3 comments about My China Eye: Memoirs of a Jew and a Journalist.

1. 
   Epstein, through twists of world history at the time of his birth, develops roots in China. As a journalist and an operative his life becomes interwoven with the key players on this stage. To read this book you need some background in 20th century Chinese history. I'm not sure I appreciated the full depth of his experience because while Stilwell, the Snows, Chenault etc., were familiar names to me, among the Chinese, I could recognize only the names of key personages.
   
   The story of Epstein's amazing youth is wonderfully written. The prose description of Tienjin artfully describes the situation of the Chinese people at the turn of the century. An exciting chapter is the story of Epstein's imprisonment by the Japanese in Hong Kong.
   
   There is something terribly wrong with a general who doesn't fight his country's invaders and Epstein provided new (for me at least) info of Chaing Kai-shek's abuses.
   
   Once Epstein passes into "enemy lines" to cover the Communists, his bias kicks in big time. Everyone in the Communist controlled areas shares what little they have and smiles while doing it. Cooperatives create bountiful harvests, aviators in training lacking equipment pretend flight in the streets, factories are efficient, nothing is wasted, (the foil from his cigarette package will assist in radio service) and everyone is happy.
   
   Epstein's descriptions of the workers' happiness continues through the Great Leap Forward (which is mentioned in passing) and on to the present day medical and economic miracles. Epstein, himself a victim of the Cultural Revolution, doesn't question its purpose or critique its damage. He describes his 5 year isolation and treatment, but seems to forgive and forget on behalf of himself and others. To this American reader, it's like a Chinese version of the slogan "My Country Right or Wrong".
   
   The short piece on Tiananmen Square gives a different perspective than usually provided in the western press.
   
   Despite Mr. Epstein's rose colored glasses, (or maybe Stockholm Syndrome) this book is a worth reading. I presume his other writings more thoroughly document 20th the history he experiened. This is a well written memoir of an eventful and unusual 90+ years life. You come to understand him and respect him as an authentic voice of a waning view of the world that inspired several generations of people in China and Russia.
   
   One word of caution. This book is not easy on the eyes. There is something about the contrast (or lack of it) between the ink and the page, which means you will need a well lighted reading place.



2. Epstein either omits mention of devastating events such as the Great Leap Forward or excuses the government's actions such as the Tiananmen Massacre. As I told him after Tiananmen, "It aint Socialism." To which he replied "History will tell." I think history has told. Epstein lead an interesting life but he presents a distorted view of the Chinese Revolution.



3. Journalist and war correspondent Israel Epstein's memoir spans over eighty years and offers his eyewitness account of some of the most turbulent years of this century. While My China Eye: Memoirs Of A Jew And A Journalist could have been featured in our more general 'biography' column, it's reviewed here for its importance as a revealing narrative by a Western journalist who experienced the Chinese Communist Revolution firsthand from its beginning. Epstein grew up in Tianjin and was exposed to social issues and left-wing movements in China at an early age. During the 1930s and 40s he reported from China and Hong Kong; during the war he was in the front lines reporting on China's War of Resistance against Japan. His dramatic account of history in the making shouldn't be missed.

No comments about Parallel Lines: A Journey from Childhood to Belsen.

4 comments about Escape and Return : Memories of Nazi Germany.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a reader of many Holocaust/World War II books, I am very impressed with Mr. Ottenheimers well written story. He made his family & other characters come alive for the reader & made us care for them & cry for them. It is an event in our history that must never be forgotten & it must happen "NEVER AGAIN."



2. WWII is an interesting but sad topic. Many books have been written about it. This, Mr. Ottenheimer's book, is a combination of most of them. As a native of Konstanz, Germany, he gives us very accurate information about the living condition before and during the coming crisis. He could escape to the USA shortly before Germany invaded Poland. Later he returned as a member of the US Army. This gives him the unique possibility to see the war from both sides. He wrote about everything you could imagine: Life in pre-war-Germany, war-refugees in the USA, military training, military engagement in Europe and even about his relation with people from the old continent. Living in Switzerland (I just got 20), very close to Konstanz, it was very interesting to read about that nearby town. Too many things have never been said. I would recommend that book to everyone to read for it is unlike any other auto-biography. It reads so easily like a novel (not too difficult for foreign speakers neither). You hardly can put it away, it is so captivating.



3. Mr. Ottenheimer has written an extremely insightful book about the events leading directly up to the Holocaust, the Allies drive to push Nazism out of Europe at the end of the war, and the restoration of normalcy in Europe after the war - all events that the author experienced first hand. The book also reflects upon how this era is addressed in the schools and teachings in Germany today and even parallels events of that era to world politics in our era. This book is extremely well-written and easy to read. I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in history.



