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- Anne Frank Revisited...
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- Amazing diary of a young woman
- A Powerful and Intimate Portrait
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Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Frank
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ASIN: 0553296981
Release Date: 1993-06-01 |
Amazon.com
A beloved classic since its initial publication in 1947, this vivid, insightful journal is a fitting memorial to the gifted Jewish teenager who died at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in 1945. Born in 1929, Anne Frank received a blank diary on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Her marvelously detailed, engagingly personal entries chronicle 25 trying months of claustrophobic, quarrelsome intimacy with her parents, sister, a second family, and a middle-aged dentist who has little tolerance for Anne's vivacity. The diary's universal appeal stems from its riveting blend of the grubby particulars of life during wartime (scant, bad food; shabby, outgrown clothes that can't be replaced; constant fear of discovery) and candid discussion of emotions familiar to every adolescent (everyone criticizes me, no one sees my real nature, when will I be loved?). Yet Frank was no ordinary teen: the later entries reveal a sense of compassion and a spiritual depth remarkable in a girl barely 15. Her death epitomizes the madness of the Holocaust, but for the millions who meet Anne through her diary, it is also a very individual loss. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic -- a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the "Secret Annex" of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
Customer Reviews:
Anne Frank Revisited..........2007-10-17
As just about every other student, I read The Diary of Anne Frank in middle school, probably during the 6th or 7th grade. I had a distant memory of it, but not much. Well, recently I watched Schindler's List and this got me re-interested in WWII, and especially the Holocaust. I read Night by Eli Wiesel (highly recommended) and decided to move on to The Diary of Anne Frank. Let me start by reviewing the book:
The Diary of Anne Frank is a diary of a young, Jewish girl (as the title obviously states, haha) whom is forced to go into hiding with her family during the Nazi occupation of Holland in the early 1940's. During this period, Jews were being segregated and even sent off to concentration camps by the Germans on a daily basis. When Anne's sister's name was next on the list, their father decided to take the family into hiding.
Aided by some of Otto's (Anne's father) former employees, the Franks seclude themselves in a small Annex of a business in Amsterdam. There, they are joined by the Van Daan family and later by an older gentleman, Mr. Dussel. Anne's diary chronicles their plight for the following two years, until they are discovered by the German secret police and ultimately sent to their death in Jewish concentration camps.
Anne addresses various topics, from their daily activities, to her interest in the son of the Van Daan's, Peter, to some of her inner most thoughts, fears, and aspirations. I have to share with you that I was EXTREMELY impressed with Anne's intelligence. I couldn't help but compare her to myself when I was only 15 years old and I am amazed not only at her intelligence but her strength to persevere during such horrible times. This young girl manages to keep faith in God and struggles with maintaining her morality, even as all around her she is witnessing a warped world full of sin, hatred and evil. I cannot say that in her shoes I would've reacted the same.
I encourage any reader to read and/or re-read The Diary of Anne Frank. You will be completely enveloped by her wit and warmth and are surely to fall in love with her.
Ann Frank.......2007-10-05
The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition is the diary Anne Frank a young Jewish girl growing up during World War II and the holocaust. Anne lives in Amsterdam with her mother, father, and sister Margot. When Anne is 13 she and her family must go into hiding to escape the Germans call ups, particularly one for Margot. They hide in the back of a warehouse where Otto (Anne's father) works. There are seven people at the beginning including the three van Daans an Anne and her family.
The diary reminds me of The Breadwinner which is about a young girl growing up in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule. The main character must dress up as a boy when her father is arrested to earn money for her family. Unlike Anne's diary however this was written in modern day. They both had trouble getting food that they needed and lived in fear of getting arrested. Although they lived in different times the experiences of the girls were similar
After a bit Albert Dussel, a dentist, joins the group in, as it came to be known, the Secret Annex. Dussel became a bit annoying when he starts hiding food when the rest of the group need to get coupon books through the black market and are eating rotten potatoes and other foods. He did however give them dental checkups. Anne shared a room with Dussel when he came (before she shared with Margot) and was frequently woken up when he got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. "Mr. Dussel's Toilet Timetable" is some thing that Anne tacks to the bathroom door. "I might well have added "Transgressors will be subject to confinement!" Because our bathroom can be locked from both the inside and the outside." Is something Anne writes after the timetable.
