1 comments about Commander of the Exodus.

1. World War II has always been a comforting war for Americans to reflect upon. After all, the United States stood proudly, along with Britain and the other Allies, against the menace of the Axis Powers. We fought the good fight, and won.

   But a story that we hear less often is how American bombers were never sent to bomb the Zyklon-B gas tanks and railway shipping stations that kept the death camps running.

   We also rarely hear about British warships ramming hulking old freighters crammed with Jewish refugees trying to emmigrate to Palestine, or America's unwillingness to let more than a few Jews (primarily scientists and well-connected members of the intelligentsia) come to America at a time of dark and terrible peril for the Jewish people of Europe.

   Another rarely-told tale is the struggle to establish the State of Israel, a battle the Palmach and Haganah fought in equal parts against hostile Arabs and a British Mandate determined to prevent further Jewish settlement.

   "Commander of the Exodus," a history book enhanced by the literary gifts of a novelist, tells this handful of rarely-heard tales by exploring the life of Yossi Harel, a young native of Palestine who brought over 20,000 displaced Holocaust survivors to what would soon become Israel, braving rough seas, mines and a vicious British blockade.

   Harel, who is molded by Kaniuk into the deeply passionate and level-headed hero of "Commander of the Exodus," is clearly a man of substance. The staggering dangers involved in smuggling thousands of refugees across a hostile Mediterranean are explored thoroughly by the author, who paints a grim picture of the ships that failed to make it, and the refugees who died while trying to find a better life in the desert that would become Israel.

   Unfortunately, Kaniuk's passionate narrative doesn't make much of an attempt to approach Palestine from an Arab, or even British, perspective. While Kaniuk's exodus narrative is stirring and sometimes devastating in its anger against a "civilized world" that helped to finish a dirty job begun by the Nazis, it's clearly a work of passion. This makes it less reliable as a history, but considerably more human and engaging.

   This aside, it's clear that the author has wrought a rich historical perspective, charged with fact and drama. "Commander of the Exodus" dazzles with the sadness of history and the strength of human life.

No comments about Elie Wiesel: Conversations (Literary Conversations Series).

5 comments about I Followed my Heart to Jerusalem.

1. Author Yale Roe imagines his late mother's reaction to his sudden decision in 1971 to make aliyah: "Millions of people risk their lives to come to America, my son decides to leave." Roe (then 43) was a successful media executive with a wife and four children ensconced in Winnetka, IL, a self-described "suburban achiever." In 1972, between the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, the family arrived in Jerusalem and began life anew. Roe recounts the journey with warmth and humility. The riveting memoir has universal appeal as a testament to fulfilling one's dreams.



2. It's a pleasure to read a book that comes from the heart, not a lot of flowery words but feelings that can be understood by the reader. Good work. It makes me think about my dreams.



3. Just that in itself is saying something! Mr. Roe is candid about his feelings and surroundings and the longings which send him and his family to Israel. The book contains keen insights on the Jewish people as well as the state of Israel.
   
   They say "every life has a book in it" and Mr. Roe probably has a number of them....he had a career in media before it was a buzzword! Hopefully we'll see more from Mr. Roe in the future.



4. I had a great time reading this book. It gave me a good understanding for many things I always wanted to know about. A fun story about living life to it's fullest.



5. It's been said that the key to good writing is the desire to express one's personal experience and the ability to share that experience and associated feelings with the reader, and this certainly rings true in this heartfelt story. I was quickly drawn in by the author's convincing communication of his experiences and feelings and his warm and personal writing style. I'll be looking for more by this author. Highly recommended!

5 comments about The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series).

1. "The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution", Richard Breitman, 250 pgs, Glossary, Notes & Index, 6" x 9".
   
   Author or co-author of 3 prior books on socialist Germany & Jewry issues, this Yale & Harvard degreed Professor Breitman provides a scholarly analysis of Nazi Germany with especial reference to the 3 principals: - the Triumvirate of Hitler, Himmler (SS) & Heydrich (SD) & the roles each played formulating plans of re-Germanization that encompassed comprehesive plans to (1) purify Germanic Nordic blood lines by eugenic measures, (2) eliminate those designated as enemies of the Reich (Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Slavs, etc.) & (3) provide Lebensraum, especially Eastward for expansion of the Fatherland.
   
