No comments about Survivor's Tales.

1 comments about Little Miracles.

1. this book is so touching and so very well written..........it touches the heart and soul........one can picture in their minds the content....tears rolled down my eyes on several chapters...........my husband is also a survivor...........he and his family hid in the woods for several years...i understand dr bichler's book so well.........kudos to you.

No comments about Nathan's Bitterness and Salvation.

4 comments about Hearing a Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search for Identity.

1. There is something very special and moving in the telling of author Benjamin Hirsch's life story that is much deeper than just his own memoirs; it is like he is here to remind all of us about events that happened long ago. In his well written and inspirational book, "Hearing A Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search For Identity", he becomes another voice for the victims of the Nazi extermination camps. It is clear that his voice is needed in today's world that tries to forget, hide or worse yet--to deny the holocaust ever happened.
   
   Hirsch tells us about his childhood in Germany and how his father was arrested in his own home and taken away by the SS and put in a work camp. His mother sends off her older children--three boys and two girls to France to remain in hiding and eventually to find their way to America. His mother keeps her two youngest children with her so the family is broken apart in many ways and not just physically. The author finds out after the war that both his parents and his little sister and brother have been killed in the Nazi Extermination Camps.
   
   Hirsch ends up in Atlanta, Georgia joining the rest of his surviving siblings. He is raised in a supportive Jewish community but he is an orphan none the less and there is all the emotional pain and loss of not knowing what happened to his family. This story is heart wrenching even though the author himself understates the obvious emotions that must have troubled him in his youth or even today.
   
   The bulk of the book focuses on the author's U.S. Army experiences in Germany and his personal search for what happened to his family. In the course of discovering his family history, he reconnects with his Jewish roots and rediscovers his spiritual life. It is a touching account of a young man alone in Europe finding his old country of Germany. However, it is not a home coming since he remembers so little; having been just 6 years old when he was sent off by train before the out break of WWII.
   
   There are some touching moments of reconnections with others from his past in almost miraculous ways and he reunites with the French couple that took him into their home some man long years before. There is so much more that I wanted to know about this man and his life that he left closed or veiled for public reading; it is my hope that his next book takes us on an inner journey to learn more about this most interesting man who also designed memorials to Jewish holocaust victims.
   
   I found myself on a personal level with his story for two reasons. One reason is that I have a six year old grandson and wondered what life would be like if he was suddenly taken away and sent to another country never to see his parents or grandfather again. The other reason deals with my wonderful experiences in Atlanta in 1968 with an Army buddy from Fort Benning. He had relatives there and had asked me to join him for some Jewish holidays with them. I was accepted into their home and at their temple for services and ate at their table afterwards. I was emotionally made to feel so welcomed and loved. I felt like family. That memory still makes me feel, warm inside remembering it.
   
   The only negative note from that visit was when one of the relatives told me about some of the discrimination that they had to deal with even in the late 1960's in the south. It seems socially there were still some major barriers to clubs, organizations and even employment. It blew me away because I never thought that was an issue before. It was never a part of my world. They seemed very surprised that I joined them in their temple as well. But to me, there is but one God and all temples and churches are places of worship so I saw no conflict. After all, didn't Jesus to the temple services.
   
   This book will make you think, feel and have emotions. It also has some lighter moments and is an easy to read book. If you were only going to read one book this coming year make it this one!
   
   The MWSA gives this book its top rating of FIVE STARS! I also give it my personal endorsement!



2. Fascinating story of a man with a quest. Not only is it interesting to try to understand the mindset of a holocaust survivor, but also paints a very real picture of what it was like to be in the US Army in the 1950's.



3. In Hearing A Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search For Identity, Benjamin Hirsch offers a riveting memoir that related how as a nine year old refugee he first arrived in 1941 at New York Harbor. He, along with his two older sisters and two older brothers, had been sent away from Frankfurt am Main, Germany, by his mother to avoid the holocaust that was descending on the Jewish communities throughout Nazi occupied Europe. During the years of the Korean War Hirsch was an American solider stationed in Germany, where he discovered the horrific fate of his parents and younger siblings. Hirsch writes with candor and vivid description, in introducing us to the life of his uncle Philipp Auerbach, who recorded German atrocities that are still denied today -- that soup was made from some of the bodies of the murdered Jews. Hearing A Different Drummer is an important, exceptionally well written contribution to 20th Century Judaic and Holocaust studies.