Anne also makes friends with Peter van Dan and spends quite a few evenings in his attic bedroom because it has the only window that's not covered by a curtain. They become valuable resources for each other.
All in all this is a very good book and I highly recommend it.
Amazing diary of a young woman .......2007-10-01
Anne Frank is remembered for being a sweet young girl that went into hiding during the holocaust only to be found and sent to a concentration camp where she died 3 months befroe her 16th birthday. The time in between these two horrible events is full of fear, fights,learning, and love, basically life. This version of the diary has more material than the orginal, which some people think is too much, but it is what she wrote left alone. It has what she intended the book to be. It includes story from the restrictions put on her while she wasn't in hiding because she was Jewish to her chores that she did quietly in the Secret Annex such as peeling potatoes and rubbing beans. It is not always the most interesting book, but it does provoke thought. It's sad in the fact that you know how its going to end before you start, but Anne does not as she's wrting it. Anne Frank's writing surpass her age, she writes not as a stuborn teenager, but as an intelligent young woman.
A Powerful and Intimate Portrait.......2007-09-30
You know the storyline - a Jewish girl, her family, and some friends go into hiding for two years during the Nazi regime in Holland. Said girl writes her thoughts and observations of her life during this time in a diary, which is found and published after her death in a concentration camp. It has become a classic, and it was written by a young teenager.
My favorite aspect of this book will forever be Anne's powerful narrative voice. Her words speak, and more than that they smell and taste and touch. She gives her diary, "Kitty," an intimate portrait of life in the "Secret Annexe," both public and private - of the ups-and-downs of people's relationships, of her inner struggles and growth, of her love. Reading her diary is like looking through the window at the war from two perspectives - one from the outside in, at the life of a girl and a family who were sucked into the Nazi vacuum through no fault of their own; and the other from the inside out, at the crazy world war swirling around the epicenter of one fourteen-year-old girl.
Book Report: Diary of a Young Girl.......2007-09-30
This book tells an amazing story of a young girl living in Germany in World War II. And to think it was all a journal is amazing. Anne Frank, a brave young Jewish girl, spends two years hiding in the secret annex from the Nazis. Anne Frank started to keep this diary on her thirteenth birthday. She called her diary, Kitty. At the start of her diary, Anne describes fairly typical experiences, writing about her friendships with other girls, her crushes on boys.
Later, the Franks had moved to the Netherlands in the years leading up to World War II to escape persecution in Germany. They were forced into hiding with another family, the van Daans. There, they listened closely to the radio and everything that happened during the war. Anne kept up with everything that happened while she was there. It was very hard for her because she was separated from all her friends and her normal life style.
I suggest this book for all ages. It is a very inspirational story. It gives a different perspective on life.
-Hayley Robertson
6th period
10/4/07
Book Description
As a young intelligence officer stationed in Naples following its liberation from Nazi forces, Norman Lewis recorded the lives of a proud and vibrant people forced to survive on prostitution, thievery, and a desperate belief in miracles and cures. The most popular of Lewis’s twenty-seven books, Naples ’44 is a landmark poetic study of the agony of wartime occupation and its ability to bring out the worst, and often the best, in human nature. In prose both heartrending and comic, Lewis describes an era of disillusionment, escapism, and hysteria in which the Allied occupiers mete out justice unfairly and fail to provide basic necessities to the populace while Neapolitan citizens accuse each other of being Nazi spies, women offer their bodies to the same Allied soldiers whose supplies they steal for sale on the black market, and angry young men organize militias to oppose “temporary” foreign rule. Yet over the chaotic din, Lewis sings intimately of the essential dignity of the Neapolitan people, whose traditions of civility, courage, and generosity of spirit shine through daily. This essential World War II book is as timely a read as ever.
Customer Reviews:
Rare gem.......2006-03-23
Lewis left us with a fascinating account of this small but very human part of WWII. And gathered some very interesting details that otherwise would have been lost forever.
Thoroughly delightful and informative.......2006-01-04
This is a real gem of a memoir-cum-diary of World War II in Naples and its environs. I have just 'discovered' Mr. Lewis, and am knocked out by his eye for detail and the transparency of his writing. The book really gives you a sense sense of the tragi-comedy of a city recently liberated from the Germans; more than that, you cannot help but be impressed with the creativeness of Neapolitans' dealings with the incredible difficulties they faced after the Germans retreated North. You will also, sadly, get a sense that the United States Army was not completely comprised of "Band of Brothers" soldiers. Nor, for that matter, was the British. Read this book.