   The book profiles Heinrich Himmler as a cradle-Catholic turning into a militant anti-Catholic & anti-Semitic who participates in Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch, & in short order becomes Reich Fuehrer SS, Chief of all Police, & confidant of Hitler. In 11 chapters we are introduced to the origin, delineation, & execution of the "Final Solution" to solve the "Jewish Question." The author attempts to demonstrate authorship of the genocide design & of its implementation was really a product more of Himmler's that Hitler's. Diverse details are provided on alternative plans including deportations to Africa or Madagascar, types of gasings, exclusions from euthanasia, labor camps, etc. All in all, the author's arguements are detailed but sufficiently conjectural as to make for good reading but truly falling short of singling out Himmler as chief architect. Of the many books on the Holocaust & Final Solution, Bretman's is the most detailed accounting of alternative plans and details unanticipated problems not forseen in ethnic cleansing & military in-fighting, etc. A good read for the student of genocide.



2. 
   Unfortunately, Breitman repeats the Nazi-propaganda canard of Poles killing several thousand Germans, at Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) as fact (p. 70). Otherwise, this book seems to be free of obvious errors. The author traces Nazi German policies against various groups, with especial attention paid to the Jews. He also provides information relevant to the Jedwabne massacre without mentioning it. He shows that the Germans tried to disguise their first wave of murders of Jews, at the start of Operation Barbarossa, as the work of locals acting alone (p. 172, 207).
   
   Breitman (pp. 19-21) addresses the debate as to whether the term Holocaust should refer only to the Jewish or to all the victims of the Nazis. He believes that the extermination of the Jews is sui generis in many ways (p. 21), for example, because: "The Nazis are not known to have spoken of the Final Solution of the Polish problem or of the gypsy problem." (p. 20). Yet he demolishes his own argument in several ways. To begin with, he elsewhere tacitly acknowledges that his is an argument from silence: "Other cases of genocide in history have not left much evidence of advance plans either." (p. 27). There is also the problem of semantics: "Could one really say that Hitler had already decided upon genocide? A lot depends on what constitutes a decision. Is it a decision if a person keeps an idea firmly in his mind but tells no one about it and does nothing about it? Or is the decision made only when the individual begins to commit himself--not necessarily to start the executions, but at least to commit time and resources to the preparations?" (p. 27). Finally, there is the question of earnestness: "With mass murder or even genocide, however, there is a huge gulf between talk and action." (p. 63). Considering the many European Jews still left alive at the end of the war, can it definitely be said that the Germans were really serious about exterminating ALL known and accessible European Jews?
   
   Breitman shows that exterminatory plans against Jews developed gradually (p. 206) and, by implication, so did parallel exterminatory plans against Poles: "Anyone planning a campaign of mass murder had to start thinking on a smaller scale than the continent."(p. 65). Also: "If the Polish intelligentsia was now being killed off, could large number of Jews be far behind?" (p. 104). One could just as easily reword this: "If the Polish intelligentsia was now being killed off, could large numbers of other Poles be far behind?"
   
   In many places in his book, Breitman undermines the Holocaust-uniqueness argument by acknowledging that the Poles were seen as a problem (that, by implication, demanded an eventual solution) no less so than the Jews: "[In addressing Mussolini] Himmler added that this also meant solving the Polish question, the Slavic question, and the Jewish question." (p. 92). Also: "Next he [Himmler] explained that the Fuhrer had had given him the task of resolving the Eastern situation, which was not so much a political problem as a racial problem." (p. 113). Finally: "The eastern races posed another major obstacle to Hitler's and Himmler's racial and geopolitical goals." (p. 246).
   
   Pointedly, the destruction of one group (the Jews) cannot be dichotomized from the eventual destruction of other groups: "There was a logical as well as a technological link between Nazi euthanasia and genocide. The Nazi concept of a healthy and pure German Volk excluded a number of groups. Within Germany itself, the misfits were the mentally disturbed and physically deformed, the criminals and those considered socially deviant, and, of course, Jews and gypsies. Outside of Germany or in the annexed territories were Poles, Czechs, and other Slavs, whose racial status was regarded as inferior. Their treatment depended in part on Nazi plans for their territories and in part on how usefully they could serve the Nazi was machine. Actions to clear the Third Reich of all these groups--either by expulsion, sterilization, imprisonment in concentration camps, or mass murder--were part of the same effort to purify and extend the German race." (p. 91).
   