4. Escape and Return is the memoir of a life defined by the tragic, great force of World War II and the Holocaust. Written in a direct, chronological style, Fritz Ottenheimer's story takes you through a dark period in human history while taking you through his own life; a life filled with the tragedy of families and communities decimated, but also with triumphs, love and, yes, laughter. While not attempting to be an exhaustive study of WW II or the Holocaust, Mr. Ottenheimer's book has plenty of direct, first-hand information on everything from pre-war life in small German towns, to his own personal experience as a U.S. soldier assigned to Germany at the moment of Nazi defeat;the irony of his return a mere 6 years after fleeing Hitler and setting to the job of "de-Nazification" of his prior homeland is a riveting and deeply moving story.

   While the title of the book is Escape and Return, there are actually more "returns" in later years as Fritz Ottenheimer returned on his own personal journey to the town and land of his birth,where he was welcomed back and invited to tell his story to a new generation as well as his ongoing efforts for personal reconciliation. This book,(which has also been published in Germany) reads like an oral history, suitable for adults and teens(paired with the Ann Frank story as supplemental readings for WWII history) who want to learn more about this "black hole of history." (Ottenheimer's words.)

5 comments about Finding a Home for the Soul: Interviews with Converts to Judaism.

1. I bring no background knowledge to the matter of conversions to Judaism, so this book helped me to understand a bit about this topic. I read "Finding a Home for the Soul" as a consequence of meeting the author, a wonderful, engaging woman.
   
   As a Roman Catholic, I was most intrigued with descriptions of those Catholics who simply never warmed up to "Jesus" as Messiah and wandered into the orbit of Judaism because of a greater comfort with the notion of one God the Father (excuse me if I am mangling this concept).
   
   My specialty is more the arena of intercultural romance, which "Finding a Home for the Soul" indirectly addresses, as many of these conversions (but not all) occurred as a result of a mixed marriage.
   
   Also intriguing to me are the descriptions of important rituals in the Jewish faith. Sitting Shiva seems an especially valuable exercise that our overall society might think about adopting.
   
   As it is (I think here of funerals for members of my own family), an American funeral is often a wild 24-hour ride through the wake, the funeral and a gathering afterwards. The idea of structuring mourning over a good length of time just seems so human and right.
   
   I would suggest that the book could be improved by a larger type face -- that's the book publisher and designer in me speaking. Overall however kudos for an indepth work with loads of material.



2. Though the book was bulky, the style was for m a bit dry as well, the real prblem I had with it was that I nearly only saw stories of non-orthodox converts. I would not recommend it as an intro to love judaism.....



3. I wanted this book when I first saw it in the bookstore when it was originally published, but balked at the price, and by the time I began to think about finally getting my own copy, it seemed to have gone out of popular circulation. I eventually found a used copy for a much more reasonable price, and it was really worth the wait. I had begun reading it before, and all of the rest of the many personal stories, based on interviews Mrs. Myrowitz had conducted, were just as good. The author herself is a JBC, and shared in the lengthy but quite good introduction her own personal story and journey. Like a number of people profiled here, she too technically converted because she was in a relationship with a Jew, but not in the traditional way one is used to. Instead of undergoing some superficial conversion for no other reason than she was marrying a man who insisted she convert (or whose family ordered her to convert), she had already long been drawn to Judaism and Judaic values anyway, and finding the man who became her husband was more like the catalyst to do something serious about these feelings. Although not all of the JBCs profiled converted for marriage; some, at least at the date of publication, weren't even in relationships. Many people assume the only reason someone would become Jewish (or any other non-Christian religion) is because of an impending marriage, but here we have plenty of stories of people who did it only for themselves, before even being in a relationship, or who still aren't in a relationship period, with either a Jew or a Gentile. And not all of the stories are of white converts; there were some individuals profiled who are African-American, and I loved the story of the woman whose husband was living in France but with Moroccan roots. It's such a myth that Jews are only white and from Eastern or Central Europe. Many things led these people to convert, but overall they prove what is often said, that a JBC is oftentimes more devout, passionate, and committed than many JBBs. I also enjoyed the extensive bibliography and have since read or bought a number of the wonderful books suggested.



4. I picked this book up off the shelves of my local JCC library. Amidst the books on conversion that I've encountered so far, I find it to be the least partisan. It shows a spectrum of conversion experiences from liberal to orthodox, male and female, striaght and gay, white and of colour authors. I found it to be highly articulate.and intimate.