Great!!!.......2005-08-08
I am Neapolitan and a British friend of mine told me to read this book that I found amazing. I reccomend to read this book to learn more about different cultures, lifestyle, and most important about the difficulties that people experience during the world, what they are forced to do to survive, something that I have learned from my parents, since at the time they were young kids starving in Naples. Naples is a vibrant and "smart" town where people is unique, in good and bad...
A Snapshot of WWII Seldom Discussed.......2004-04-22
This is not a book for the sqeamish, nor is it a book for those seeking a Tom Brokaw-ish golden memory of WWII. It is, however, a wonderfully written, and easy-to-read war diary. Every page is fascinating in it's detail of human behavior. If you are seeking information about the movements of great armies and generals,or a recap of military hardware or uniforms, this isn't it. This is a good look at what war does to the people who have to live in the middle of it, and how occupying armies deal with people and customs they barely understand. We have very deep ties with Italy and the Italians, so it makes one wonder whether it's possible for Iraq to make a post-invasion recovery. There is a critical difference, we and the Germans mostly disarmed the Italian populace.They didn't wander the streets with AK-47s and RPGs, though weapons were hidden for a possible civil war. I also recommend reading "The War in Val D'Orcia" by Iris Origo for a look at WWII Italian life farther north in the Apennine mountains of Italy.
Unbreakable life spirit in time of war.......2004-02-28
The author wrote a diary during his stay as a member of the allied occupational force in Naples after the allied liberation. The "liberators" turns out to be more corrupt and less disciplined by the fascists, and even the previous German occupiers. The civilian population suffered incredible privations from the corrupt and mafia influenced occupationary government, and from soldiers and bandits rampaging through the countryside. The author is gradually won over unbreakable spirit and adaptability of the Italians. The book is written in a direct and conversational tone that goes directly to the heart.
Book Description
An astonishing find-the landmark journal of a woman living though the Russian occupation of Berlin-which has already earned comparisons to diaries by Etty Hillesum and Victor Klemperer For six weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman, alone in the city, kept a daily record of her and her neighbors' experiences, determined to describe the common lot of millions.Purged of all self-pity but with laser-sharp observation and bracing humor, the anonymous author conjures up a ravaged apartment building and its little group of residents struggling to get by in the rubble without food, heat, or water. Clear-eyed and unsentimental, she depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. And with shocking and vivid detail, she tells of the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject: the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity. Through this ordeal, she maintains her resilience, decency, and fierce will to come through her city's trial, until normalcy and safety return.At once an essential record and a work of great literature, A Woman in Berlin not only reveals a true heroine, sure to join other enduring figures of the twentieth century, but also gives voice to the rarely heard victims of war: the women.
Customer Reviews:
History Is Still Going On!.......2007-10-14
A few months ago the city fathers in Talinn, Estonia, moved a World War II era statue of an angry-looking Red Army soldier which had been placed in a military cemetary in the city. The statue was supposed to depict the rage the soldier felt as he contemplated all of his fallen comrades.
Not all Estonians saw it that way. Local wags dubbed the statue the "Monument to the Unknown Rapist" and it was moved to a less prominent location. This outraged the Russians. Their army still wears the Red Star insignia to comemorate their hard won victory in what Soviet authors call "the Great Patriotic War" (World War II to the rest of us.)
Russia lodged official, menacing protests and Lithuania and Latvia responded with official support to Estonia. This diplomatic shoot-out is still percolating along. History isn't over. It's still going on around us.
The conduct of the Red Army toward civilians, especially women, has been a hot button issue since 1944 when Nemmersdorf, East Prussia, was briefly occupied, then abandoned to the Wehrmacht. Goebbels propaganda machine immediately accused the Red Army of spectacular atrocities including mass rape of women and girls and nailing some of them to barn doors and farm wagons as if they'd been crucified. Goebbels' documentary was shown to terrified audiences throughout Germany.
Intended to spur the Volkssturm, and other last-ditch home guards, to fight harder, the films panicked those who realized that they were on the Red Army's line of march into Berlin. They also started a controversy about the cruelties visited upon women by Red Army liberators.
Anonymous' excellent diary, A WOMAN IN BERLIN, gives a balanced insight into their conduct in Berlin when it fell in 1945. Available in several translations and editions, the author is sometimes thought to have been Marta Hiller, a prominent Berlin journalist who passed away in 2001.