   Ironically, during the early years of the Nazi occupation of Poland, some German officials had recommended that Jews be better treated than Poles because of their economic productivity (p. 85, 119). Otherwise, the Germans never attributed any more inherent worth to Poles than to Jews. For instance, in sharp contrast with the fear of the "race defilement" of Germans, the Nazis saw no problem of interbreeding between Poles and Jews (p. 138).
   
   So Poles and Jews became "unequal victims" owing solely to practical considerations. Already in 1940, Hans Frank had concluded that the Polish population was too large to be exterminated under existing conditions (p. 97). There was also the problem of keeping genocide secret (p. 207). Even the earlier resettlement of Jews to the Lublin region had generated unfavorable publicity for Germany (p. 120). Mass gassings became attractive because of their relative unobtrusiveness compared to the earlier-used mass shootings (p. 92). But if the extermination of a few million Jews couldn't finally be kept secret, how much less the extermination of tens of millions of Poles!
   
   Hitler himself juxtaposed the eventual fate of the Poles at the hands of the Germans with the extermination of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks: "...with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?" (p. 43). In addition: "...a Swiss doctor named Theo Lang...told a British Secret Service agent in December 1941 that he knew definitely that Himmler's staff had been considering `for a long time' the sterilization of all adult Poles." (p. 153). Odilo Globocnik also had plans for the extermination of Poles (p. 186).



3. A common misconception regarding "The Final Solution" is that it was constructed and sought out under the leadership of one man, Adolph Hitler. Richard Breitman, in his well written book, clearly shows his readers the involvement of several brilliant minds that eventually created the horrific answer to the Jewish question. Breitman goes through the progressive steps of Heinrich Himmler's ideas as well as his involvement in the "Final Solution" while keeping his readers full attention. Unlike many authors writing about this issue, Breitman seemed as if he, through his work, was attempting to see Himmler's view points instead of labeling him simply as a "sadist barbarian" as many would do. His ability to put aside the atrocities performed by the Nazi's and give his reader's an alternate route of understanding is just one of the reasons why I consider this book a success and a pleasure to read.



4. Heinrich Himmler, one of the most reviled personalities in modern history comes fully to light in this insightful study. What is it that makes a person evil? That is at the heart of Breitman's absorbing book. Unlike a devilish Faustian caricature, the narrative shows the SS Reichsfuehrer, a mundane, pedantic organizer who came terrifyingly close to translating Hitler's vision of of a "racially-pure" Europe into reality.

   Heinrich Himmler may be the personification of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil." A man who fawned over children, stopped to pick flowers and was every thoughtful with those under him, quietly and efficiently produced the machinery to send millions to their death.

   (...) Breitman's book is not a "popular biography" in the modern sense, but rather a scholarly and academic treatment. However, this is a weighty subject and the author accomplishes much more with this approach through a fascinating narrative that assures the reader that this is an exquisititely researched picture of one of the most dispised personalities of modern time. Highly recommended.




5. Not a biography of the Reichsfuhrer, but a carefully researched and annotated analysis of his role in the final solution. Himmler's own office logs and appointment books, where extant, are convincingly used. The most thorough account to date of the so called Madagscar proposal which preoccupied the nazis in the late 1930s as a way of exiling Jews. Himmler's often mutually suspicious dealings with underlings such as Heydrich and Eichmann are particularly well portrayed, although his relationship with Hitler is sometimes sketchy. The years 1944 and 1945 are treated rather briefly, presumably because Himmler's initiatives were mainly restricted to trying to arrange coverup of the atrocities. But Breitman has done a first rate job in showing us how Himmler's bureaucratic mind ticked. The book illustrates that you don't need to be a personal sadist to organize murder on a massive scale.

2 comments about The Truth About Judas: Mysteries of the Judas Code Revealed.

1. I enjoyed the story of an ancient Judas Gospel, hidden in the sands of Egypt, discovered in our time, making it's torturous way to publication. Yes, it's worth reading, even for a first timer to criss-crossing cultural and historical references and mystical concepts.
   
   It is the revealing of Judas through the Qabbalah (Kabbalah, Cabala) that kept me turning the pages. Hayut-Man suggests the recent publication of the Judas Gospel may have been planned by the Savior for our time.
   
   The obscure Judas figure opens through historical research in to the Gospels, the Mysteries of the Jewish Qabbalah, with references to Gnostic knowledge, insights from Jung and Muslim architectural secrets.
   
