5 comments about Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate.

1. This book enlightened me about many historical connections, above all, about Henry Ford's strong influence on Hitler, and his acceptance of honors from him. The author offers very fine understanding of the American scene that fostered Ford's views, and also the reaction to Ford's publications of major antisemetic works.
   
   Unfortunately, the American scene has recently showed uncomfortable parallels with Ford's views. The antisemetic campaign about the "war on Christmas" makes "Henry Ford and the Jews" all the more relevant in 2005.
   
   Hendrik Hertzberg, in a recent New Yorker article about the ongoing phoney war on Christmas, made a direct connection to Henry Ford and his antisemitism. He wrote:
   
   ... Christmas itself, in something like its recognizably modern
   ... form, with gifts and cards and elves, dates from the early
   ... nineteenth century. The War on Christmas seems to have come
   ... along around a hundred years later, with the publication of
   ... "The International Jew," by Henry Ford, the automobile
   ... magnate, whom fate later punished by arranging to have his
   ... fortune diverted to the sappy, do-gooder Ford Foundation.
   ... "It is not religious tolerance in the midst of religious
   ... difference, but religious attack that they"-the
   ... Jews-"preach and practice," he wrote. "The whole record of
   ... the Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and certain
   ... patriotic songs shows that." Ford's anti-Semitism has not
   ... aged well, thanks to the later excesses of its European
   ... adherents, but by drawing a connection between
   ... Christmasbashing and patriotism-scorning he pointed the way
   ... for future Christmas warriors.
   --- From "Bah Humbug" www.newyorker.com, posted 2005-12-19



2. I think I was the last person in the United States to become aware of Henry Ford's anti-semitism.

   I make it a practice to study one person a month and I decided as a business builder, Henry Ford was worthy of my attention and study.

   I found this particular biography and thought, "OK, this has a completely different approach, let's try it on."

   I found Baldwin's passion and zealousness for his topic and his particular slant to be very powerful. As is frequent in such writing, it also became a barrier because every action Ford took became, through Baldwin's eyes, a matter of Ford being the Personification of Evil.

   I am not condoning Ford's thoughts, beliefs or behaviors. I am believing that not every action he took was a result of some undercurrent of Anti Semitism.

   That said, this book is worth a read due to the level of research Baldwin has done both in this biography and the biography of one of Ford's friends and role models (and less rabidly Anti-Semitic although there was some there) in Thomas Alva Edison.

   I just had this thought: I wonder how many business leaders remain staunchly racist... yet it has gone deeply underground in this age.

   I wonder how many business (and political leaders) continue to harbor less than transformed thought?

   Something to think about... and continue to stand against.




3. Neil Baldwin's "Henry Ford and the Jews" is a compelling look at how a genius at one thing --- the mass production of a good automobile --- could become such a dangerous buffoon when it came to another thing --- the mass production of an idea. At some point, our title character ceased to be just "Henry Ford, automaker" and instead became Henry Ford, wealthy and powerful symbol of international antisemitism. Baldwin's portrait of Ford in all his horrible glory is fascinating.



4. This book by Baldwin gave a searing history of automobile icon
   Henry Ford.Baldwin very capably shows one of the pioneers of
   American industry to be devoutly anti-semite.Ford himself was the
   financier behind a anti-Jewish newspaper that was published in
   Michigan.Ford was a fan of Adolph Hitler. Hitler had a portrait of Ford on thew wall in his office.Henry Ford received an award
   from Hitler and showed up in person to receive it bringing with him many guests.Charles Linberg and Thomas Watson of IBM declined
   the same award.Ford was also able to sell Ford products to the
   Nazis receiving a monopoly on the Nazi vehicle market in the military.This book is packed with documented of Henry Ford's
   anti-semite activities.Read this you will become better informed.
   This is a good book. Buy it.



5. This book by Baldwin gave a searing history of automobile icon
   Henry Ford.Baldwin very capably shows one of the pioneers of
   American industry to be devoutly anti-semite.Ford himself was the
   financier behind a anti-Jewish newspaper that was published in
   Michigan.Ford was a fan of Adolph Hitler. Hitler had a portrait of Ford on thew wall in his office.Henry Ford received an award
   from Hitler and showed up in person to receive it bringing with him many guests.Charles Linberg and Thomas Watson of IBM declined
   the same award.Ford was also able to sell Ford products to the
   Nazis receiving a monopoly on the Nazi vehicle market in the military.This book is packed with documented of Henry Ford's
   anti-semite activities.Read this you will become better informed.
   This is a good book. Buy it.

5 comments about And the Sea Is Never Full: Memoirs, 1969-.