Her account avoids melodrama. It is straightforward and describes what she experienced in matter-of-fact tones. She is raped herself. She sees it happen to others.
Yet, some Red Army soldiers are humane and helpful. The Red Army does not try to exterminate the battered population of Berlin as she feared they might in retaliation for Nazi attempts to exterminate the Slavs in some areas they'd occupied.
She learns that the conquerors can be decent, but that Red Army soldiers can also be brutal and dangerous when they are drunk. Nights become times of great danger for her, and other Berlin women.
Her account is one of survival in a time of catastrophic defeat. It is interesting to compare this memoir to Alexandra Orme's COMES THE COMRADE! which was written a few years later and deals with the Red Army's occupation of Hungary, an Axis ally. Orme's treatment of the Red Army strives for humor in the face of unavoidable adversity. Her treatment of the Red Army is much more sympathetic than most other accounts and it shows low long the Red Army's conduct has been an issue.
A WOMAN OF BERLIN is well-written and available in a number of editions and translations. If you're interested in World War II, the Red Army, or accounts of survival in desperate situations, you'll want to read this book. I gave it five stars because of the quality of the author's writing.
A subtle reminder..........2007-10-01
Not just a woman in Berlin at the end of WWII, but in any city, at any time, under armed conflict, this book reminds us of the atrocities derived out of human incomprehension, irracionality, ambition, etc. as anonymous as the author is, the actors are too, given the fact, they're all gone today, but not so their legacy... which has stayed with us (and hopefully with future generations). Interestingly, the way the author describes every infamous episody will make you notice the way things have changed too, for even physical abuse under war circumstances had certain brush of "decency" inexistent among today's savagery.
A just in time wake up call you can't afford to miss...
Powerful but Uplifting.......2007-08-08
I read this book together with An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) in anticipation of a trip to Berlin. They are both relatively short reads, and the combination of the two seemed especially powerful.
I thought that "A Woman in Berlin" might be too harrowing to endure (it _is_ a relation of the plight of defenceless women facing a conquering, vengeful, rapacious (yeah, like, RAPE) male army. However the author's determination to survive and to make the best of what quickly becomes her powerfully oppressive circumstances salves the reader. It's an enlightening description of what happens to an advanced western civilization when completely reduced for a time to life and death armed confrontation.
The author has interesting observations on the 'feminization' of Berlin _in extremis_ -- all the able-bodied men were at the fronts. Other than women of all ages, there were only disabled or very old men and children left in Berlin. [Of course there were also a few remaining men of the rapidly crumbling elite ruling class and their camp followers buried in Berlin bunkers who were utterly irrelvant to life in Berlin in April/May 1945.]
A Woman in Berlin confronts female / male sex in the context of armed male oppresssion and a woman's enlightened understanding of how to maximize her limited opportunities under very straightened circumstances.
An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)celebrates male homosexual sex in the context of unimaginable oppression and tragedy. The author's exuberance about his sexual encounters and conquests in the face of this oppression and tragedy lightens what might otherwise be a harrowing read -- this book is part of a series celebrating the lives of gays and lesbians, after all, and so may not have been intended for the general heterosexual reader -- worth it, nevetheless.
I can't put into words the impact on me of reading in close proximity these two stories of "sex in wartime Berlin". I still ponder that impact.
Raw, Ragged Reality.......2007-07-11
Some books appeal to your intellect, others to your heart. This one hits you hard right in the gut. The author's shock, fear, suffering and revulsion are delivered relentlessly through her perceptive eyes, with poetic expressiveness and biting wit.
Along with the horrific experiences she recounts, some of the most searing passages are the reflections of her heart and soul. In the original German, they are particularly touching and thought-provoking. Her character, humanity and indomitable spirit transcend the pages that she wrote.
At the end of the nine-week period covered in the diary, I was struck by this true "Triumph des Willens" - the will to survive.
stepping into her shoes.......2007-07-03
perhaps because this is a diary, it is raw and allows one to step into the shoes of the author. It gives one a first hand look at what life was like for the German citizens living in Berlin immediately prior to and during the Soviet troops occupation. Although hard to read it times, it is as though one is right there. Very true first-hand look. A book one can't put down, and leaves one thinking about the suffering of the masses.
