5 comments about The Cap: The Price of a Life.

1. I will skip the personal details discussed by other reviewers, and focus on matters of historical significance. With one obvious exception, Frister shows an excellent grasp of factual events. He makes the unbelievable statement that the NSZ "did not kill Germans at all" (p. 263), only killed Jews, and then repeats the Communist-propaganda canard that the Brygada Swietokrzyska (Holy Cross Brigade) had fought on the German side.
   
   Even as late as 1941, Frister's mother didn't believe that the invading Germans intended to harm the Jews (p. 180). This adds to similar testimonies, and undercuts the argument that the massive Jewish-Soviet collaboration had been motivated by a desire to be protected from the Nazis.
   
   Unlike those who, from their safe perches, moralize to Poles about their need to have been more willing to risk their lives on behalf of Jews, Frister does not: "And what right did I have to condemn them? Why should they risk themselves and their families for a Jewish boy they didn't know? Would I have behaved any differently? I knew the answer to that, too. I wouldn't have lifted a finger. Everyone was equally intimidated." (p. 192)
   
   Frister writes: "Jozef Kruczek had prepared a perfect hideout for us. Beneath a bale of hay tossed with deliberate carelessness on the floor of the barn was a hidden trapdoor that descended to a cellar as big as a cottage. Before we came this had served as an abattoir. The screeching of the slaughtered pigs remained within its walls--a big help in avoiding German confiscations and getting the meat to the black market." (p. 97). Ironic to Polonophobes (e. g., Jan T. Gross), who accuse Poles of being willing to incur the German-imposed death penalty by illegally slaughtering animals, but seldom by hiding Jews, we see the same Polish secretiveness in both activities! (Besides, slaughtering an animal was a quick one-time act. Hiding a Jew was a continuous risk.)
   
   Unlike most Holocaust materials, Frister's work presents a balanced view of Polish and Jewish misdeeds. He mentions Poles looting Jews (p. 120) as well as regular Pole-on-Pole thievery (p. 100). The Judenrat, besides collaborating with the Germans in the roundups of Jews to their deaths (e. g., p. 92, 105, 120), also stole from poor Jews (p. 120). Jewish informers played an instrumental role in the uncovering of hidden Jews (e. g., p. 105, 112, 120, 190-191). Twice Frister escaped death despite being denounced to the Germans by Jewish informers (p. 112, 190-191), the latter of whom he found to be very clever and diligent in their undercover work. How many other fugitive Jews were betrayed, not by ethnic Poles as automatically assumed, but by Jewish Gestapo agents and informers?
   
   We were told, in the wake of the Auschwitz Carmelite convent controversy, that Jews find Christian symbols offensive because they remind them of past persecutions by Christians. Frister mentions a Jew, Henryk Leiderman, who had no problem with rosaries when it came to selling them to Polish peasants (p. 36).
   
   Frister spent some years in postwar Poland before emigrating to Israel. He is candid about the fact that he, and other Jews, got privileged positions in the Soviet-imposed Communist regime (p. 34, 169).



2. This is a fascinating work of fiction undoubtedly based on a great deal of real-life experience, or if you prefer, it is an autobiographical work with a few fantastic anecdotes included.

   Like all holocaust survivor tales, it includes numerous near misses and miraculous lucky breaks. People who survived ghetto life, concentration camps and death marches to write about their experiences were the exceptions, and invariably their stories include such amazing incidents.

   However, a few incidents read like pure wishful fantasy. I do not believe for example that Roman Frister actually snatched his girlfriend as she emerged from her marriage ceremony and drove her off for a three-day tryst in the mountains, before returning her to her groom...

   Ultimately the fact that his narrative seeks to define its own reality is what makes the book very interesting. The book is about what defines the self, what memory means, what is real, and what, if anything, really matters. The book reminds me in this way of Robert Musil's "Man Without Qualities."




3. I want to say that I really loved this book. The author takes us on one of the best adventure stories of human life that I have read in quite some time. Even though the central theme is his holocost survival he does not dwell on the subject too long, or I should say just long enough. His real adventure begins when he gets out. Learning to survive in the camps gave him the ability to achieve and become successful in life.