1. After ten years of silence about his experiences in the hell of the Nazi reign, Elie Wiesel has unleashed a literary and humanitarian career, utilizing his pen and memories as means to spread peace and stop hate and violence. And the Sea is Never Full, the memoirs of Elie Wiesel from the year 1969, is more than the attempt of a Holocaust survivor to come to terms with the world that betrayed him; it contains lessons learned by one who has seen the worst of humanity and who still finds the avenue for having faith in people. That avenue, for Elie Wiesel, is God.
   Born to devout Jewish parents on September 30th, 1928 in Sighet, Hungary, Elie Wiesel spent his childhood absorbed in literature and the study of Hasidic Judaism by request of his father, Shlomo Wiesel, who encouraged Elie to take upon the knowledge of Judaic history and culture. He lived his life very peacefully in Sighet, a town with an enormous population of Jews, with his parents and his three sisters. This happiness was viciously torn away from Elie when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944 and the Wiesel family was sent to the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. This time marks the beginning of the observations and influences that would lead Elie to devote his life to human rights and nonviolence work, as he narrates in And the Sea is Never Full. 10 years pass. These memoirs are an addition to the endless list of literary works that Elie Wiesel began after writing Night in 1958, his first narrative about his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, the vision of his father's torture to death, and the deaths of his mother Sara and sister Tsipora. Taking on an extensive amount of literary writings and responsibilities, Elie Wiesel's writing and political activism for the African apartheid, Israeli, and other conflicts earns him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for the influence of his pressure for peace.
   The memoirs have one clear focus, and that is on the power of hate, indifference, and religion. And the Sea is Never Full relates the actions and thoughts of Elie Wiesel molded by his Holocaust experience, though it is filled with Judaic parables dispersed throughout the text as Elie Wiesel encounters new people, each one portrayed in a very raw and human light, each one a child of God. Elie Wiesel presents himself, more than anything, as a Jew and unyielding worshiper of God. He lives his life by the ideals that his Jewish childhood taught him: "It is because it is difficult if not impossible to sing, to pray, to hope that we must trip. [...] Let one person, just one, extend his hand to a beggar, a fugitive, a refugee, and life will be become meaningful for others" (Wiesel 29).
   His words constantly spell out his own reflections on the events that occur in his life after 1969; And the Sea is Never Full is more a diary, a journal into the mind of a man struggling to do everything in his power to prevent the repetition of the Holocaust. Wiesel is a master traveler in his text, darting from country to country, city to city to participate in committees for Holocaust remembrance events, UNESCO planning, and to teach at City College in New York and at Boston University. We meet and lose Bea, one of Wiesel's sisters who survived the Holocaust; we meet Gorbachev, Francois Mitterrand, Hiroshima survivors, and officials of the KGB. We visit Israel and become completely involved in the strategy and hardships of securing an Israeli state, while learning about Wiesel's observations and involvement in the world events of the time. No unpleasant descriptions or life characterizations are spared. The writing is opinionated and passionate. The story is true.
   While And the Sea is Never Full achieves its goal for being the personal statement of a Holocaust survivor, a global activist, and a writer, it leaves the reader confused as to what Wiesel's thoughts are concerning violence. He does not leave any room for doubt on his beliefs for peace and the importance on avoiding human indifference, but he contradicts himself with his pride in the Israeli army and its military strategy. It leaves us wondering what he respects more, an ideal or a country. What does he believe is the solution to the hate and conflict in the world? As a leader, educator, and activist, his memoirs would do well to present more of his opinion on the state of the world.
   And the Sea is Never Full is a captivating account of a man who saw much of the world and created a change in every place he visited. It leaves the reader wanting to learn more about Elie Wiesel's past and the little events and images that led to his activism and writing. Night is a common educational tool, but rarely is Elie Wiesel as commonly discussed as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. And the Sea is Never Full presents his thoughts loud and clear, pushing for more knowledge and understanding into the influences of human evil and human forgiveness.



2. I do appreciate an author with a point of view about things and if nothing else Wiesel has that. His autobiography tells the story of a man with a mission, a passion, and strong convictions.



3. Elie Weisel in my eyes is a great man. He is the witness of the most horrible evil in human history , who somehow managed to help make the character of that Evil known to the world. He is a devoted writer and a foremost spokesman and defender of the Jewish people. But he is also has a special role in working to help the suffering and the persecuted throughout the world. Years ago in Biafra he was there to try and help the Ibo. And since then he has time and again placed himself at risk to help others. As a teacher and writer his work bears not only the mark of his poetic and G-d haunted soul, but of his enormous devotion to the good of humanity. This volume picks up the story of his life when at forty he decides to make a more determined effort to help the suffering of humanity. It tells the story of journeys and struggles .Often he is met by opposition but he is fueled by the determination to stand for the suffering. As a truthteller he dared confront the President of the United States over the obscenity of Bitburg . His deeds go before him and his words are a light to mankind. May G-d bless him and his work for the future.



4. I loved the first biography by Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea. I loved his objectivity, his detached but sharp view on the incredible and often cruel incidents that happened in his life, as well as his reserved but firm believe and philosophy you can see behind it. I was fascinated by the personal story of this incredible person and was impressed by the power of his quiet words that was much powerful than too emotional accounts on the tragedy that we often hear.

   However this book, And the Sea is Never Full, is very different from the previous volume. It is much more emotional and more centred around his phiolosophy on his religion. I am giving only 3 stars, not because it's not good - people who are interested in Wiesel's religious believe and stands most likely will find it interesting - but because I expected more stories on his life (and philosophy behind it) not believe itself, and found this book a bit too personal, as if written for himself rather than for readers.




5. Easily one of the best autobiographies of the last half of the century (when coupled with Volume One). It is almost hard to believe that a man with such vision, such drive, such intelligence could have written almost an understated autobiography which reads as easily as any novel on your summer reading list.

   I strongly reccomend that anyone who wants to learn and be inspired by one man's drive to remember and honor (amd ensure that no one else forgets), read both volumes of this elegant autobiography.