   Within these insights, the Traitor figure becomes the Insider and Secret Agent. Hayut-Man explains how and why the Judas is actually highly intelligent, singular in understanding his master's true intentions and remains under cover in fulfilling them. Secretly orchestrated by the Savior, with few but significant subtle messages, the Traitor plays a crucial role in the successful publishing of an intentionally Dramatic event, set to perpetually unfold through history, until the End Time.
   
   The book also moves deeper within current debate around the possibility of a fourth secretly hidden figure within the Holy Trinity. The Church has obscured the unveiling of the Secrets, for centuries. Mystical Wisdom and the Fertile Divine Feminine, embodied as Earthly experience, points to current ecological and feminine considerations.
   
   This book explains a much wider complexity surrounding early Gospel archetypes. And it does so more clearly than recent popular fictitious narratives.
   
   According to The Truth About Judas, this late Gospels discovery and its provocative contents, point to a scenario of an End Time, in which we receive the original Wisdom, the Good News about Humanity, Earth and the Conclusive Historical Redemption.



2. For 2,000 years the name of Judas was associated with the idea of "Judas the Traitor". Not only was he seen as a specific person but he also represented all of the Jews who were seen as traitors who betrayed Jesus to the Romans. For millennia, Jews have been branded, hounded, and slaughtered because of this association all throughout Christian countries.
   This :must be true" because that is what "The Gospels" say.
   BUT-
   That was only one of the Gospel narratives telling of the tale.
   
   There is another "Gospel" that tells a very different story of what happened that day in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. This Gospel was lost or hidden away on purpose. Through Divine Providence it has recently come to light. This is the Gospel story that Dr. Yitzhaq Hayut-Man explores in his revolutionary book: " The Thruth About Judas- Mysteries of The Judas Code Revealed" ( Waterside Publishing,2007).
   
   Dr. Hayut-Man shows how we can see that by reading this new Gospel a very different view of Judas emerges. One who was the disciple who most understood the true mission of Jesus. We read how this same person who was seen as a "traitor" now becomes "The Greatest Disciple of Jesus".
   Dr. Hayut-Man provides a thorough analysis of the Gnosis and Quabbalah of the time and takes us through history until our present era. He shows us how and why an understanding of the Gospel of Judas can function as a blueprint for dealing with one of the most maddening and intense conflicts of our century and certainly of our generation: the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
   
   - politicians are not able to resolve it;
   - generals are not able to solve it;
   - the international community is not able to deal with it;
   
   -- A scholar-historian may yet be able to heal it.
   
   Dr. Hayut-Man offers us an alternative to hatred and an opportunity for reconciliation, understanding, respect, and love.
   
   Here is a hallmark event in the reconciliation of Christianity and Judaism and can put an end to at least many of the aspects of Anti-Semitism. It would allow Christians to benefit from Jewish mystical wisdom and allows Jews to see Jesus, not as a renegade but as a Tsadiq- (a holy person).
   May all Churches read it.
   
   Rabbi, Dr. Moshe Dror;
   International President, World Network of Religious Futurists.

5 comments about The Volterra Chronicles: The Life and Times of an Extraordinary Mathematician 1860-1940 (History of Mathematics).

1. I have just reluctantly completed my second reading of "The Volterra Chronicles". The first time I was pleased to follow the scientific information and see the historical framework revealed. This second time, I read purely for enjoyment and the amazing feeling of being in that time/place while still observing it through a present day lens. Judith R. Goodstein has accomplished an awesome feat of authorship. The sensibilities of today, and her focusing of our hindsight, inform our view of the personal and professional choices of Volterra. At the same time the reader is made aware of his, and his accomplished countrymen, interaction with the real constraints of their society. The strength of his intellect and, most vividly, his character emerge indelibly. Truly - Volterra lives.



