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5 comments about Across the Street From Adolf Hitler.

1. Author Anneliese Korner-Kalman, Stanford University Professor and developmental psychologist, wrote a memoir that deals with the universal task of coming to terms with childhood, in her case an extremely difficult one, complicated by growing up in a conflict ridden family and in closeproximity to Hitler¹s private residence in Munich.

   Soon after Hitler's release from prison where he had written the Nazi bible Mein Kampf, he became a regular visitor in Korner-Kalman's apartment house to call on an upstairs neighbor who was Hitler's informer about the German High Command. Apprehensively watching the steady growth of the Nazi movement, Hitler's visits to her apartment house were very frightening for her and her family. In 1929, it was reported that Hitler had moved to the author¹s immediate neighborhood, but her family did not know exactly where. But in January 1933, when Hitler came to power, it became clear from S.S. officers standing guards in front of his apartment house, that he lived across the street from hers.

   Frightening years ensued, friends and neighbors disappearing, and nearby Dachau concentration camp filling to capacity. In 1934, bicycling through a narrow roundabout, she came face to face with Hitler, when he was driven in his convertible right next to her. A second car pulled up to her with S.S officers screaming at her to greet the Führer, which she refused to do. She later found out that people had been killed for defying to greet Hitler. Ultimately, she was summoned to appear before the Gestapo. After her release, her panicked parents sent her to safety in Switzerland.

   Paradoxically, this most harrowing experience, also became her luckiest one. She was able to leave Germany when this was still possible. It freed her from a family whose values she could not share. And it opened up the world of scholarship for her under the mentorship of Professor Piaget at the University of Geneva. As a result, she eventually became a research scientist, studying newborn babies.

   At the insistence of German colleagues, she reluctantly returned to Munich to present her research findings there. Returning to her roots was poignant and painful, but it also allowed her to finally come to terms with her childhood- -with her parents and with young Germans who had nothing to do with the Nazis.

   I highly recommend this extraordinary and important book which is full of profound and unique insights, both personal and historical. This memoir should appeal to any thoughtful reader.




2. The only reason people will buy this book is because they hope for some personal insight into the mind of Hitler. Forget it, this is a numbingly boring book, an exercise in ego gratification for the author. She lived across the street from Hitler's Munich apartment, at 16 Prinzregentenplatz. She saw him at a distance a few times and then pads these pseudo-encounters to a ridiculous degree. I seriously wonder whether she actually saw Hitler at all, since her stories seem spurious in the extreme.
   
   The vast majority of the book has absolutely nothing to do with Hitler. She is packed off to Switzerland, immigrates to the USA, etc. ad nauseum. Who really cares? The book found a publisher because she claims to have met Hitler. At least, then, include some interesting stories about the man. There are none in this book. Extremely disappointing.



3. I found reading this book riveting and totally absorbing. I could not putit down. Author Anneliese Korner-Kalman, born into a German Jewish family in Munich, vividly describes her frequent and terrifying encounters with her neighbor, Adolf Hitler. After being summoned to appear before the Gestapo,her panicked parents sent her off to safety in Switzerland where, alone and at the age of only sixteen, she was invited to become Professor Piaget's student at the University of Geneva. While there, she not only received an inspiring education that became the foundation of her later career, she also did some underground work, guiding Austrian refugees to safety in prewar France.

   After graduating, she joined her family in New York which was still in the depth of the Great Depression. Her fiance could not join her and wound up in a French camp that ultimately had to hand over all Jewish prisoners to the Nazis for transport to Auschwitz. I found her story of how she was able to get him out of the camp and to come to America just before this event, very
   moving.

   The author managed to get scholarships to attend graduate school at Columbia University, where she earned her Ph.D. Eventually, she became Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine where, in a thirty-five year research career, she studied the innate differences among newborn babies, long before the current stress on genetic differences.

   It was her career that reluctantly brought her back to Munich at the insistence of German colleagues who wanted her to present her research findings there. While in Munich, she painfully relived the Nazi era, but she also gained a lot of historical insights, which grew over many subsequent years. The books ends with a chapter that presents a brilliant and razor-sharp analysis of Hitler's goals, motives and strategies, the Holocaust and its deniers.

   This is a book that tells the fascinating story of a resilient and wise woman who , during all her life, successfully fought the odds. I highly recommend this captivating and well written book.