5 comments about Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew (Yale Nota Bene).

1. Much of Paul Celan's later poetry is hermetic, and acknowledge by many to be impossible to truly understand without knowledge of the poet's life. Nonetheless, for a long time English speakers had no biography of this influential modern poet. In PAUL CELAN: Poet, Survivor, Jew author John Felstiner covers the whole course of Celan's all-too-brief life, emphasizing the poet's Jewish identity above others. Besides a simple biography, Felsteiner also discusses a number of Celan's poems, which he himself has translated into English (the book assumes no knowledge of German), and also chronicles Celan's output of translations and his relationship to other (especially Jewish) poets.
   
   For Felstiner, Paul Celan's feelings as a Jew play an important role throughout his poetry, but it seems especially important in the early and late periods over the middle. Celan began his mature career as an orphan whose parents perished in the death camps and who himself served forced labour in wartime Romania. This of course, providing the impetus for not only his famous "Todesfuge", *the* poem on the death camps, but also the imagery of much of his first acknowledged volume. In the last decade of Celan's life, on the other hand, the poet was gripped by paranoia that Germany was not sufficiently acknowledging its sins and that neo-Nazis were plotting against him. This, Celan as representative of a race that has not only suffered before but is still hunted today, Felsteiner sees as an important part of the late works.
   
   If I give this biography only three stars, it is because I wish that there was more information about Celan's life and less exegesis of his poetry. Indeed, Celan's mental distress which sent him more than once to a psychiatric clinic is barely touched upon. Had Felsteiner split this into a more substantial biography and a separate work of criticism, the reader who wants to know about the whole of Celan's life would be better served. Nonetheless, for anyone trying to tackle Celan's poetry in English translation (e.g. Michael Hamburger's collection Poems of Paul Celan), this may be useful



2. Paul Celan was born into what soon became the wrong place and time. His family were German-speaking Jews from the eastern reach of the Austrian Empire. They lived in Czernowitz, capital of the Bukovina region, which passed to Romania just before Celan's birth in 1920. After a nine-month visit to his uncle in Paris where he was exposed to the Surrealists' influence in 1938, then his return to Czernowitz where his studies were interrupted by Soviet and then German occupation in 1940 and 1941, after forced labor in Romania's western mountains, his parents' deportation and death in German-occupied Ukraine, after the Red Army's return in 1944, Celan left home for Bucharest and then Vienna, where he first attracted recognition as a German-speaking poet, and in 1948 he settled in Paris. There he found a haven of sort at the Ecole Normale Superieure, where he taught German language and literature to generations of students (some of whom later contributed to his posthumous fame) and pursued his vocation as a poet in exile, estranged from his German mother tongue and survivor of a world that no longer was.
   
   Coming from a homeland that hardly existed anymore, writing for a German audience that he did not live among or trust, residing in France yet undervalued there, Paul Celan's native tongue itself was the only nation he could claim. Yet his relation to the German language was itself problematic, for the Nazis had abused and contaminated the words that once belonged to Goethe and Holderlin. Celan's austere idiom, mindful of death and horror, is rooted in his struggle to realize--by way of uninnocent language--"that which happened", the understatement he used to designate events of 1933-45. As he put it when receiving the City of Bremen's prize for his work in 1958, his language had to "pass through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech. It passed through and gave back no words for that which happened; yet it passed through this happening. Passed through and could come to light again, `enriched' by all this."
   
   The biographer gives detailed accounts of several episodes that took a heavy toll on the poet's sensitive feelings: the accusation of plagiarism that accompanied the publication of his first volume in France and that was to resurface later in his carrier; his almost paranoid belief that Nazism was again on the rise in post-war Germany and that Neo-Nazis were orchestrating a machination against him ("you can hardly imagine how things really look again in Germany," he wrote to a friend in 1960.) Paul Celan refused to submit a poem to Martin Heidegger for a Festschrift on his seventieth birthday, mindful of the philosopher's past complicity with Nazism and his enduring failure to recant after the war, but he nonetheless signed the Black Forest hermit's guestbook "with a hope for a coming word in the heart" during a visit to Todtnauberg in 1967.
   
   Recognition came late, and for much of his life was confined to the German-speaking world. When a European Jewish poet's turn came for the Nobel Prize in 1966, the more accessible Nelly Sachs got it, not him. His bouts of depression and psychic distress led to several hospitalizations. The poet concluded his life on the 20th of April 1970 by jumping from the Pont Mirabeau into the Seine, drowning himself. On his desk, a biography of Holderlin was found opened to an underlined passage: "Sometimes this genius goes dark and sinks down into the bitter well of his heart."
   
   John Felstiner devotes a whole chapter to Celan's most well-known poem, Todesfuge. Although similarities with Picasso's Guernica or Yeats's `Easter 1916' come to mind, no work of art has exposed the exigencies of its time so radically as this one, whose speakers--Jewish prisoners tyrannized by a camp commandant--start off with the words: " Schwarze Milch der Fruehe wir trinken sie abends"--"Black milk of daybreak we drink it at dusk"--and evoke the fate that awaits them: "Wir schaufeln ein Grab in der Lueften da liegt man nicht eng" --"we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped."



