No comments about Why The Sea Is Boiling Hot.

No comments about Otto, the Boy at the Window: Peter Abeles True Story of Escape from the Holocaust and New Life in America.

2 comments about Surviving Despair: A Story About Perseverance.

1. Herman's descriptions are so good that you feel you're right there with the main character watching the moments of his life unfold and seeing him persevere through all the horrors of the war and the holocaust and beyond. The story follows a boy from a small village in Poland, where he grew up before the war, to separation from his family, flight to Russia, and his attempt to make a life after all his losses.



2. I finished reading "Surviving Despair" yesterday; it took a while because I wanted to go slowly and absorb the historical information. Also, there were so many times I just had to stop because the tears blurred the words. It is such a powerful story with so much sadness, mixed in with some happiness and hope. It is a remarkable document of an unimaginable time in history.
   
   David was so reluctant to share with others (even his own family) the trauma and tragedies in his life. Yet, he obviously shared so much with the author, Herman Taube.
   
   David's relationship (or lack of) with his sons and grandchildren was so disturbing. I wonder if Uriel had married a Jewish woman and had Michael been straight would it have been easier to connect with his sons. I think not. I think his sons were too much a reminder of the children he lost in the fire.
   
   The book also reinforced the role of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in the lives of the survivors.For so many survivors, the museum is their voice. David certainly found new purpose in his life at the museum.
   
   Thank you, Herman, David and Rose for this precious gift

No comments about A Jewish Family in Germany Today: An Intimate Portrait.

5 comments about Growing Up Under Hitler.

1. This was a fascinating read that gives a perspective on WWII that you seldom, if ever, hear. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in WWII history. I have come away from reading it with a broader understanding of topics that tend to be taught from only one point of view. This is a valuable asset, and I'm glad I had the oppotunity to read it.



2. Mr. Knapp has presented a unique look into the mind of a dictator and how such a person was able to affect an entire population. Mr. Knapp is able to convey that not all citizens were negativly influenced by the Nazi propagnada machine. The reader is struck by the fact that the young Mr. Knapp is able to maintain both his humanity and dignity throughout a most difficult period in his life. This book is quite relavant in that similar regimes exist today, often without national boundries. A factinating read.



3. The book gives a new insight into every day life under Hitler through the eyes of child. It is truely absorbing and I could not put it down until I completed reading. I thank the author for this excellent book.



4. The book gives a new insight into every day life under Hitler through the eyes of child. It is truely absorbing and I could not put it down until I completed reading. I thank the author for this excellent book.



5. The book gives a new insight into every day life under Hitler through the eyes of child. It is truely absorbing and I could not put it down until I completed reading. I thank the author for this excellent book.

1 comments about Darling Mutti.

1. 
   After the Nazis began persecuting Jews in Germany, many Jewish families were driven to desperate measures to try to protect their loved ones.
   Some Jews were smuggled by night across the borders into other countries, a few were able to emigrate to safe countries such as the USA, Canada, Britain and Israel, some were separated from their parents and sent to England on the kindertransports.
   This book documents the accounts of three cousins Gerda Mailich, Kurt Herrmann and Edith Twelkemeier who managed to escape death at the hands of the Nazis but were torn from their families who perished in Hitler's inferno.
   Gerda's story consists of an account by Gerda's daughter, Joan Marshall, describing her mother's life in Germany and migration to South Africa, and a series of letters to Gerda's mother.
   Edith's story tells of Edith's journey on the kindertransports and her adoption by a Scottish family after her arrival in Britain.
   Kurt's story tells of the horrors experienced in Germany, Kurt's escape from Germany and his participation in the war effort as a soldier in the US Army, including a Passover Seder in Belfast, and a visit after the war to the ghetto of Theresienstadt.

2 comments about The Seventh Miracle.

1. I receive many books for review; thus, when I opened Jorge Klainman's The Seventh Miracle I planned to skim through it, but I couldn't;it grabbed me from the start...Klainman relates this tale of horror like a born storyteller; he writes with the great economy and simplicity of on who has lived it, which creates in the reader a high degree of empathy...His story is both heroic and sad, and yet (I can't believe that I am writing this) it also has moments of humor. The saddest part of this incredible story is that his brother Moniek, who had managed to survive the Holocaust, should die shortly afterwards from complications of appendicitis, before Klainman could be reunited with him. Highly recommended reading, gripping, breathtaking until the very end. -- Mario Wainstain, Aurora Weekly, Tel Aviv.



2. It is with deep emotion that I read The Seventh Miracle. To think that a young boy, bereaved of all his family, had to experience what he did; to know that he did not share his horrible experiences with his family or friends for decades--so deeply were they engraved in him; and to understand that they burst out with full force after having spent 50 years in Argentina--this is what the reader of this unique book is requested to do. He has undergone such tortures, physically and emotionally; he spent his boyhood in ghettos and camps--and still he remained an optimist, a man of values and hope. I believe the book should reach a many hands as possible, in order to spread this story of the triumph of the Jewish spirit-- ....

No comments about Come Spring.

4 comments about Silvie.