2. Vito Volterra, one of the finest scientists and mathematicians Italy ever produced, is best known for his theory of functionals, which led to his later contributions in integral and integro-differential equations; for his interest in solid state physics, astronomy and mathematical biology, whose importance he was among the first to stress. In Goodstein's words "Volterra's life exemplifies the post-unification rise of Italian mathematics, its prominence in the first quarter of the twentieth century, and its precipitous decline under Mussolini... The meteoric rise and tragic fall of Volterra and his circle thus constitutes a lens through which we may examine in intimate detail the fortunes of Italian science in an epic scientific age".
   Born in Ancona, into a rather poor Jewish family in the year of the liberation of Italy's Jewish ghettos, Volterra showed very early promise in mathematics. He attended the University of Pisa, where he graduated in physics and where he became professor of rational mechanics in 1883. Ten years later he moved to Turin and in 1900 to Rome, where he taught mathematical physics at the University "La Sapienza". Volterra, an enthusiastic patriot, in 1905 was elected a senator of the Kingdom of Italy on grounds of high scientific standing. In his 1907 talk for the inauguration of the first congress of the Italian Society for the Progress of the Sciences, Volterra proudly drew a comparison between his era and the Renaissance: "In that time of the wonderful restoration of intellectual life, Italy became the very center of universal scientific thought. Today, I venture to wish that the destiny reserved for us not be a lesser one, as the pure and authentic Italian soul rises and takes shape, reviving our thought and restoring to us our ancient country". During World War I, already well into his 50s, he joined the Italian Army and worked on the development of airships. His hopes for Italian science were soon to be betrayed. When Benito Mussolini took power, Volterra joined the opposition to Fascism, and in 1931 he was one of the twelve university professors (over more than a thousand) who refused to take a mandatory oath of loyalty. He was compelled to resign his university post and membership of scientific academies in Italy (he belonged to quite a number of them all over the world), and, during the following years, he lived largely abroad.
   This very elegant book, based in part on unpublished private letters and documents, interviews, and personal contacts of the author with members of the scientist's family during her frequent stays in Italy, tells the quite unique life of an extraordinary person in a country and in an age characterized by dramatic events. Judith Goodstein traces a full-size portrait of the man, both in his private and public life. All around him, she draws a vivid picture of the very strong and somewhat suffocating ties within the Volterra family; of the very high quality of the gifted group of mathematicians who interacted with Volterra; of the intriguing happenings in the Italian academic community; of the dramatic conditions of intellectuals in a country that was gradually sinking from a freshly built democracy into a coarse Fascist regime. There are also flavorful glimpses on the scientific communities abroad, in Europe as well as and in North and South America. When in the USA, Volterra lectured in French, though admitting "that at the present time the most indispensable language seems to be English".
   It would be hard to provide highlights of the story, so many are the facts, the ideas, the emotions, the surprises the reader will meet along this beautifully depicted historical journey. The book will be of interest not only to scientists, but also to historians and to other learned people: it can be read like a novel, where attention paid to meaningful details and little known episodes conveys a realistic picture of the life of Italians in those years - and of the Jewish community in particular - better than many academic historical essays would.
   Bravo Goodstein: elegance, style, thorough insight... the reader will feel that she herself was a witness on the scene.
   
   Andrea Frova
   (Professor of Physics, Università "La Sapienza", Roma)
   and Mariapiera Marenzana
   (Professor of History and Italian Literature)



3. A must-read for your special reading list this summer is The Volterra Chronicles by Judith Goodstein. This book gives a very well-written and detailed account of a renowned Jewish Italian mathematician, Vito Volterra, and his rise to fame during a very turbulent period in Italian history (1860-1940). For those not familiar with Vito Volterra and his scientific and mathematical work, Dr. Goodstein offers both an exciting and captivating biography of a great and noble mathematician.



4. This book was very enjoyable to read. I recommend it to anyone who would like to learn more about the academic life in Italy during these very interesting times. The portrait of the customs of an Italian Jewish family, to which Volterra belonged, is particularly well drawn.



5. The Volterra Chronicles: The Life and Times of an Extraordinary Mathematician 1860-1940
   
   Vito Volterra, one of the great Italian scientists and mathematicians, lived during tumultuous times spanning the years of the Italian unification to the outbreak of the Second World War. He was born into a middle class Jewish family His early years were spent in the Jewish ghetto of Ancona under the eyes of his protective mother who tried to discourage him from a career in mathematics. At twenty-three he became a tenured professor at Pisa and by 1900 he was appointed professor at the University of Rome.
   
   Goodstein has constructed a detailed record of Volterra's personal life by gaining access to the Volterra family's letters and photographs. She provides rich insights into the Italian scientific and mathematical achievements and vividly records the Italian academic world and the response to the national political scene.
   
   This biography is a powerful tribute to a man who dominated the field of mathematics. He developed the areas of integral and differential equations, worked in the field of elastic media and then branched into the area of theoretical ecology and began to apply his mathematical expertise to biological systems.
   