3. Todesfuege (Death Fuge) is Celan's most famous poem, although he wrote it when he was only 24. Although it might seem cryptic, it is quite accessible in comparison with his later poems. Felsteiner does an excellent job of helping the reader to understand what Celan must have been like and further allows insight into his poetry in a straightforward, readable way. Because Celan is so difficult to understand, many critics, including Derrida, tend to interpret him in their own images.

   Felsteiner, on the other hand, is more concerned with portraying Celan accurately than using him as a platform to promote his own agendas. I would strongly recommend this book as an introduction to Celan.




4. I appreciate this book most for its study of the relationship between Paul Celan and his most famous poem, "Deathfugue." Before the English translation of that poem in this book is a photograph with the caption, "Orchestra playing 'Death Tango' in Janowska Road Camp, Lvov, ca. 1942." Prisoners used that term "for whatever music was being played when the Germans took a group out to be shot." (p. 30) Before reading this poem, I had read that it was impossible to get permission from the holder of the copyright to translate it into English and publish it, even if an American expert wanted to call it the best poem that had been written in the German language since World War II. The poem may have more meaning for those who already know what it means, and who would not be puzzled by, "We shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped."



5. This is one of the most powerful books imaginable, touching chords in the human heart that we would often choose to ignore. It is the story of a man whose courage and creativity helped him communicate truth in a world that was desperate to silence his voice. Please read this book....it will change everything.

No comments about My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq.

4 comments about Roosevelt and the Holocaust.

1. Before I launch my tirade, I should say that I feel Mr. Beir has done some excellent work and painted a historically accurate picture of President Roosevelt's actions before and during WWII.
   
   He then goes on to make excuses for why Roosevelt "couldn't" help the Jews when they so dearly needed it.
   
   Roosevelt was and is Beir's idol - he freely admits this - then he lists in great detail all of the things that Roosevelt DIDN'T do to lessen the suffering and death of Jews in Europe - EVEN when the chance to do so was dropped in his lap. (The case of the S.S. St. Louis)
   
   Beir makes the excuse that Roosevelt's number one job was winning the war and that he couldn't use up his political favors to save any of Beir's own people. Roosevelt was a man who did what he wanted and didn't really seem to care if it was legal or not. He enacted unconstitutional social(ist) programs, tried to take over the Supreme Court when it dared oppose him, and in one of the most dastardly events of US history - stole American's gold when they needed it most. (Executive Order 6102)
   
   Roosevelt had ample opportunity and demonstrated his ability to act when he desired.
   
   Roosevelt WAS a masterful politician - and a man who had no problem doing what HE felt was right. He is completely undeserving of Bob Beir's defense of his lack of action to mitigate one of mankind's most shameful periods where "civilized" countries allowed 6 million innocents to be ruthlessly and cruelly murdered.
   
   Bob Beir had no problem finding plenty of blame to go around for all of the other players in this tragic period of history. It's just plain shameful that Beir couldn't be as honest when assessing his idol's actions.
   
   Read this book for the history. Toss Beir's personal assessment of Roosevelt in the trash.
   
   A note on that last chapter: True as much of it is - it belongs in another book. Beir is an expert at identifying anti-Semitism - except when it is practiced (or at least apathetically allowed to flourish) in the administration of his hero, FDR.
   
   5 stars for the history.
   -3 stars for the intellectual dishonesty perpetrated by the author.



2. This may be a decent work, if you can get past the first 50 pages. Mr. Beir, in an attempt to work in his absurd views on current events into an absurd personal history, makes for a sometimes infuriating read. In discussing the Japanese Internment camps of WWII, he decides to inject his revulsion regarding our modern "Internment" of Arab Americans. Wow, I must have missed that story in the News! Next, in detail, he describes his (disgraceful) life of privilege in the WW2 Navy. Plum assignments in the lap of luxury in backwater ports in Scotland and England, Hobnobbing with the influential at exclusive parties, all attributable to his being well connected, and all of this while our young heroes are actually fighting and dying in the real war. The final insult is his Ship ride back to the States in the closing days of the war, when he somehow "wangles" himself a luxury stateroom on the Queen Mary, all the while apparently uninterested in the hordes of REAL soldiers aboard, who are quite literally returning from Hell after saving the World. Well, I guess they'll be just fine in Steerage....Anyway, he has important people to see in Washington DC.....



3. At its heart, this book details a series of interconnected journeys. The journey of its author, Robert Beir. The journey of a president, FDR. And the journey of an incomparable event, the Holocaust.
   At its heart, this book resonates with a personal sense of intimacy and poignancy. Robert Beir lived through the Great Depression and WW II era. Beir lived through the age of a pervasive and deeply ingrained anti-Semitism. He lived through General Eisenhower's deeply disturbing tour of a German concentration camp, with the piles of charred bodies, "too grisly for the American mind to comprehend," to quote Eisenhower. He lived through President Truman's decision to use atomic bombs on Japan. His memories speak to the hope, fear, destitution, exhilaration and incredible patriotism of the age.
   They also serve as an introduction to a large, and currently contentious, historical question. Roosevelt's and America's legacy regarding the Holocaust. Here you will find a historian on a search. This is not a pro-Roosevelt book, unwavering in its support. Nor does this book attempt to castigate the president. Instead, and quite remarkably, this book becomes an investigation with the goal of truth in mind.
   How many histories strive for such a fundamental goal? How many succeed? Here is one.