4. I would not recommend this book to the general public. There is very, very little in it about direct experiences in Nazi Germany. So much of the book has almost nothing to do with Nazi Germany and is about her family and personal relationships and about her professional development instead. These were interesting and well written but not particularly enlightening or thought-provoking. The last 80 pages I found mostly pretty boring as they went into details of her research and her analyses of WWII and Nazi Germany and prejudice against the Jews. I cannot comment on her research, but what she said about the war, etc. I found unenlightening. I think that this is a nice book for her children and her children's children to have, but for me, I felt let down when I came to the end. As a side note, I found it amusing that she wrote down so much about the delicious meals she enjoyed here and there. This was true in Heck's book "Child of Hitler" also. The bombs may be dropping around, but boy, the pickled herring was yummy! (to exaggerate my point). If you are just interested in the musings of and a slice of the life of an intelligent prominent psychologist, then by all means, read this book.



5. Author Anneliese Korner-Kalman who happened to grow up across the street from Hitler's private residence describes her terrifying face to face encounters with Hitler and her ultimate summons to appear before the Gestapo.

   The book describes an extraordinarily courageous woman. For example, when she rode her bike through a narrow roundabout, Hitler's convertible pulled up next to her, and SS officers in a second car, screamed at her to greet the Führer, an order she stubbornly defied. After her panicked parents sent her to Switzerland, she risked her life, guiding Austrian refugees to safety in France.

   Once in Switzerland, Professor Piaget invited her to become a student at the University of Geneva. Her studies there laid the foundation for her ultimately becoming a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine where, in a 35-year research career, she studied newborn babies. She was one of the first to discover innate newborn behavioral differences,
   long before the more recent interest in genetics.

   Her pioneering research brought her back to Munich because German colleagues persuaded her to present her findings there. During her stay, she relived her painful childhood and the Nazi era.

   While her book is captivating from beginning to end, I was especially impressed by her insightful historical reflections. For instance, she deduced that long before WW II began, Hitler's first and foremost goal was to conquer Russia. She also described how the Nazi Holocaust differed from other genocides in motives, methods and circumstances.

   This is an important book, well written and wise. It is very timely, considering the current wave of anti-Semitism all over the world. I highly recommend this book, particularly for discussion groups and book clubs.

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2 comments about Freud A to Z.

1. Sharon Heller has created a new type of biography, a cross-referenced kind of lexicon on an extremely complex subject.
   
   The great minds of the twentieth century are vast and varied. Freud has to be one of the most influential intellectuals of the last century in terms of our popular culture today, most likely more prevalent than any other writer.
   
   Einstein's theory of the universe and his popular protests against war made this man extremely popular, but his popularity was based on what Charlie Chaplin said, (paraphrased) "They love you because no one understands you. They love me because they all understand me."
   
   Albert Schweitzer showed us what a good mind and a genuine willingness to help other misfortunate people can do to improve the planet; Mother Theresa took this notion further, showing the world the core of Christian belief; Crick revealed DNA and Oppenheim made the first nuclear bomb, using the explosive to destroy two cities in Japan.
   
   The twentieth century will be remembered as the century of technological advancement like no other in our relatively short recorded history.
   
   What is interesting, however, is that Sigmund Freud and his theories, despite losing popularity during its reign; many noteworthy psychologists, psychiatrists, in present day, continue to quote his theories, because Freud managed to do something important. He popularized the notion of the unconscious; that our conscious actions are not necessarily motivated on conscious grounds; our intentions, our `true' incentive could well be driven by our unconscious (unknowable) drives, our mind in constant conflict...a will (drive) to create (sex) and a will to destroy (death).
   
   One of my favourite short texts by Freud, written shortly after the First World War is "Civilization and its Discontents", describing the Death Instinct persuasively. Heller manages to succinctly, in alphabetical format, explain most of Freud's general theories...thought by most to be an impossible task in such a short text.
   
   One can feel Heller's enthusiasm and admiration for her subject. She writes clearly and her fascination on her subject is apparent, thus, as an old fan of the cigar smoking genius, this text is a pleasure to read.
   
   At this point in time, have not decided whether the text is a good reference for students, (too much history, not enough theory) but it is surely a wonderful starting point as a simple beginning to Freud's theories and the man himself for anyone interested or curious.
   