   The ascendancy of Fascism brought the golden age of science and mathematics in Italy to an end. It is interesting that there was a disproportionately large number of Jews within Italian science and mathematics. Mussolini's regime was actively anti-Semitic and barred Jewish scientists and mathematicians from holding university posts and membership in scientific organizations.
   
   In 1931 Vito Volterra was one of only twelve Italian university professors who refused to sign the oath of allegiance to the Fascist government required by all members of the faculty, which resulted in his expulsion from the scientific community. Volterra's life parallels the rise and decline of Italian mathematics and science and provides us with a lens to examine the fortunes of Italian science during this time period.

No comments about Golden Opportunities: A Biographical History of Montana's Jewish Communities.

5 comments about Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex.

1. This wonderful little book is a collection of Anne Frank's lesser known writings , found in a seperate volume.
   It shows what a phenomenal young writer she was , and hints what a great author she may have been had she been allowed to live.
   
   The book consists of fables and short stories as well as personal reminiscenses and essays.
   
   They range from 'Kitty' - Anne's reflections on the blonde little girl next door , to beautiful fairy tales (which remind me a bit of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales) like 'The Wise Old Dwarf' and 'The Fairy'-all have a wonderful lesson enclosed within.
   
   'Paula's Plane Trip' and 'Cady's Life' focus on the adventures of young girls during wartime , the latter touching on the holocaust which later swallowed up Anne's young life.
   
   A constant theme in the book is Anne's conviction that relaxing and connecting with nature , can ease one's mind from any difficulties.
   
   In 'Personal Remininscinces and Essays' Anne Frank lets us know a little bit more about life in the little house where she and other Jews hid for some years from Nazi terror.
   In a particularly poignant passage , she remarks that after the war , she would get together photos of the people in the house, which is why she spent so little time on physical description of the house's inhabitants. Anne was confident she would survive the war , and recontinue her life.
   
   A remarkable testament to the wonderful life of a child whose life was cut so short.



2. I truly enjoyed Anne Frank's Diary, now I have had the privilege to read her tales. A talent in it's purest form. I believe it was Anne Frank who said she wanted to be famous and/or to live on after her death, and of course she has in so many ways. Her diary has sold millions upon millions of copies around the world, her story told in a broadway play, countless films and documentary's.To me it looks like Anne has gotten her wish, she has lived on, more than she'll ever know. I like so many other's have wondered what kind of person Anne Frank would have been if she had survived, of course we will never know, but her diary and her story's were left behind to be discovered and to be told to everyone around the world, what a good person we could have a had on this planet, a great and talented young girl who was taken away but not forgotten.



3. Ok, so Anne's diary will almost always out shadow other stories shes written, and with good reason, but the stories here are rather well written. The 1st half of the book contains actuall stories she was writting, some short, some long, and part of an unfinished novel. The 2nd half of the story is memories of events that happend to her in her life that she wrote down.
   Anyone who likes her diary should really give her stories a read.



4. In her now famous Diary, Anne Frank said "I want to go on living even after my death". As of 1998, The Diary of Anne Frank had reached sales of 25 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. (source: TIME, October 5, 1998). It has been required classroom reading for half a century now! In a way, her wish has come to pass.
   This subsequent publication "Tales From The Secret Annex" combines short stories, reminiscences/vignettes, and even an unfinished novel to show us yet another dimension to this remarkable person. Reading these stories and little essays confirmed my personal opinion that Anne Frank was a childhood genius with unlimited potential to achieve anything she would have set her mind to. It's hard to imagine this thirteen year old girl writing with such depth and perception, while living in seclusion, terror and fear for her life. She was writing from her heart, not with an expectation of being published. And yet these stories shine with a polished brilliance, and a certain unforgettable quality. I read this book for the first time 8 years ago, and have returned to it now, remembering the stories as though I had read them just last week. My favorite is entitled "Kathy". In three short pages, Anne captures every emotion experienced by a kid who is misunderstood by her mother, assaulted by schoolyard bullies who mock and rob her and cause her to lose the gift she was bringing home to her mother.

   Here is how she ends her essay entitled "Give":
   "If only our country and then Europe and finally the whole world would realize that people were really kindly disposed toward one another, that they are all equal and everything else is transitory!
   Open your eyes... give of yourself, give as much as you can! And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! No one has ever become poor from giving! If you do this, then in a few generations no one will need to pity the beggar children anymore, because they will not exist!
   There is plenty of room for everyone in the world, enough money, riches, and beauty for all to share! God has made enough for everyone. Let us all begin by sharing it fairly." (written March 26, 1944).

