. Armstrong writes so well that it is never a struggle to keep track of the abundance of family members, which can sometimes turn a book sour. Her chronicle of her family will make you ponder about your past. I HIGHLY recommend it! It is a stunning read.



4. I absolutely loved "Mosaic: A Chronicle of 5 Generations". I have read many Holocaust memoirs & oral histories, but none have moved me as Diane Armstrong's book has.

   The strength of "Mosaic" is it's breadth and it's protagonists, the author's family. The central family, that of Daniel & Lieba Baldinger & their 11 children is augmented by cousins on the maternal side (the Spira's) as well as the family of Ms. Armstrong's mother, the Bratters. Although Poland is the setting for the first 30 years or so, as WWII beckons the scope becomes the entire continent of Europe as the now-adult children of Daniel & Lieba pursue their lives.

   The majority of the family is caught in Nazi-controlled Poland & thru various ruses attempts to escape being deported to the death camps. These are the most thrilling sections of "Mosaic" because Ms. Armstrong's writing is so vivid that the reader can feel the never-ending fear that she & her family lived with for years. While she & her parents live as Catholics in a small Polish village, her aunt & young cousins are standing behind a wardrobe for days at a time in Krakow; we experience both types of anxiety as well as many others as the author recounts the many ruses various family members undertook to survive.

   There were family members outside of Poland during WWII as well. With 2 uncles in France, another uncle who moved his family from Belgium thru Spain to finally end in Rio de Janeiro & various aunts & cousins everywhere from Andorra to Tel Aviv the reader is treated to a kaleidoscope of war experiences. The post-war years & family diaspora is dealt with in detail also.

   What makes "Mosaic" especially memorable for me is that nobody is a "hero" or does "historic deeds" at any point in the book. While most Holocaust memoirs are by individuals who somehow stood out from the crowd, this account is of the members of that crowd, the folks who by simply surviving without compromising themselves became heroes. It is a marvelous reminder that everyone has a story worth telling.

   The final chapter, in which Diane Armstrong & her daughter Justine return to Poland & reunite with the priest who befriended & helped her family shines with joy & compassion. I truly hope that Father Roman Soszynski had the opportunity to read this book. I hope that you will read it as well.




5. Gripping, exciting, and suspenseful reading. Great factual writing with immense feeling. Diane Armstrong took me back to my own childhood. I lost my then nineteen-year-old sister as well as grand parents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends from school to the holocaust. It was painful as well as joyous to read. The book brought back memories and filled in some necessary gaps from my own past. A reader of a book which I wrote sent me MOSAIC all the way from Australia to the USA. I am very grateful to her. This book encompasses five generations of the author's families including detailed explanations of Jewish traditions then and now. For those of you who escaped the holocaust, you will be able to relate with it. For all others, it will be an eye-opening experience.

3 comments about Abe's Story: A Holocaust Memoir.

1. Joseph Korn's story of his father's triumph as a young man surviving the worst experiences of the holocaust caught me by surprise. I was not expecting such a spiritually uplifting story. Abe Korn not only survived the most arduous physical and mental trials through the most horrifying of experiences, he survived with incredible humanity intact that bore no hatred or malice to his captors. This is the most spiritually uplifting book I've ever read on the holocaust, and of the rare type that surely must have insprired Roberto Benigni in his Emmy-award winning movie 'Life is Beautiful.'



2. Abram Korn was a man of great courage. After suffering at the hands of the Nazis in a ghetto and, later, in many concentration camps, he still did not lose his faith, his courage, or his humanity. In fact, he ended up marrying a German girl! This book lets us have a glimpse of what day-to-day life was like in the camps, and how much survival mattered.



3. This is a wonderful book. It showed that to be a survivor of the Holocaust required ingenuity, resourcefulness, luck and faith. The ending of the book brought tears to my eyes. Abe Korn was the epitome of the meaning of the word Mench.

1 comments about The Jewish Contribution to the Modern World.

1. I very much like the idea of the book. I also like the fact that King chooses people from a wide variety of areas of work. He does not give short shrift to the scientific and technical people. He also tries to place each individual and the contribution they make in some kind of wider context. However I would have preferred that the individual entries be longer and more detailed. The entry for instance on Einstein is unsatisfactory and does not give any real sense of his many contributions to scientific work. There were also people omitted who I believe belong in the book.
   Nonetheless as a general book, and one whose aim is to highlight the contributions Jews have made to Mankind, I believe this to be a valuable work.

3 comments about In the Lion's Mouth: Gisi Fleischmann & the Jewish Fight for Survival.