5. I found the stories in this book highly interesting and enjoyed reading the tales of those who have chosen to convert to Judaism. I recommend it for those who are converting or who have relatives who convert. It explains why people choose to convert, the problems that can be associated with converting, and how they dealt with those problems.

5 comments about Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life.

1. I ordered and read Moshe Dayan's autobiography after the recent activities of the IDF. I was curious to get an idea of alternative solutions that could have been implemented by the man himself.
   
   It was fascinating to extrapolate Dayan's preferred methods of military engagement to the recent engagement. He wrote how he and David Ben-Gurion got along well and supported and respected each other; except Dayan did not prefer to "steamroller" his troops directly at the enemy front, but to risk a dash around to the rear of the enemy, cutting them off from their reinforcements and second line of defense; thus splitting the enemy's communication lines and disrupting any coordinated plan they had. I think he was successful with this tactic many times since 1948. The book is a captivating read, chronicling the same lame political dithering and bickering as seen today - but with unimaginably violent, gut-wrenching accounts of battle which would more than compare to Omaha Beach in the movie "Saving Private Ryan." I think that Moshe Dayan experienced "Omaha Beaches" with personal integrity, valour and a caring heart, first hand, many times, for 25 years! Little did we know.



2. Moshe Dayan tells the story of his life, and his military campaigns in a clear and strong incisive language. He tells of his early years in Degania, his recruitment into the Night Brigades of Orde Wingate, his wounding and loss of an eye in Syria, his part in the Israeli War of Independance. He tells of the Sinai Campaign in which he played a leading part. And he tells also of his dramatic summoning to the Defense Ministry in the 1967 War, and the subsequent victory of that War. The difficult chapter is his own accounting of the Yom Kippur War debacle in which he perhaps does not tell us the degree to which he was responsible.
   Dayan was a Biblically inspired warrior, one who knew and loved the Land of Israel very well. A controversial figure in many ways this autobiography does not include the final chapters of his story, when he was invited to be Foreign Minister by Menachem Begin, and played an important role in the contacts and peace negotiations with Egypt's Anwar Sadat.
   Dayan was an inventive soldier and a courageous one who contributed much to the building of the Army of Israel. He had failings in his personal life which are not really documented in this volume.
   Nonetheless he is a strong writer, and his presentation is vivid and forthright.
   Reading this book one will learn not only about the life of Dayan, but about a portion of the history of Israel.



3. Moshe Dayan was born in palestine to Russian immigrants and was thus a Sabra, a palestinian jew. At an early age he guarded the kibbutz Deganiah along with other youths against local Arab marauders in the Galilee. His namesake was another youth named Moshe (Moses), an immigrant from Russia who was attacked and killed by marauders while he was on his way to get medicines for Moshe Dayan's father. The first few decades of twentieth century life for jews in palestine were back breaking hard work; for Moshe Dayan's family, they worked to transform mosquito-infested swamplands into lush, fertile farmlands and battled bouts of malaria regularly like many other zionist pioneers. The foundation of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) was the Hashomer (the Guard) formed in 1909, a few years before Dayan's birth, which gave rise later to the Haganah (the Defense) and Palmach of which Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin were members. These forces for the jews in palestine were indispensible to the jews' survival in many ways. He was groomed for leadership at an early age trained militarily by the English general Orde Wingate and by the zionist leader, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Dayan is known mostly for his role as Israel's defense minister and his military service. My curiousity about him was peaked by my trip to Israel in 2000. I thoroughly enjoyed Dayan's autobiography. It was interesting to read about Israel's early history from the vantage point of one of Israel's most famous defenders.



4. The life of Moshe Dayan is indeed very interesting. By reading it one gets to understand much better the historical and political issues involved in the isralei - palestinian question and how this matter got entangled with most of the 20th century geopolitical evolution. Moshe Dayan was a natural born soldier, being involved with the zionist undercovered military machine since his teens. His rise to power was connected to the clear leadership he exerted on his soldiers, and not to political arrangements. In this sense Dayan was always among his soldiers, much more a "primus inter pares" than an unreachable strategist that sees battle from a map room. The book is very sincere and in many points he opens his heart and one can see the joy (as for example in the episode of the liberation of Jerusalem) and sadness (when he talks about the dead young officers during the yom kippur war). It is important to notice, however, that despite being such a telented soldier, one can not say that Dayan succeeded as a politician. His mandate as Minister of Agriculture receives almost no atention in the book and one can see that his heart was not at it. Other episodes that deserved more atention, like the Lavon affair and the creation of Rafi are quite superficially touched.