4. Roosevelt and the Holocaust is a masterpiece! It is a beautifully woven narrative, one that is as much a pleasure to read the second time as it is the first. Robert Beir's book is unique in the way that it creatively and effectively combines personal experiences with an examination of Roosevelt's policies during the Holocaust. Part autobiography, part history, part internal dialogue with Beir's hero, FDR, the book is ultimately a personal journey. But don't just take my word for it. Here's what two preeminent historians and authors of best selling books on FDR had to say about Beir's book.
   
   "Among the many books on FDR and the Holocaust, this one occupies a uniquely powerful position. Having long considered Roosevelt his personal hero, Beir found it painful to confront the question of whether Roosevelt was indifferent to the plight of the Jews. Yet, in this moving story which is both a personal memoir and a scholar's quest, he provides an honest look at his hero, his country and himself." Doris Kearns Goodwin (author of No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt - The Home Front in World War II)
   
   "A penetrating examination of one of the most haunting problems from World War II, vividly analyzed by a participant in that war, reflecting both his concern over FDR's blind spots and his understanding of the broader problems that Roosevelt faced." James MacGregor Burns (author of Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox and Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom)

5 comments about My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin.

1. I usually make a point of not re-reading other Amazon reviews before writing my own review of a book I've just finished, but in this case, for some reason, I strayed from my usual practice...
   
   I'm surprised that few of my fellow reviewers have mentioned how amusing Peter Gay's book is - this is the one aspect that drew me in when I finally got around to reading "My German Question" - his description of projecting anti-semitism on a German money changer when returning to Germany as an adult. I found his self-deprecating self-analysis very funny and very entertaining.
   
   Many people, including non-jews, who pay attention to such things, feel ambivalent about modern Germany. I myself, an erstwhile German Literature scholar, have said things in anger that could probably get me arrested (I have since been told that it is actually illegal to call someone a Nazi in Germany today), to a native who had taken my seat at the Hofbrauhaus. One of the minor disappointments of my life was to discover that Germans today are not obsessed with the question of German collective guilt - that Germany exists only in the novels of Heinrich Boell, from what I can tell.
   
   I agree with those who have noted that Gay has a tendency to tell us that times were tough, without really describing what specifically was tough about it, in detail. We read a lot about his strategies for coping with his isolation as a Jew in Nazi Germany, and I found this very interesting, but I missed seeing more description of what it was exactly he was coping with.
   
   The book makes a very interesting companion to Wolfgang Samuel's "German Boy" and especially "Coming to Colorado" which I also read recently. It's ironic that both Samuels and Gay should end up in Denver, of all places.
   
   One minor frustration with this paperback edition: the book is tall and thin, an annoying form factor that I did not enjoy holding. I probably would not buy this book if I had picked it up browsing in a bookstore, and I put off reading it after ordering from Amazon simply because I didn't like the shape. In the end however, I'm glad I overcame this deterrent!



2. Peter Gay's elegant, unsparingly honest testament to the Berlin he knew as a young person is unlike any other memoir I've encountered. One would think, reading some of these other reviews, that Gay should be faulted for not suffering enough. He explains his own passage through childhood in an honest, decent way, and not without humor, either. This quiet, passionate and thoughtful memoir is the work of a disciplined historian whose writing is scrupululously honest and is remarkably free of the usual taint of egotism that characterizes so many memoirs. A valuable document of social history as well as a satisfying read.



3. I first became annoyed with the author for talking and intellectually telling us his story in the manner he does. He was one of the few Jews in Berlin who was able to continue his life with family, friends and others until late in the decade. He tells us but shares little about feelings or what it was like emotionally to be there. What did he feel attending a "Gymnasium" with non Jewish Germans long after most Jews could have. Was there conflict and ambivilance, guilt? The discription of his first return to Germany in the early 60's is gripping. Soon a profound sorrow and rage for this educated and intellectlal man overcame me. He indeed was a victim of the Holocaust as much as any other victim albiet he was lukier than some. As a psychiatrist I've treated many holocaust survivors and their children. He actually explains though indirectly that his ultimate survival as an integrated person lied in his ability to repress, supress and disconnect from much of the horror. I wanted something that he could not give me. I believe he is a hero for writing this book and exposing as much as does to himself and others. It is so easy to become angry with the victim. He has surely suffered his share in life. His survival is his badge of courage.
   Jo Ann Terdiman



4. It is perhaps best to begin by saying what this deeply personal and moving account is not. It is not the memoir of a man whose mother or father "had been hauled to a concentration camp" (p. 22). This is the memoir of "one of the lucky ones" (p.22). It is nonetheless, a tale of a survivor.
   
   It is the story of a man whose hormones forced him, a young adolescent Jew, to look at the hated newspaper Sturmer which portrayed Jews as evilly lusting after pure Aryan girls but which "could not leave sex alone." And while he looked at the images of the dangerous cockroach-like Jew lusting after pure beauties-him-he grew of age. Is it to be wondered at that he did not, as he tells us, lose his virginity until long after university?
   
   And yet, Peter Gay was one of the lucky ones. He only lost two members of his family to the gas chambers. Both were blond and, in my opinion though not Peter's, rather pretty. One of them played Germania in school plays. The Nazis (or perhaps ordinary Germans? Or maybe Poles, Croats, Latvians?) gassed her. Peter, however, was not gassed. He was not even in a concentration camp. Peter was one of the lucky ones.
   