Book Description
The secret diaries of a twenty-three-year-old White Russian princess who worked in the German Foreign Office from 1940 to 1944 and then as a nurse, these pages give us a unique picture of wartime life in that sector of German society from which the 20th of July Plot -- the conspiracy to kill Hitler -- was born.
Customer Reviews:
Good.......2007-03-11
This is a good book. Not like other diaries I've read. Had to hold your interest but it's a true diary.
An view from the fiery depths of Hitler's capital........2006-11-21
"The Berlin Diaries" by Marie Vassiltchikov is an account of wartime Germany from the vantage point of a young White Russian aristocrat. Although not a native German, Ms. Vassiltchikov and her sister penetrated the upper echelons of German society--the surnames of those who they socialize with read like a "Who's Who Among Central Europeon Royalty." Despite their privileged lifestyle, the Vassiltchikov sisters are not insulated from the trappings of the war raging around them: their acquaintances die in battle, they experience rationing, cold offices, nurse duty, and most memorable of all, the punishing bombings of Berlin.
If the suspense of who will live and perish around Ms. Vassiltchikov were not enough, many of her coworkers in the Abwehr are secret anti-Nazis and were thus implicated with varying roles in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate der Fuehrer with a breifcase bomb. Her writings provide an excellent insider's glimpse of the German Resistance and will force any reader to sympathize with Vassiltchikov; even if they see her as "the enemy" as a result of her residence in Nazi Germany.
The book's readability is a final strength that I will mention. Ms. Vassiltchikov's diary entries are often interrupted by factual passages from the editors, one of which was her brother. These passages explain the course of the war at that particular entry and thus renders the diary easily understandable for those with even a limited knowledge on the Second World War. Even as a frequent reader of World War II, I thoroughly enjoyed "The Berlin Diaries," and so did my co-workers who care little for military history or the time-period. The fact that the book can appeal to such a wide audience is undoubtedly one of its most admirable qualities.
Berlin Diaries.......2006-11-04
The best and most insightful book I have read about what life must have been like in Berlin during WW II. The writer, through his sister's diary, gives a vivid description of the top Nazi party members, and how the plot to kill Hitler was hatched and then failed. It is amazing the hero - Missie - survived the war. I could not put it down.
The princess can tell a story.......2006-09-29
Princess Marie Vassiltchikov, a member of some minor branch of the Russian nobility who ended up in Lithuania and then in Germany for World War II, can sure tell a story. Her diary is a good page turner. You always know what is going on. You're always want to find out what is going to happen next. I finished this book in a day or two and took it everywhere I went, because I had to find out what happened.
She is direct and never gets too intwined in her personal musings (although the curious would want to know more about personal/romantic and other dirt in a private diary).
Her story is intensified by the big events she is involved in.
She begins with Germany's descent into World War. Then, a number of her associates and probably herself (the editor says she is circumspect about this in her diary lest the diary be found)are involved in the aristocratic attempt to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Nazi government in the fall of 1944. Finally, the Princess, as a Russian aristocrat emirge who spent World War II working for Germany, flees first Berlin and then Austria in fear of the advancing Soviet Army.
While the princess lives modestly on jobs translating and clipping English periodicals for various German foreign policy enterprises, her world is one of the titled wealthy in Germany and Austria. She's continually mixing it up with the descendants of the Royal Houses of Prussia, Russia, Austria and of Germany principalities like Bavaria and Hanover. Her friends are descendants of Bismark and Metternick. Most of her friends are also princesses, counts, countesses, princes, and even lowly barons.
For all the ravages of the War she faces, there is always a great estate or castle to stay in if her home is bombed out. Influential friends are able to send a car to fetch her even when she is stranded in the most remote Alpine villages. There is always a friend in high places to sign a special pass, get her an impossible-to-get ticket, offer her a new job, or pull strings for a transfer out of harm's way once she becomes a nurse. While sometimes there is a shortage of meat, there is always champagne. When there is no oil to heat lamps and cooking burners, there is always enough perfume to use for these purposes. While Germans are starving and millions are being murdered by the Nazis, there are often fine meals on provisions sent from friends in the embassies, from a friend's baronial estate, or from their diplomatic posts in Rumania or Hungary.