5. OK this was a good book it just suffers from one serious flaw. 0n page 22 of the 1976 edition from William Morrow and Company Dayan writes "on may 4 1915 I was born in deganiah.." Then on page 505 Dayan writes "In the first, our 1948 war of independance I was twenty five and commanded a commando battalsion". Yeah the numbers dont really work out..kind of strange. "c'mon Moshe, who wrote the book for ya?

2 comments about The Letters That Never Came (Jewish Latin Amer Series).

1. Like Mauricio Rosencof, the author of this book, I am Uruguayan - but this book has a message for every reader, regardless of his or her nationality, religion or political ideology.
   
   The son of poor Polish/Jewish immigrants (his father was a tailor), Mauricio Rosencof's childhood was punctuated by poverty and absence - that of his elder brother, who, as he tells us, "protected me all my life, until he died", and that of his parents' Polish relatives, assassinated by the Germans and authors of the real or imagined "letters that never came". But Mauricio's early years were also marked by the kindness of his parents, by his hungry alertness to the world, and by the magical background of a long-gone Montevideo - all of which he evokes masterfully.
   
   Suffering was to feature prominently in adulthood too. For about twelve years (1973 - 1985), Uruguay was scourged by a shameful and bloody military dictatorship that ended one of the longest and stablest democratic traditions in South America. Mauricio, a left-wing activist, was imprisoned and tortured, while his aged father and mother were persecuted as the "parents of a subversive". During these dark times, the letters that never came were the ones he could not write, the ones that told of the brutal treatment meted out to him, of the terror, the hope and the endurance.
   
   I read the book in the original Spanish and so cannot comment on the translation, but I hope it does justice to Rosencof's spare, austere and yet profoundly evocative writing.
   
   It should also be noted that "The letters..." inspired a play (which included Hebrew dances or "rikudim") and ran for a long time in Montevideo's renowned "Teatro El Galpón".
   
   This wonderfully crafted memoir is an urgent and important read which speaks of family ties, heritage, love, grief, beliefs, and - above all - the force of the human spirit.



2. i read this book in the original spanish a couple of years ago and was blown away. rosencof creatively weaves together his own history with that of his ancestors who perished in hitler's camps. i have not read this translated version, but it is probably excellent since it is part of a series that has included terrific books.

1 comments about Kristallnacht.

1. In light of the dearth of still living eyewitnesses to both Kristallnacht and the Shoah in general, this is a warm very personal account of one woman's and one family's experience, struggles, and ultimately success in finding the American dream.

No comments about The Civil War Diary of Clara Solomon: Growing Up in New Orleans, 1861-1862.

5 comments about In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe--A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust.

1. Just when I thought I knew all the big stories from the Holocaust, I come upon this... and I had never heard of this family.
   
   My father's family was from this same region in Romania, and I wish my granpa and grandma were alive to ask them questions...who knows? They might have even seen this family perform! Ah, the things we never asked our parents and grandparents when they were alive cause we were so busy in our young lives!
   
   Wonderfully told story about family togetherness...Tender, raw, and real. One can even try to understand why there was a sort of "affection" between the family and their captors--as unbelievable as it seems.
   
   Read this one.



2. The family photo on the cover is a classic, and I first saw it as a child in a Time-Life series book. The condition has since been diagnosed as pseudoachondroplasia, a genetic disorder of the cartilage.
   
   Even if it weren't for the religious persecution and horrendous experiments performed on them by Dr. Mengele, this would have been a fascinating story about a challenged family who rose above their obstacles, without being exploited, to lead fulfilling lives. All appeared to be emotionally well-adjusted and totally lacking in self-pity.
   
   People who are interested in the Holocaust and/or dwarfism should read this book.



3. Penned by a pair of Israeli journalists, In Our Hearts We Were Giants is the never-before-told true story of the Ovitz family, seven of them dwarfs, who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust - yet in an odd twist of fate, their dwarfism actually helped them to survive. Serving as popular entertainers until the Nazis deported them to Auschwitz in May 1944, the Ovitz family - widely known as the Lilliput Troupe - were separated from other Jewish victims. The notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, his diabolic "research" on twins and other genetically unique individuals already underway, took a special interest in the Ovitzes. Even as he arranged for vile experiments to be performed upon the Ovitzes, he developed a bizarre fondness for them and their will to survive. Pieced together from interviews with the last surviving Ovitz sibling and her relatives, medical documentation, archival lists, and original Auschwitz records, In Our Hearts We Were Giants is an unforgettable perspective on the nightmare of the Holocaust.