   I hope Hollywood picks this one up. I'd love to see it on the screen.




4. This is not Etty Hillesum. This is not Victor Klemperer. This is not Primo Levi.

   I can believe that the author saw his mother killed before his eyes. I can believe that he watched his father die in a camp. I can believe that he survived the camps. After that, I just don't know.

   There are too many heroics for one teenage boy. There are too many miraculous escapes for one survivor. There are too many stories which sound vaguely familiar from elsewhere.

   The book appears to be a life's story which has foundation in fact but which has also liberally incorporated material from the general holocaust history.

   After 90 pages I gave up in exasperation. There seemed to be too many stretchers in the details. They tainted the credibility of the whole.

   A few weeks later I picked up the book again. I started making allowances. After all, if the author wanted to include in his account real outrages which were suffered by others, the outrages did nonetheless occur. I doubt none of them.

   But then near the end of the book I quit again in pluperfect exasperation. The author's story of how he broke back INTO the camp again after an inauspicious breakout lacks plausability completely. He says that he "trampolined" himself back over the fence from the tarpaulin top of an adjacent German truck. This is pure poppycock. The tarpaulins on army trucks are loose, flappy affairs. They are NOT taut, springy, trampoline devices. Not even a true trampoline, if it had been there, would have achieved what the author proposes. Magical realism does not belong in holocaust memoirs.




5. This is one of the best autobiographies ever written, and I have read many. Images from this book will stay in my mind forever, and puts all other troubles and accomplishments into prospective. Frister's eyewitness account proves that there can never be vindication enough for the victims of the Nazi regime.

5 comments about BREAKING THE SILENCE...: Reminiscences of a Hidden Child.

1. Schwarzbart's poignant memoir is an ode to his parents and the 'strangers' who helped him survive. THe memoir stresses the love he bears his mother and father, and the great love they beswtowed on him. This book is a MUST read.



2. In this moving book, Paul Schwarzbart tells of his childhood as a Jewish boy trapped in the horrors of the Holocaust. It is a lively narrative, surprisingly full of vivid memories. Schwarzbart has not forgotten a thing. He was an intelligent child who imprinted in him every detail of every situation.
   Like many others, he tells us of the cruelty of absurdity: his father, a Jewish Austrian refugee in Belgium is arrested at the onset of the war because, as an Austrian, he has become an enemy of Belgium. What seems to be a haven becomes dangerous territory overnight. Like many others, he tells of the despair and bottomless pain of separation from a parent. He tells of the unbearable injustices and crimes committed against the Jews.
   But there is something different in this book. Schwarzbart talks about gratitude. His book is full of reminiscences of gratitude. First and foremost, is the gratitude for his mother and her superb strengths during the endless hardship of the war years. There is gratitude toward all the teachers, school staff and director, simple people who had the courage to rescue young children.
   This book is full of love and hope. In the middle of dire darkness, multiple sparks of light appear to sustain and affirm life. They are all the brave people that Paul Schwarzbart is honoring in his book.



3. Most autobiographies about the Holocaust are full of hopelessness and despair. This one is a true celebration of the human spirit. In 1940, Paul was 7 years old, living with his family in Brussels, when his father was arrested and interned simply for being a Jew. During the ensuing German occupation, for him and his family, life became a new routine of quiet desperation until there was a knock on the door. His mother opened the door to an unknown man who told her that if she wanted to save her son's life, she must let him hide him from the Nazi's, but she must not ask him where Paul was being taken. A neighboring couple offered to let the boy use their surname, and with a new identity, Paul embarked on an overnight train to a distant town where he entered a Catholic boys' school as Paul Exsteen. In this school of 125 boys between the ages of 5 and 14, Paul quickly absorbed this new role as a Catholic, learning the Catechism, going to confession and eventually becoming an alter boy, always under the constant fear that he would be discovered. There were mornings of waking to searches by German soldiers, but Paul's hidden identity was never discovered. Only 45 years later does he learn that 60 of the 125 boys in the school were hidden Jewish children, each sponsored by someone who would have probably been tortured or worse if their involvement had been discovered.
   Eventually, Paul was reunited with his mother and they finally made it to the United States, an impossibility but for the kind assistance of many people at each step of their progress.
   This book is a bittersweet recollection of the Holocaust - the horror of it and the endless sacrifice of people who quietly and with steadfast dedication helped those who might have otherwise been victims of this violent period of history.