   Anne was sent to Bergen-Belsen, where some time during March 1945, she, her sister Margot and hundreds of other prisoners were stricken with typhus. Their captors, preoccupied with the advancing Allies, left them to die.
   World... read her book!




5. Also published under the title "Tales from the House Behind," this is a collection of juvenile/young adult stories that Anne Frank worked on during her years in hiding in the annex with her family and fellow fugitives. It proves that this young girl had an incredible gift for writing, and that had she lived she probably would have been received the Noble Prize for Literature. Her stories were often candid indictments of her own family life, such as Kitty, which tells the story of a young girl who day-dreams and a mother who wants her child to listen and obey rather than dream. Anne's essays show an in-depth understanding of human nature, surprising for one so young. This is a poignant book filled with fables, short stories, essays and even part of an unfinished novel. It's worth reading after you have read "The Diary of Anne Frank" simply because the diary will give you more insight to this amazing girl's life. However "Tales from the Secret Annex" stands on its own too, and like the diary should be on every school child's list of books to read.

1 comments about Rememberings: The World of a Russian-Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Studies and Texts in Jewish History and Culture, 9).

1. Being an avid reader, I rarely read a woman's perspective on history, but Pauline Wengeroff's story opened my eyes to Jewish history from a totally different viewpoint. The story is magnificent and a must for independent minded women of any age. People of the twenty-first century will be able to identify easily with a woman of the 1840-1860's. Conditions of life change, but people don't.

1 comments about Surviving Hitler In Poland: One Jew's Story.

1. This awkwardly-titled memoir consists of a rather unorganized set of notes written down, often decades after the events, by an emigre Polish Jew. The notes were located and published after his death.
   
   Predictably, much is said about Christian teachings on Jews and the Crucifixion of Christ. Even more predictably, the memoir avoids mention of Jewish anti-Christian teachings and of open provocations against Christians (such as the Purimspiels in Poland: see Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World).
   
   Rynecki complains of Poles seeing Jews as pro-Communist, yet he speaks of Leon Trotsky in glowing terms. Recounting his 9 year-old self's eyewitness experiences, he acknowledges Jewish-Communist affinity, doing so within a framework of transparent Communist ideation: "It must have been late summer during the Polish-Bolshevik war when the Red Armies advanced deep into Poland up to the River Vistula...The Russians have taken Siedlce and were very friendly to the Jews. Trotsky, a Jew himself, was in command of the whole Russian Western front...Trotsky came to town himself and...talked surrounded by all these people; Jews, peasants, and laborers. The landowners, businessmen, and middle class people were in hiding or out of town--refugees." (pp. 46-47)
   
   Many Jewish writers speak of the pro-German orientation of Polish Jews, as does Rynecki: "My father...was displaced in 1940 and deported to Majdanek, near Lublin, in 1943, where most probably he was executed by the Germans in a gas chamber. He believed to the end that no matter what, the Germans were of too high a culture to do the things they did. He represented, in a way, the mind of the Jewish people. They all believed the Germans. They all have made that massive mistake." (p. 63)
   
   Rynecki makes some particularly offensive remarks (pp. 67-68), and it is hoped that no Polish extremist reads them lest his hatred of Jews becomes reinforced. Rynecki actually says that the 1939 Polish defeat proves that Polish history and patriotism mean nothing, and that Polish officers lacked intelligence. (Might not the 10:1 weapons asymmetry favoring the Germans have something to do with it?). To pour on the insults, Rynecki says that the Poles got what they deserved--the heavy Russian boot. (How is that different from saying that the Jews deserved the Holocaust because of their long-term pro-German orientation, often at Polish expense?)
   
   Rynecki even says that, while he may forgive the Germans, he would never forgive the Poles (For what? Wasn't it the Germans who had killed the 5-6 million Jews?). Amazingly, he categorically says that NO Pole would help a Jew out of benevolence, and excoriates Poles for requiring payment (He owes his life to such a Pole). He has no problem with the Danes (whom he glorifies) having taken hefty fees to ship Jews to Sweden, and disregards the fact that the Poles, very unlike the Danes, lived under German-imposed near-starvation conditions, and couldn't readily provide food for free.
   
   Let's end on a positive note. For once, Rynecki recognizes the shared fate of Jews and Poles: "[Hitler]...committed genocide on the Jewish, Polish, Russian people...The Jews were alone. So were the Poles." (p. 66)