4. A child escapes from Germany with 4 of his siblings and finds his way to America. This is his history including joining the army even though he is still a German citizen, and afterwards becoming a prize winning architect.

3 comments about Berlin-Shanghai-New York: My Family's Flight From Hitler.

1. If you savor stories about people who overcome the most daunting obstacles and thrive nevertheless, this is the book you'll want to read and recommend. And, as in this instance, if it is a true recounting, then that makes the accomplishment even more impressive. Berlin Shanghai New York subtitled My Family's Flight From Hitler is a totally engrossing 300 page book that chronicles what happened to an esteemed Jewish doctor and his family when the Nazis came to power. Thanks to the clarity of the writing, the telling of this family's hardship-filled journey is compellingly told. One question here is whether a man of science, with the commitment to be objective, can remain so and still subjectively report on the austere predicament in which he was trapped? The answer is yes. He managed to balance both needs quite evenly and made the hardships of living under the Nazi and the Japanese dictatorships so terrifyingly vivid. The writing sustains a palpable tension which hovers throughout this journal. To his credit, Dr. Friedrichs managed to maintain a sense of humor, understandably a dark one, but one that leavened the unnerving conditions. Being able to participate in musical groups - he was a clarinetist - also allowed some relief. His descriptions bear a strong sense of urgency and immediacy. Throughout those peril-filled years, Dr. Friedrichs remained the civilized family man and devoted physician. The unmistakable impression left with this reader is that Dr. Friedrichs was an outstanding medical practitioner who never failed to uphold his oath to aid the infirm even under the most dispiriting circumstances. Packed with so many rich anecdotes, and colorful characters, the history of this family's journey reads much like a terrific novel. It could make for a powerful moving film. I strongly recommend it.



2. Review of : BERLIN SHANGHAI NEW YORK: My Family's Flight from Hitler
   By: Dr. Theodor Friedrichs
   Translated and edited by Frederick Rolf
   A Must read:
   As an American born to immigrant parents, it is still impossible for this reader to imagine anyone surviving the horrors of Hitler's holocaust and/or the flight to a foreign country. However, reading what Dr. Friedrichs had the courage to write, it is clear that he did so with enormous civility at a time when life was anything but civilized.
   This book is testimony to Dr. Friedrichs's incredible humanity... and, while others have, of course, written stories of devastation and dehumanization under Hitler's regime, this is a book that must not be overlooked; its style is simple, but its content is as complex as any one person's life can possibly be portrayed.
   Like many who were a part of Germany's successful professionals, Dr. Friedrichs - a beloved family physician - couldn't believe what was happening in his country. He escaped - with great effort and ingenuity - just in time to save his life and that of his wife and eldest son. His youngest, the son who edited this testimony, was sent to England and separated from the family for years ... the sort of separation most Americans have never had to willingly suffer.
   Page after page, one can only marvel at the fact that while Dr. Friedrichs's own health and that of his wife was compromised time and again in the new climate and cramped conditions of living in Shanghai, he never seemed to lose his ability to treat patients, friends and family alike with the sort of spirit one expects only from those whom we would refer to as saints.
   This kind, brilliant man was not only a healer. Not so surprisingly, he was also a musician, a man with music in his soul and artistry in his ability to carve out a life of dignity where most found only despair. This is a must read book for students of history as well as for anyone wanting to be both emboldened and inspired by a son's ability to keep his father's story alive for others to learn about: the power of a man's love for his wife and children; a physician's dedication to help save and heal the pain of any and all patients; and an unending belief in the goodness of mankind despite the evil of a few.
   I doubt that many of us could ever know whether or not we would have been able to endure and survive as did Dr. Friedrichs, but we must honor the memory of men like him who managed to take notes on scraps of paper and remembered in detail all that he felt he had to remember so that the world would one day know what happened.
   Now that Mr. Rolf has shared his father's story, we must listen. We owe his father no less ... for we must not forget, since other holocausts confront us and remaining silent can no longer ever be an option.
   