1. Gisi Fleischmann's pre-Holocaust life was unexceptional, but the woman, it turned out, was not. Strong both in moral principle and in determination to act, effective both as an inspiration to others and as a doer, Fleischmann set her whole being to the task of saving Jewish lives--in exchange, inevitably, for her own. The story of her activities and those of her Slovakian colleagues has been kept alive in memory through the exhaustive research of Joan Campion. Based on archival materials and on interviews with surviving family members and friends, the book describes the real-life nightmare in a way that is the more disturbing for being low-keyed. Our only consolation is our recognition that here was a heroine.

   Notes, bibliography, archival and interview sources, and index are included.




2. There are a hundred ways to tell the story of the Holocaust. Books have been written on the history, sociology, psychology and political conditions that contributed to the Nazi efforts to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The most moving books on the Holocaust, however, often concentrate on the fate of a family or an individual. "The Diary of Anne Frank" comes immediately to mind. Joan Campion has chosen that personal approach to tell the story of Gisi Fleischmann and her efforts to save Slovakian Jews. The resulting book brings back to life a strong, courageous woman. She appears to have been quite an ordinary woman who showed great bravery and intelligence in dealing with extraordinary challenges. In their efforts to destroy millions of innocent people, the Nazis also destroyed potential. We can never know what art, music, literature and scientific discoveries were lost in the death camps. But thanks to Joan Campion, another of Hitler's victims will be remembered, and he is denied another posthumous victory.



3. Over the years, when friends and I have discussed the Holocaust and the way in which the courageous acts of certain individuals made a difference in thousands of lives, names such as that of Raoul Wallenberg would inevitably be mentioned. I would bring up the name Gisi Fleischmann, because I had had the good fortune to read "In the Lion's Mouth," and to learn of her all-but-unknown efforts to call international attention to the plight of Slovakian Jews in the latter years of World War II.

   Joan Campion's fluid narrative deftly guides the reader through the series of audacious negotiations and plans undertaken by Fleischmann and her colleagues to stave off the impending "Final Solution." The story's drama is heightened by Fleischmann's devotion to the work of saving as many people as possible- especially children -while being torn with anxiety for the safety of her own family.

   There are people still living to whom Gisi Fleischmann did, indeed, make a difference. How wonderful that, thanks to Campion's efforts, her story is once again available in a world language!

1 comments about Witness to Annihilation: Surviving the Holocaust.

1. Samuel Drix was a physician in Lvov, was one of the great Jewish communities of pre-war Poland, whose fate under the Nazis was one of the worst and yet gets little attention from historians. Drix was caught in a roundup and sent to the Janowska camp on the outskirts of the city. This camp left few survivors. Run by some of the most vicious commandants, Janowska had hardly an equal in the brutal treatment of its prisoners. Drix's memoir is unusual for several other reasons. It is one of the few accounts of a professional; it gives a vivid glimpse into the conditions in the Lvov ghetto as well as in the camp and it tells of Drix's remarkable escape from certain death and his subsequent , quite startling, experiences among Polish and Ukranian peasants in the countryside where he survived in hiding until the end of the war.

No comments about Jewish Lists.

5 comments about Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East.

1. There are numerous biographical details given about Globocnik, especially his early life, but these are overshadowed by this study of his anti-Jewish and anti-Polish policies. This is probably the best English-language study of GENERALPLAN OST in theory and in action.
   
   The German dream of removing all the indigenous Polish people and the Jews, and replacing them with ethnic Germans, long predated the Nazis: e. g., Adolf Bartels, Heinrich von Class, Paul de Lagarde, and Otto von Bismarck. (p. 144) On August 22, 1939, Hitler said: "Poland will be depopulated and then settled by Germans...Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" (p. 161) "To the Poles, Globocnik was yet another Germanic Margrave set on finally destroying them..." (p. 332)
   
   Poprzeczny hints at why the Germans usually treated Jews and Poles differently: "The administration of Dr. Hans Frank sought quite vigorously to see rural parts of Poland become a productive force in the overall German scheme of things. That administration did not seek to see the Poles tormented to the point of inflaming resistance, which Globocnik and von Mohrenschildt did provoke after November 1942, by launching their cleansing of the Zamosc Lands with Himmler's concurrence." (p. 199)
   
   In "Operation Zamosc", the Germans removed up to 200,000 Poles (p. 237) from nearly 300 villages (p. 182). Most of the Poles were sent to Germany for forced labor, while others were murdered locally or in death camps. Polish guerilla warfare, especially by the BCh (Bataliony Chlopskie: Peasant Battalions) and the AK (Armia Krajowa: Home Army) grew in intensity and became the "Zamosc Uprising". (pp. 182-183). The Germans tried to suppress it with increasing brutality, but eventually the Polish guerillas got the upper hand (p. 190), and this, plus German reverses on the eastern front, put a stop to this operation.
   