   A good text for the beginner and something entertaining for the informed reader as well.
   
   4 stars



2. This compilation is the most pleasurable reading I found about Freud yet. Presuming it is accurate it's A to Z topics are easy and interesting adding information about the man, theory and events related. Maybe you are a specialist but I am certain that you find something you don't know and would like to know.

1 comments about Edoardo Weiss: The House that Freud Built.

1. Edoardo Weiss: The House that Freud Built is the biography of Edoardo Weiss (1889-1970), a favored disciple of Freud and the acknowledged founder of psychoanalysis in Italy. Drawing heavily on interviews that author and professor Paul Roazen personally conducted with Weiss, Edoardo Weiss: The House that Freud Built covers political issues (including the difficulties of accomplishing pioneer psychological work under the government of Mussolini), moral principles in the clinic, Weiss' and Freud's differences of opinion in how to best work with psychotic patients, and much more. An index rounds out this aptly researched biography, which due to its focus on Weiss' achievements in psychoanalysis is an especially vital contribution to personal and library psychology history shelves.

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3 comments about The Man of Jasmine/& Other Texts.

1. I was afraid to read this book at first fearing it would be a horribly dreary account of life in insane asylums but it is something more. This is a great little book in the same vein as Gerard de Nerval's, Aurelia and Zurn has just as wonderful a voice. Her matter of fact and almost innocent narrative of her insanity is by turns disturbing, depressing, hilarious and ultimately poetic. Her style is somehow innocent and sophisticated simultaneously similar to the Alsatian Poet, Hans Arp's. It is definitely one of the great works of surrealism and one of the few objective accounts of insanity from the inside.



2. "The Man of Jasmine" is the most imaginative (without losing it's objectivity) account of one woman's descent into insanity ever written. It opens innocently enough, with budding artist Unica Zurn describing her childhood visions. By turns ecstatic, horrific, depressing and extremely strange, the clash between imagination and reality which Zurn experiences first hand is riveting. Her delusions (the Dadaist poets planning to liberate her from a mental ward, for example) are so manically inspired and magical that they genuinely achieve what so few of the surrealists could: the destruction of the boundary between fantasy and the world as we know it.
   
   Zurn walks the tightrope of delirium with alarming grace, at times unwittingly raiding the hazardous realms of deramgement which Breton and the gang could only admire from the outside: "As she returns to her hotel she allows herself to be directed once more by the voice within, telling her the way. She lies down on the bed in her room and, as already for several nights, is unable to sleep. Suddenly the stove starts to emit smoke--the smell gives her the impression that a shady, dubious unknown surgeon is preparing to conduct a hideous operation which she must escape at all costs. She leaves her room, closing the corridor and opens the first door. The room is empty" (pg 53). Wow.
   
   In the course of the narrative Zurn quite literally LIVES the surrealist manifesto as very few of the group ever did--casually pouring a cup of water on a policeman's hat, relying on an invisible Henri Michaux for support while witnessing the horror of life in the numerous mental hospitals she is forced into, and allowing the mathematical anagrams she is constantly writing to make many pivotal decisions in her life. Unlike many surrealist pieces, however, this is not all word games and defiant pretension; Zurn's frenzied exaltation is taken apart piece by piece.
   
   Zurn peers out from the veil of convulsive beauty with the fortunate or unfortunate aid of psych meds and the result is tragic disillusionment. She becomes a mere mortal, no longer wishing to see hallucinations. Zurn's leap from a sixth floor window is as much a challenge to the surrealist quest as Nadja's psychosis and Nerval swinging from a lamppost. It seems that the degree of ferocity with which the surrealist pioneers and legends embraced the fantastic at the cost of the mundane an equally ferocious psychical toll is suffered when they return to earth. Still, this is a masterpiece which should be right up there with "Paris Peasant" and "Liberty or Love!" I read this in one night and could not get over it. Deliciously nutty and gone too soon, Zurn was not the kind of chick one takes home to mom and dad.



3. The Man of Jasmine works completely as a spell inside the mind of someone in the throes of psychosis: the obsessions, the delusions, the hypno-poetics; all the mental movements with which Surrealism only experiments. Unica Zurn is the real thing! If you like this, try her other difficult-to-find volume, The House of Illnesses, Leonora Carrington's Down Below, or Janet Frames' Faces In The Water.

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