   All he did was live in a world, a Berlin that became smaller and smaller. Not only could he not do certain things but more and more he could not go certain places, be on certain streets, or associate with certain people. Non-Jewish doctors for example. And the radio and announcements and the laws and the newspapers made it plain to him that he, a Jew, was a "blot on humanity" with whom "true" Germans should not associate. Gradually, his world became his immediate family and his aunts and uncles. Gradually, gradually he became a true pariah.
   
   Because he had become a Jew by dictat. For Peter makes it clear that his family was (and took pride in being) an assimilated German family. They did not think of themselves as Jews or as pariahs. To them madmen were running their country: Germany. And they were the true Germans. None of this, of course, impressed the Nazis and since the madmen had the power, they, the true Germans, had to leave. With a sensitive boy who was suffering from depression. A boy who was one of the lucky ones.
   
   And finally this is the story of the lucky boy grown into a man; a man who tries to reconcile himself to his Berlin. A boy/man who wants to desperately say (as did President Kennedy but in proper German) Ich bin Berliner but who cannot quite do so. A man who still roots for Hertha H.S.C. (a German soccer team) and who "regrets architectural adventurism that is working toward effacing the unique atmosphere of [Berlin]" (204) but who cannot quite say that he is a Berliner. A man who insists on being an American in the city of his birth; a man to whom Nazi Berlin clings like shards of Kristallnacht glass.
   
   For, in the end this lucky boy/man is a survivor. Because the Nazis made him a Jew by dictat.



5. As a historian I was recently confronted with a request by one of my students to find memoirs of a young Jewish person who had lived in the 1930s in Germany. Looking for memoirs of that type in English proved to be difficult. Most childhood recollections are anyhow problematic - due to the time difference and the natural lapses in memory. Then I stumbled across Peter Gay's book. After having read the book I decided to go to Amazon to see once again what other people thought about the book.

   Indeed, I found mixed reviews concentrating on Peter Gay as the scholar or Peter Gay as the survivor etc. I am German myself and on top of it a history professor who is teaching right now a course on Collaboration and Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Europe. So, the book became interesting to me from several perspectives. While I did not learn anything new as far as his years in Berlin are concerned, his judgments on Germany and the Germans troubled me deeply. Although I could not share Peter Gay's eye for an eye statements - especially concerning the bombing of Dresden and the acts of Zionist terrorists in early Israel (terrorism remains terrorism - no matter what side) - I was once again confronted with my German identity. Since I am born in 1959 I had nothing to do with those times directly - nevertheless my compatriots overall did commit those crimes to humanity. Gay's statements troubled me in the sense that once again I asked myself to which extent could we Germans have prevented this from happening. What could the "ordinary German" - to remain in Christopher Browning's words - have done? The resistance of Gay's friend Busse did not do much either in preventing the Holocaust! So, what could have been the solution?

2 comments about Disguised As Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, And the Creation of the Superhero.

1. I most enjoyed the Superman background. The book assumes knowledge of each of the comic book characters. There is no review of some of the more archaic "heroes."



2. DISGUISED AS CLARK KENT: JEWS, COMICS, AND THE CREATION OF THE SUPERHERO comes from a comics industry veteran who explores the backgrounds of famous superheroes and their creators - who, as it turns out, were largely young American Jewish men from Eastern European backgrounds. The focus on the hero icon in history, Jewish history and culture, and the comics industry as a whole thus makes for a strong recommendation not just for Judaic studies collections, but for any collection strong in either comics or cultural icons and analysis.

3 comments about Echoes from the Holocaust: A Memoir.

1. Mira lived to tell the tale of the holocaust. She's carried the message of strength and forgiveness, of working through the horrors she's lived by bringing the message to all who will listen. This is a strange and different book: on the one hand, so repulsive, so unbelievable, yet, on the other hand, compelling. Several questions ran through my mind: how does a person continue to live with any humanity at all after such an experience; why does one person live, while all the rest die; what kind of magnetism did Mira have that encouraged people to help her?
   I've met Mira; she lives here in my home town of Oak Ridge. She will speak before my class. Perhaps my questons will be answered, and I will know who Mira is after all.



2. Echoes from the Holocaust by Mira Ryczke Kimmelman is a riveting memoir that recounts her life as a child in Danzig to her life in the United States after World War II. Mira describes how the innocence, effulgence, and peace of her youth are shattered once the Nazi troops force her family to leave their home in Poland in October 1939. Embracing her Jewish heritage, Mira tells of how she strives to preserve her identity and pride as a Jew alive by receiving secret Hebrew lessons, attending prohibited Jewish gatherings, and becoming a member of the Zionist movement. Kimmelman refuses to let herself become discouraged when she learns that more than twenty of her family members and friends are killed by the SS officers.
   
   Infused with aspirations, Mira does whatever she can to cope with the persecution she and others receive at the ghettos and concentration camps. After suffering from typhoid, physical torture, starvation, horrendous living conditions, and simple dehumanization, Mira continues to be a burning flame among all the melted candles. All her struggles and lucky moments become learning experiences.
   