1. Just when you think it can't get more real or more intense, it does. This is not light reading, but if you really want to see inside the soul of real life survivor (not someone who can do 15 hours of shopping in a crowded mall,) this is for you. Silvie is my new best friend, putting all my petty problems into perspective and showing me again that we can be bigger than our environment!



2. SILVIE is more than a testament to the human spirit and its will to survive against all odds. It is more than the story of a beautiful and talented young woman on the brink of life and love, caught up in the unspeakable horror of Hitler's war against the Jews. Silvia Grohs-Martin, in her brilliantly absorbing autobiography, engages the reader's wide range of emotions; laughter, tears, chills, thrills, outrage, compassion and love, all within the context of a single chapter; at times, a single paragraph. A compelling read from start to finish, Ms. Grohs-Martin's acute sense of detail, her innate joie de vivre, and her delicious sense of humor combine to tell her true story of enormous courage, hope and, yes, romance against a background of modern history's most devastating and shameful period. Never self-indulgent or self-pitying, always taut and engrossing, SILVIE reads like a Steven Spielberg screenplay, complete with bigger-than-life heroine whose youthful exhuberance turns to heroic defiance in the face of her formidable enemy, one she cannot conquer on her own, but one she can survive. It was perhaps her youthful zest, her determination to live out a full, rich life that gave this enchanting young woman the strength and the ability to carry her through to personal victory, despite the treacherous traps she encountered at every turn. From her youth as an aspiring actress in Vienna to her years as an ingenue at Amsterdam's legendary Hollandsche Schouwburg (Dutch Theater,) to its transformation into a Nazi-controlled deportation center for the Jews, to her numerous encounters with Nazi officials, and her uncanny capacity to escape their clutches, SILVIE not only prevails, she soars. Ultimately, SILVIE's extraordinary account of survival teaches us all that although we may not always be able to control our external circumstances, we can always control our reaction to them. A completely exhilerating read! I love SILVIE -- the book and the woman!



3. "Silvie" is a testament to the spirit and love for life that is possible and should be celebrated. Silvia Gros-Martin shares with her readers a most incredible example of such strength. With a beautiful, yet haunting, style we follow her back into the bleakest time in our world's history. But as we look through her eyes, we see the world that she loved, the life that she lived with such vigor and passion, and the people that impacted her life, from her childhood in Austria, to her beautiful theatre in Amsterdam, to the Nazi death camps that she survived. The good times and the violently hellish times she endured are depicted with such vivid clarity and honesty that I felt as if I were there with her, sharing her laughter and witnessing her bravery. Taking this journey with Silvie will give the reader a look at this dark period in our history which cannot be found in a textbook. At moments we are joyous, at moments we are horrified by the reality of man's ability to hate and perform unspeakable acts of violence. Silvie's memoir provides a memorable and enlightening journey. I believe it should be read by everyone, for her story will inspire us never to forget or repeat the horrors that she survived. And, it will indeed remind us of our potential to love and embrace life, no matter how uncertain or rigorous that journey may be.



4. SILVI, by Silvia Grohs-Martin is a compelling, affecting and, at times, racking study of the persistance of life in a near void of humanity. Her four years during WWII in German concentation camps -- the longest at the infamous Auschwitz -- are presented not so much as appalling nightmares but as comparative portraits of the unbelievable tenacity of the human will to exist. Just when one feels overwhelmed with the vast array of Holocaust literature and media, SILVI belies the myth that we've "heard it all." The book reads almost like a spy thriller. A teenage girl, already a known singer and entertainer in Europe -- leaps from country to country, one step ahead of the invading Nazis. Surrounded in The Netherlands, with no hope of escape, Silvi finds work in the sole venue open to Jews under the Nazi occupation -- the celebrated Hollandsche Schouwburg Theatre in Amsterdam. While most Americans know of Anne Frank's ordeal at the time, the Schouwburg and it's role as the city's only permitted Jewish theatre/gathering place/art gallery/coffee house and even marriage facility, will come as a surprising revelation. The vast number of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens whose lives were affected by this venerable landmark of the arts is inestimable. When the Nazi's finally close the Theatre, Silvi and her fellow actors are forced to guard their former audience as citizens are hauled to the Theatre and held for deportation. Working secretly in the Dutch Resistance, Silvi is able to convey a number of Jewish children to safety in the countryside. Finally, as she is about to be deported herself, she escapes in a desperate attempt to reach Switzerland. Captured in Belgium she spends the next fours years as a "guest" of the Gestapo regime. Told with a keen narrator's skill of observation and attention to detail, SILVI is at times sad, humorous, appalling, enraging, unthinkable and always, always engrossing. You will not put it down!

1 comments about Run East: FLIGHT FROM THE HOLOCAUST.

1. Run East is truly a rare find. Extremely well written, it is a story of unique inner strength and survival against the greatest of odds. Although Mr. Pomerantz managed to avoid the devastation of the concentration camps, he repeatedly faced challenges of survival that test the outer limits of a person's ability to survive. The situations that Mr.Pomerantz finds himself in are the equal of the best suspense novel. There are lessons of life here for people of all ages, including children. Mr. Pomerantz is required to make decisions about life and survival, his and others, that we all can learn from. Run East is a book of historical significance that you will be glad you read and will long remember.