4. The story of the Ovitz family's devotion to one other and to their religion is by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking. By now, many of us have read books, seen movies, and heard stories about extraordinary survival won through that extraordinary horror, the Holocaust. This book stands with the best of those stories because of its uniqueness -- seven of the 10 Ovitzes were dwarfs, and therefore the entire family became the special "pets" of the dreaded Dr. Mengele.
   
   The writing is hardly slick or seamless, but it gets the job done in a more than satisfactory manner. The text seems to speak English with an accent, and while that can be a tad distracting at times, it confers that much more veracity upon the story of the Ovitzes.
   
   The resourcefulness, dedication, and intelligence of the Ovitz dwarfs enables the reader to see them as much more than medical curiosities. Not only are they real people, they're very special people. Frankly, people of this caliber would be worth writing a book about even if they were of normal stature. Dwarfism aside, the story of the Ovitzes is that of a loving, close-knit, traditional family of a type that seems sadly alien to many of us today.
   
   The family's Jewish faith remains strong even in the face of growing persecution. When it is decreed that Jewish performers may perform only for Jewish audiences, the Ovitzes skillfully contrive to obtain identification papers that do not identify them as Jews, yet they remain observant by conveniently falling ill on every sabbath, so they do not have to perform. Later, when they are held in the concentration camp, they manage to say prayers and fashion makeshift candles in secret observance of holidays.
   
   The suffering the Ovitzes endured at the hands of Mengele is not related in excruciating detail, but what information we are given is excruciating enough. This book is generally more vague, more poetic about the concentration-camp atrocities than other books, but it is no less horrifying.
   
   Horrifying, too, are some of the details of the Ovitzes' lives after the war. They remain devoted to one another, and continue to stick together, but now they are also bonded by what haunts them. Their nephew -- who was only a baby in the camp and learned to call Mengele "Daddy" so that he might be spared from torture -- recalls being awakened frequently by his aunts and uncles screaming in their sleep.
   
   One of the most interesting aspects of this book are the conflicting accounts of the dwarfs' activities in the concentration camp. Several witnesses claim to have seen the Ovitzes performing in the camp, whereas the Ovitzes always firmly maintained that they did not perform -- and indeed, would not have done such a thing. Other witnesses claim to have seen several of the dwarves kowtowing to Mengele and to have heard them praising him to the other prisoners. The Ovitzes deny this as well.
   
   The authors of the book do not attempt to clear up these discrepancies; they simply present both sides, and acknowledge that perhaps certain people's memories are clouded or inaccurate. I admired this tactic.
   
   This remarkable family made their way in a world that gave them very little more than sharp minds, winning personalities, each other, and their strong faith. Though they did gain wealth and widespread renown before and after the war, during the very darkest years of their lives, the barest essentials -- wits and wit, family and faith -- turned out to be riches in themselves.



5. This is a most unusual book. Many books have been printed about the Holocaust, dissecting it from every conceivable aspect. Here we have a fascinating account of how a family of Jewish dwarfs from Marmorash (Transylvania) in Rumania survived the Holocaust. The infamous "doctor" Mengele was interested in studying genetics , more accurately he was interested in his own version of this science.The family of Jewish dwarfs and some extended family members offered him an unusual opportunity for this study and Mengele seized this and thus allowed the Jewish dwarfs to survive Auschwitz and remain alive while he and his staff preformed their so-called research on them.In fact many of these extended family members were not really related to the dwarf family , but created a fiction in an attempt at survival.
   In fact this allowed these little Jews to survive and eventually move to Israel.Not only did they survive but Mengele and his cohorts treated them fairly well in comparison to the death camp conditions prevailing in Auschwitz.
   Besides being a fascinating Holocaust story, it is also a moving human interest story dealing with Jewish life in Northern Rumania and the Jewish attitude towards the preforming arts in pre War Rumania and Hungary . Given that this family was Orthodox , their role in theatre and was especially difficult for them to navigate. The book also has some interesting information about "Badchanus" an art that is only now being revived in the Chasidic community in the US, Israel and Belgium.
   Of course the book offers an account of life as a dwarf and , how these people live meaningful lives on both a day to day basis and in the long run in terms of livelyhood and marriage. The authors have presented a finely crafted book , that is both a dramatic account of one family's struggle to survive in the darkest of times and the same familys joy of life in dealing with a challenged reality.

1 comments about Letter to My Children: From Romania to America Via Auschwitz.

1. The author writes in a direct conversational way. It's a page-turner from its opening and you can't put this book down until you finish it and find out how the author's story ends. The author writes of many aspects of pre-war Europe which were largly neglected before. This is a valuable book with mainly new information on the Holocaust.