   Mira is able to move on with her life, after the end of the war in 1945. She marries Max Kimmelman, another Holocaust survivor, and has several children and grandchildren after. She gives them the names of her relatives and close companions so that her memories of them will live on. Although life in the United States becomes a bit of a struggle, Mira manages to carve out a content life with her husband and family. She continues to encompass her traditions and tell her story of survival.
   
   The memoir is written simplistically, but with very powerful imagery and episodes, that capture Mira's moments effectively. Metaphors, similes, or hyperboles are not necessary to make this memoir memorable. The book is divided into several short chapters that make it an easy read. With cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, this book becomes a real page-turner. An atmosphere of hope surrounds the events Kimmelman depicts and reiterates the idea that Mira has survived for a purpose. No history book can tell a story such as this one. To capture the meaning and depth of the Holocaust, one must go out and read Mira Kimmelman's account.



3. From a priveleged upbringing in pre-war Gdansk, the author and her family are deported first to Warsaw then to other ghettos and camps. The book is written in a frank, no-nonsense fashion and she really states the facts about what happened to her and her family. An amazing book and one that everyone should read.

3 comments about Ten Thousand Children: True Stories Told by Children Who Escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport.

1. The testimonies written by the Jewish children of the Kindertransport are very scary - scary because the fear that Hitler systematically used on the German people that began as the erosion of their civil liberties and culminated in Jewish Germans and German Jehovah's Witnesses perishing in concentration camps is the same fear that U.S. president Bush is constantly pushing: "Give me full power to do whatever preemptive act is necessary to keep you safe from whatever I determine is a threat to you".
   
   The testimonies in this collection are very upsetting - a dark sense of dread and the need to not just cry but to bawl one's heart into exhaustion haunt them. Anne Fox and Eva Abraham-Podietz have collected unique stories written by fellow escapees on the Kindertansport to Britain from Hitler's Nazi Germany. The stories are arranged under seven chapter headings: 1) Life Under Hitler, 2) Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), 3)Preparing to Leave, 4) The Journey, 5) Life in England, 6) The War Years, 7) After the War. The seven chapters are preceded by a section subtitled "To the Reader" and followed by an Epilogue. The stories are each followed by an update written by Fox and Abraham-Podietz informing the reader how each child fared in adulthood. Both authors were not yet teenagers when they joined 10,000 other children who escaped to Britain without their parents to end up living with foster parents.
   
   In the foreward, we learn that the British are generally a cold people and not very charitable between themselves compared to other societies (I can testify to that), and many children (they call themselves "the kinder") felt unwanted in their new homes. Some were made to work as servants. When World War II was over, most of the children had no choice but to stay on in Britain because Hitler had wiped out millions of their parents in his concentration camps.
   
   Under Chapter 1) Life under Hitler, Sylvia is the first of the "kinder" to share her account, which is mostly about the "Heil Hitler" salute that everyone did out of fear of being punished otherwise. " 'Mother would not have given the Hitler salute', I confided to Ruth"(p16), wrote Sylvia. In the update, we learn that her parents died in Hitler's concentration camps and her aunt in New York brought her to America where she became a secretary, got married, and became a mother.
   
   Other stories include entries by Ruth, Dorit, Karla, Susie, Vera, Eva, Marta, Kurt, Peter, Marion, Ben & Stefan, Sara, Ernie, Ilse, Trudy, Ina, Klara, Anne, Celia, and Lilly. Their stories are profoundly touching in an unanticipated way - and that is a gross understatement. The photos of the children carrying their belongings such as an occasional violin and waving farewell to their parents - who we know did not survive is just too painful to contemplate. It hurts as much as watching those kids being bombed by Bush at the Baghdad wedding party in "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Michael Moore.
   
   The chapter arrangement of the above stories serves to illustrate the gradual progression of Germany's slide down Hitler's slippery slope to a Nazi nightmare. When the first measure were taken against civil liberties in Germany, they seemed minor and perhaps even reasonable if you bought into the fear-mongering by Hitler. People's rights were taken little by little. Kosher slaughtering of meat was outlawed as were all publications of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. Eventually, people were incarcerated without charges just as Bush does today in the USA. Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David and Jehovoh's Witnesses wore Purple Triangles. Christians and Jews were Hitler's targets, Muslims are the targets of today's Bushies and neocons.
   
   In the Epilogue we learn of the Kindertransport reunion in 1989 in London, England. Britain is a difficult place for a British Jew or Jewess to grow up - imagine how much more difficult it was for Jewish children who were also GERMAN! But despite the cold British weather and its effects on British behaviour, the British did rescue these children from a despotic madman whose evil is beyond imagination - when you think you know how bad Hitler was, you have reached an awareness equal to one one-thousandth of a percent of his evil. We can never know or understand that amount of evil.
   
   Thomas Paine wrote "War is the gambling table of governments, citizens the dupes of the game". Just as the Civil War was not started by elites for anything but money, yet it was won by the common man fighting against slavery - so was the Second World War started over money but was won by the common man stopping Hitler. On behalf of my Step-Grandfather Hugh "Skeets" Beatty (RIP), may the Almighty forgive his shortcomings and reward his effort at Normandy, amen. [...]



2. This was an illuminating and evocative book. Anyone interested in this topic should also read "Escape Via Siberia" and "The Uprooted" by Dorit Whiteman. Whiteman's books -- which expertly weave gripping personal accounts with historical context -- explore how survivors of the kindertransport and other Holocaust horrors coped with the legacy of their harrowing ordeals as adults. Whiteman is an expert in the field and some of her material was used in the movie, "Into the Arms of Strangers."