4. Paul Schwarzbart writes a poignant love story, a story of love of life, of love of family, of survival in a most treacherous time.
   
   We all "know" the story of the holocaust; but do we really? Paul was a five year old at its beginning. He lived it; he survived it all while suffering the greatest of loss and receiving unbounded love. He brings to the printed page a detailed and vibrant recollection of a gifted child denied his childhood, protected, guided and hidden by strangers of a different faith risking their own lives.
   
   Paul's story lives as a reminder of a world we must never allow to again exist. No other child should ever be subjected to the irrational trauma depicted in Paul's narrative.



5. This is my very best first autobiography, an ode to my dear parents and the righteous gentiles who helped save my life. It is a tale of light and hope amid darkness, which I share directly with my readers in my very own voice. The book is superbly illustrated with photographs of the principals.

No comments about The Little Yellow Train: Survival and Escape from Nazi France (June 1940-March 1944).

1 comments about Maria Zacharczuk-Gruenwald: The true story of a young non-Jewish girl's dreams shattered by the Nazi regime.

1. This book is exciting and heartwarming that describes the story of a young girls experience in a horrible time of our history. The sacrifies and she had to endure without knowing if she was going to live or die and to sustain harsh treatment on a daily basis, suffering from medical complications and lack of food. This book is a true testiment of what war is and the many lives that our destroyed because of hatered and discrimination. A great book for the young and old.

No comments about Saved By the Spirit of Lafayette: The French Righteous & the Hidden Children.

No comments about Lost in a Labyrinth of Red Tape: The Story of an Immigration that Failed (Jewish Lives).

1 comments about Bad Times, Good Friends: A Memoir--Berlin 1945.

1. Ilse Margaret Vogel's book about her tense final months in bombed out Berlin near the end of World War II is well worth reading. Unlike most WW II books detailing life experiences, Vogel captures the youth and excitement of she and her friends that even war could not diminish.

   Vogel's skill as a storyteller is evident as she recalls how she and her friends worked in small ways to protect or shelter those pursued by the Nazi SS. Their efforts, seemingly small, saved lives. The personalities come to life in glimpses of the risks they take and the small victories they share. Some survived, some did not. But the difference they made is significant.

5 comments about Anne Frank Remembered.

1. This is a highly recommended book about Anne Frank and her diary. Miep Gies tells her whole story from start to finish what it really like hiding from the Nazis. She was a friend of the Frank family from the beginning so this is first hand knowledge and a must read for anyone who is interested or has already read the Diary of Anne Frank. It deserves 10 stars but there were only 5 available to give. *****



2. This tape was so captivating I couldn't put it down. I think its the best book I have ever heard of. I think everyone should read it or listen to it on tape. It makes the hardships and danger of World War 2 come alive.



3. This tape was so captivating I couldn't put it down. I think its the best book I have ever heard of. I think everyone should read it or listen to it on tape. It makes the hardships and danger of World War 2 come alive.



4. Anne Frank rembered captured my heat and it will capture anyone's heart who likes to read about Jewish people in hiding. It tells of the hardships of people trying to stay alive during World War 2. This book is one of the best books I have read in my entire life. I know that millions or all ready millions that has read it will be touched by it.



5. This book was the most fabulous book that I have ever read! All my friends liked it and so did I. Thats why I am on aol looking for a website on her. If anyone finds one please contact me at my email adress Heatluver33. thank you and if any of you want to look at this book make sure to read it because you will love it out of your mind!

No comments about Thirteen is My Lucky Number: The Dramatic True Story of a Polish Resistance Fighter.

No comments about Not To Forget, Impossible To Forgive: Poignant Reflections On The Holocaust.