   Linda Appleman Shapiro
   Psychotherapist
   Author, FOUR ROOMS, UPSTAIRS: A Psychotherapist's Journey Into and Beyond Her Mother's Mental Illness



3. "We are fortunate that this invaluable document has been made available to a broad public. Dr. Friedrichs was an uncompromising observer. He told and reflected upon so many details of his and his family's plight preceding his departure from Germany, that the interval of more than six decades shrinks to no time at all. The reader is drawn into the immense physical and emotional stress of the months during which the Nazi government wished to see as many Jews as possible leave the country, and at the same time piled one barrier upon another in its greed to squeeze out of these people virtually all their material belongings. . .
   
   This is a moving memoir of a family's fate, and a most vivid and informative documentation of what it took to survive amid the gigantic turmoil unleashed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Dr. Friedrichs' view on these events serves as a powerful reminder of those horrific times and a sober warning never to forget."
   
   Paul U. Unschuld
   Horst-Goertz Institute
   Charité
   Berlin

No comments about HOMERUN: Krijgsgevangen, Ontsnapt, Soldaat.

1 comments about Milly's Story: A Young Girl's Memories Of The Second World War, Luxembourg 1940-1945.

1. This book should be read by all those interested in Luxembourg genealogy, and especially by all those whose Dad fought in the European Theater of WWII. The story of the Americans who billeted with Milly's family is absolutely priceless. I was also thoroughly enchanted by the glimpses of life in an occupied country. Much of what I read explained my research either into Luxembourg genealogy or WWII in general. (Do YOU know why Beethoven's Fifth was a codeword? I do now!! Reminds me of an old Basil Rathbone movie...). Enjoy this easy read--such fun shouldn't be missed!

5 comments about Yossel: April 19, 1943 / Yossel: April 19, 1943/ Spanish Ediiton.

1. Joe Kubert has created war stories for DC comics. His stories echo the echo of the human spirit. In Yossel, his storytelling is an a high arc
   
   This case study of the effects of war is done in pencils. It is war storytelling with a heart.
   
   
   It would seem this graphic novel was Kubert's sketches and rough drafts. However, as he explains "This book is pencil rendering, rather than inked drawings". This is Kurbert, the artist and storyteller at work..This is his Maus (see the review).., It has power from his pencil drawing. I would stack this against any other war graphic novel from the Nam, Kubert's Sgt, Rock: Between A Rock and a Hard Place (see the review) to Maus as this is one of the best War fiction books
   
   With such power, you would be foolish not to read this and see for yourself
   
   Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD



2. I had high hopes for this book: a well known artist turns his attention to the tragic events of the Holocaust. There are some fine moments in the artist's portrayal of the Warsaw ghetto in his persona as a youth who loves to draw. But, and here are my problems. 1) the artist spends too much time obsessing about his own gifts as an artist. Far from creating a kind of meta-artistic aura, this insistent preoccupation begins to look more like narcissism and self-regard (look at me).
   2) The book is divided between the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz. The only problem is that Jews from Warsaw were sent not to Auschwitz, which is narrated at length in the second half, but to Treblinka. This glaring inaccuracy is probably due to the fact that the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz are the two best known Holocaust sites and the artist wanted to combine them, but this is hardly a justification for misrepresenting the facts. 3) From a technical standpoint, the account of Auschwitz told by an escapee is second hand -- but Kubert makes no distinction in style between the narrative of the artist character and what he hears from another. Hence instead of two levels of graphic representation, there is only one. I believe that this detracts both from the book's credibility and its artistic ambitions.
   I taught this book last year in a university course on Children in War, but would not use it again.