3. As the generation of World War II survivors is all-too quickly disappearing, today's children are running out of opportunities to connect with those who survived the war. Ten Thousand Children is a series of true anecdotes told by the children who escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport. The stories of the evacuated children come to life with emotion and clarity. Readers will be amazed at the courage of the children involved and the hardships they faced as they were separated from their families and sent to live in a foreign land. Each child tells his or her story in first person narrative, then the story is followed by an update which tells about the child's life after the war. Captioned photographs illustrate every story. The book is divided into seven chapters, each beginning with a news-like article giving background information to support the stories included in the chapter. The stories and articles are short enough to be read easily by children, and relevant vocabulary words are defined in reader-friendly terms in the margins. This book will help children understand the lessons which must not be forgotten from World War II. The cruel realities of war and intolerance leap from the pages of each story. Readers will be touched by those children from long ago. All those who read this book will walk away with a deeper understanding of the Kindertransport children and an appreciation for the freedoms we must cherish today.

5 comments about Josephus and New Testament (Recent Releases).

1. The book is insightful and give lots of information, but unfortunately it is a boring read. The author states in the book that reading the original work is tedious, if that is the case it does not seem that he made reading his book any less tedious. So my approach to reading the book is a little at a time. I believe that this book is helpful depending on the type of research you are doing. Maybe you want to just get information - it is good for that as well. Just know that it will be a laborius task.



2. Many people engaged in Bible study, whether it is a casual study or formal training in scripture, have found the writings of Flavius Josephus intriguing and helpful. The famous historian's writings were penned at the same time as many New Testament writings, and for this reason alone they are valuable. We hear Josephus talk about the major religious groups during New Testament times: those mentioned in the gospels and those not mentioned specifically but may have had an indirect influence on Christianity. We also find a detailed account of the fall of the Jerusalem Temple as well as references to John the Baptist, James "the brother of the Lord" (possibly dubious entries) and Jesus himself (most scholars, including Mason concede these brief and pious references were probably added by Christian copyists). The writings of Josephus are indispensable in studying scripture.
   
   As important and helpful as the writings of Josephus can be, author Steve Mason points out that his writings have been misused over the centuries. Early Christian authors believed Josephus' account of the destruction of the Temple proved that God's favor had left Israel and had been transferred to Christians. His writings have supported many anti-Semitic campaigns in the past. He also contends that Josephus fell out of favor with many Jewish groups because he was considered a traitor during the battle with the Romans at the time of the Temple's destruction. While one could debate whether he was in fact a traitor, but most scholars do agree that Josephus did have a gift for self preservation. In this tract, Mason hopes to strip away Christian misinterpretations of Josephus and traditional historical biases and see Josephus as he intended to be seen: as a Jewish apologist defending the Jewish faith and people as an ancient and noble faith and worthy of respect in Ancient Rome. Mason contends that it is only by viewing Josephus in this light we can appreciate his writings.
   
   The book gives a detailed biography of Josephus and provides a concise summary of Josephus' writings. He then reconstructs the New Testament world based on the historian's writings and looks at similarities and differences between the writings of Josephus and the New Testament. Perhaps what is Mason's greatest aide is that he does not favor Josephus' wrings as accurate and the New Testament as inaccurate, as can so often be the case. Instead he looks at the differences and points to why Josephus may have written what he did, keeping in mind Josephus did have an agenda and was not ashamed to admit it, and looking at why the New Testament recorded what it did. Readers will find that Mason's approach supports New Testament writings from a historical point of view.
   
   JOSEPHUS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT is detailed, but it is an engaging read. This book will be helpful to any student engaged in New Testament studies. It's also accessible to any person who has an interest in scripture study. It makes a wonderful companion to the actual writings of Josephus and helps us to see the historian, as a historian and use his contributions appropriately.



3. I'm no scholar, just a layperson. But I enjoy learning and facts. I was familiar with Josephus in a vague type of way and knew his writings gave us much background and history for understanding New Testament life and times. And I wanted to learn more about Josephus and his writings. This book seemed the best option. It was somewhat "hard" reading for me, but I feel it was worth my efforts. The author, in my opinion, is somewhat on the theological liberal side. (I'm very conservative...) But I felt the book gave me a good overview of Josephus. It was what I was looking for...



4. Recommended!! Written by an author who is a specialist in the literary traditions and content of first century authors like Josephus. Provides useful detailed insights and commentary on the comparitive style and content of Josephus and NT writers. For most of the book the author stays on-topic, and readers will find the Luke/Acts chapter one of the best in the book. The author should have pruned some of the off-topic wandering into biblical interpretation of the NT with no real connection to Josephus; fundamentalists might find the author's comments annoying, but there are enough plain interesting quirks in the NT text that the author cites to be useful nevetheless.



5. Great book that tells the affect that the Jewish revolt in A.D. 70 had on the Roman Empire and the writers of the time. Talks about the different groups within the Jewish Community. Gives a comparison between Luke and Josephus in treatment of events and N.T. characters. It describes how Josephus contradicts himself and sometimes seems to change his view on an event. So reading a single one of Josephus' books may not give a clear picture. This book does. I have never read Josephus, but I feel that I know what to expect.