   The genocide of Poles in Volhynia in 1943 by the UPA (so-called Ukrainian Insurgent Army) is blamed by some Ukrainians on the Poles having first attacked innocent Ukrainian settlements in Hrubieszow in 1942. They were anything but! The Ukrainian officials and "settlers" had been collaborating with the Germans and their de-Polonization actions. (pp. 181-182, 190-191, 317, 320-323, etc.). (In addition, Polish actions against Ukrainian settlements were trivial in scale compared with the UPA's genocide against Poles).
   
   GENERALPLAN OST, of which "Operation Zamosc" had been merely a foretaste, had called for the resettlement of 100 million Slavs (p. 3), including 21 million Poles, to desolate western Siberia. But how could western Siberia, even with expensive development, possibly support so many people? Note that early plans for "Jewish reservations" (e. g., pp. 148-149, 154-155, 217) had to be abandoned as unrealistic, giving way to extermination. So how could the equally-unrealistic Slav-reservation plans fail to eventually follow the same course? For elaboration, see the Peczkis review of Hans Frank, Lebensraum and the Final Solution.



2. I have written another English-language biography about Odilo Globocnik and collaborated with Joe Poprzeczny for years while he wrote his book. I therefore feel that I can vouch for his character in this impromptu forum.
   
   First of all: Joe's Globocnik biography was no slap-dash job, but instead an extensive research in archives spanning almost twenty years. You see, Globocnik to Joe was the nemesis of a lifetime, because the "SS-Gruppenführer" deported Joe's mother in 1943 and put her in a concentration camp.
   
   During the final stage of the war, Joe's mother and other prisoners were shuttled to the Old Reich, and that is how Joe became a German native. He was born in Trier and moved to Australia as a young child. His mother refused to speak about the camp until very late in her life. The search for his roots and the man who caused so much misery for his family was the driving force behind this exceptional work, which has baffled historians with a host of heretofore unknown facts about Globocnik and his entourage.
   
   Joe is not one to rely on secondary sources. He had a host of detailed questions about Globocnik's Carinthian group that stimulated my own work. It was Joe's tenacity and journalistic skill that unearthed Globocnik's second fiance Irmgard Rickheim and made her talk to him.
   
   This is an important book. I know a lot of Holocaust historians and some who have read this book. Nobody found its sources questionable (even though a sensitive editor would have removed the Irving quotes). If you want an inside take on the daily lives of Holocaust perpetrators this is where you get it.



3. Globocnik was a Nazi conspirator who became one of the worst of the monsters - amazingly enough, this is the first full-length book in English about him and as such is an essential read for all interested in the period.
   
   One necessary correction. There are some odd comments about the book in the first review, from which it could be assumed David Irving is a major source for this work: he isn't and indeed the author is careful to refer to Irving at the outset as "controversial", as well as only citing Irving on material where his well-known bias is not a potential distorting factor. Yes, there are many secondary sources but the author also includes many primary sources, and indeed uses them wherever possible. This is a work of scholarship, not the instant potboiler implied in the earlier review.



4. Poprzeczny was not treated justly by the previous reviewer. Nobody before Poprzeczny wrote a biography of Globocnik in English, a man who killed 1,5 million people, most of them Jews. All major US univeristy libraries have this book now. It is quoted by academic historians and Jewish historical websites.
   As for the panctuation. Well, not everybody has to apply the American way of punctuation, Poprzeczny is not an American, he is an Australian, so he writes the Australian way. As far as comments concerning David Irwing, this comment is odd, as Poprzeczny clearly identifies where he stands recording Globocnik's murders and his efforts to loot the Jewish property.
   The sources cited are reliable, now worries there. And many of them have been dug out from places forgotten by historians.



5. Odilo Globocnik, Hiter's Man in the East should have a lot going for it. The author obviously feels passionately about his subject; and an English biography is much needed. However, there are undeniable major problems with this book. Firstly. it's very poorly written. Punctuation and cadence are those of a non-English speaker. Secondly, and more importantly, Mr. Poprzeczny's references are lacking and controversial. For instance, rather than consult original documents or research materials, he chooses to use the works of David Irving, rightwing Holocaust denier. Although Mr. Irving is explained to be an "historical revisionist" in footnotes, no mention is made of this in text. Readers from the States and UK, especially, will find this to be a major trigger -- are the rest of the resources so questionable? Mostly, no. Mostly...
   
   Odilo Globocnik *was* Hitler's man in the East. He did his job ruthlessly well. The book does convey that truth. However, I wish it told the rest of the truth with more credibility.
   
   Had I been able to see the list of sources used, I wouldn't have spent my time or money on this biography.

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.