3. The themes of time and place are everywhere in this graphic novel. The author, Joe Kubert, a successful comic book artist, imagines what his life would have been like had his Jewish family not left Poland in 1926. Instead of growing up in the relative safety of the United States, drawing his favorite super heroes, Kubert's alter-ego Yossel sketches horrifying scenes from the Warsaw Ghetto. His parents and sister have been deported to a concentration camp, but his artistic skills impress the Nazis enough to temporarily save him from the same fate. When his former rabbi appears and tells what is really happening in the camps, Yossel and a ragged band of survivors turn on the Nazis and launch the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Yossel's sketches are made in the depth of the sewers, to which the ill-fated group has retreated to fight their last battle. Although Yossel is fictional, the leader of uprising is based on a real person. There are many novels for young adults about World War II, but this one is unforgettable, capturing through simple text and stark black and white drawings the despair of one teenage boy, who against insurmountable odds fights for survival in the Warsaw Ghetto. The book was written in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto and should be on every list of Holocaust literature.



4. In the preface to this heartrending graphic novel, author Joe Kubert describes how his family, having failed in its first attempt to flee the small Polish town of Yzeran, finally succeeded in coming to America in 1926. He then wonders what fate would have befallen him and his family if they had been forced to remain in Poland during German occupation in World War II. This book is, in essence, an alternate-history autobiography of the teenaged cartoonist Yossel, as his family is sent to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. Because his abilities as a cartoonist entertain the German guards, Yossel is given special favors and permitted to stay behind in the ghetto while his parents and sister are sent to the concentration camps. As he struggles for survial in the ghetto, Yossel first bears witness to and chronicles the horrors of the Holocaust in his drawings, and finally joins the Ghetto Uprising of 1943.
   
   Kubert's raw pencil renderings provide an incredible emotional impact as they depict the anguish of the residents of the Warsaw ghetto, the inhumanity of the concentration camps, and the courage of the Warsaw ghetto resistance fighters. This story is amazingly personal, since Kubert bases it on letters his parents received from war survivors and since he places himself in the story. It is a moving account of a very painful period in history, but it is a story that needs to be told and retold because its events must never be forgotten.
   
   Eileen Rieback



5. Basically, Joe Kubert, the author and artist of this graphic, is doing a "what-if" story based on if his family did not make it to America when they originally left Poland. It works well as a historical peice because all of the things that happen in the story are based on interpretations of what COULD have happened to a young man in the Warsaw Ghetto. Additionally, the author makes the story very believable because Kubert looks at it from a VERY personal perspective in that it's a first person narrative. The graphics in this book are absolutely beautiful in their rough form. The pictures are reproduced to appear as pencil drawings, and the unfinished look and rough style of 50+ year comic veteran, Kubert, do nothing but enhance this already impressive story. His sketches are amazing. They're rough, but very detailed. They have such a human characteristic in their rendering, in that they're very detailed but also very 'flawed.' It makes them perfect for the story. They reflect the narrator's emotions and feelings throughout the story and also manage to change as the story goes on, as the narrator's views and beliefs change throughout the story.

   This is basically what a graphic novel is SUPPOSED to be. A great story told through both pictures and words. It's also a heart-wrenching view into a very sad time and place in our history. Normally, I'd say that being a comic book fan would create a bias towards a graphic novel. This is not your average comic book/graphic novel. This is an amazing tale of heroism and sadness told through words and images. If you care at all about good, heartfelt storytelling, then you should purchase this Graphic Novel. It will not disappoint...

5 comments about Thinking of Germany at Night: A Personal View of the Years 1927-1956.

1. I have had the pleasure of talking to the Author and he is indeed a great guy. The book is very interesting and covers areas that US History buffs that watch US history media would no know about. A born US Citizens service in the German army, .... what what is not interesting about that ? Give it a read, good stuff.



2. Critically acclaimed navelist Anne Tyler (The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lesssons) has red Thinking of Germany at Night by Rainulf Stelzmann. She comments: "What a time you have lived through. A dark and difficult storuy. I am grateful to you for sharing it."



3. The British historian and medieval mystery writer (Athelstan, Corbett, Canterbury Tales) has read "Thinking of Germany at Night" and calls it a "most fascinating book" in a letter to the author.



4. The eminent British historian and medieval mystery writer Dr. Paul C. Doherty has read "Thinking of Germany at Night" and calls it a "most fascinating book."



5. German-American Cultural Center Newsletter, Vol 4 #2 March/April 2002

No comments about Out of the Third Reich: Refugee Historians in Postwar Britain (International Library of Historical Studies).