The marketing of the book attempts to paint Princess Marie Vassiltchikov
as a progressive fighter given her association with the Von Stauffenberg attempt to kill Hitler and take over the government. Alas, her aristocratic friends were not against the real setup in Germany. They were attempting to bail out of the war now that Germany was being beaten. They had not opposed Hitler when he outlawed Germany's working class political parties and unions and sent their leaders to concentration camps in the early 1930s. In fact, their party, the German National Party, a party more right wing in social policy than the Nazis, merged with the Nazis in the early 1930s. Most of her mail associates had held important posts in the German government for much of Hitler's regime: ambassadors, provincial governors, police chiefs, staff generals, and other officials. None of them were known for sticking up for human rights, democracy, or workers and farmers.
Indeed, what's shocking is the apparent indifference that Princess Marie Vassiltchikov and her pals show to the total suffering that ordinary Germans and Austrians faced, ordinary folk who didnt have castles to repair to when they needed housing, retainers to shoot or harvest food from estates when the food system broke down, who struggled to find bread and milk and never touched champagne. If the Princess and her ilk do face such genuine suffering during these years, what became of German factory workers, small farmers, family shop keepers?
This does not mean the good Princess doesn't suffer. At the end she suffers from starvation and its complications. Between the lines you can read in fears and anxiety that must have continued for the rest of her life, no matter how successful it may have been.
Above all, whether you like her or love her or not, the Princess knows how to tell a story you will follow through to the end.
Best and most original book on WWII ever written.......2006-07-29
Don't pay any attention to the one or two negative views in this section. This is a terrific book written from the weird persepective of the Blue Bloods, the European royalty the Nazis hated as much as they hated Jews. The fact that these people, all opposed to Hitler, could land on their feet over and over again in spite of everything is as funny as anything can be. I would have been a Top Ten TV Series had somebody had the sense to pick it up. Risk the few dollars cost, you won't be sorryl
Product Description
A classic of World War II, here in its first American edition. War in Val d'Orcia is Iris Origo's elegantly simple chronicle of daily life at La Foce, a manor in a Tuscan no-man's land bracketed by foreign invasion and civil war.
With the immediacy only a diary can have, the book tells how the Marchesa Origo, an Anglo-American married to an Italian landowner, kept La Foce and its farms functioning while war threatened to overrun it and its people. She and her husband managed to protect their peasants, succor refugee children from Genoa and Turrin, hide escaped Allied prisoners of war-and somehow stand up to the Germans, who in dread due course occupied La Foce in 1944 and forced the Marchesa to retreat under a hot June sun.
Fleeing eight impossible miles on foot, along a mined road under shell fire, with sixty children in tow, she sheltered her flock in the dubious safety of a nearby village. A few days later, official Fascism disappeared, and La Foce was ransacked by the retreating Wehrmacht. Here, as the restoration of La Foce begins, her book ends.
Beyond praise and above mere documentary value, War in Val d'Orcia belongs to the literature of humanity.
Customer Reviews:
A different view of Tuscany.......2006-08-21
"War in Val D'Orcia" is a rather terse diary of events throughout Italy in 1943-1944 written by the English-born wife of a wealthy landowner in Tuscany. As an account of life under Nazi rule it's not nearly as profound or fascinating as Victor Klemperer's "I Will Bear Witness" but after the first 100 pages (or so) which are somewhat strangely detached and impersonal ("In Rome to have the baby"), and mostly an account of Italian national politics at that time, I literally couldn't put it down.
Until I read this book I had often wondered why there are so many abandoned farm buildings in Tuscany: I now understand that until relatively recently there was a feudal system in place, where farmers did not actually own their land but instead worked it for the landowner in exchange for half of their production. "War in Val D'Orcia" exposed me to aspects of Italian culture that I had never even really thought about before. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history and culture of Italy and Tuscany in particular.
This is the first book by or about Iris Origo that I have read but it won't be the last.
Unforgettable.......2004-05-26
"Greater than the sum of its parts" accurately describes this remarkable diary set in Southern Tuscany during World War II.
Written as a daily record during the tumult of war,Origo does not dwell on emotional reactions to the horror around them. What comes through is the generosity, compassion, and nobility of Spirit that we all are capable of during wretched times.
This diary has had a greater impact on me since after reading it.A book which had lingered with me and one in which I may never forget,I haved been moved to visit La Foce and the region in which this book takes place this Fall.
Highly Recommended.
Restore your faith in humanity ..........2003-04-01
The enthralling story of life on the Origo's estate "La Foce" (just South of Montepulciano in South Tuscany and on the main route of the advancing Allied 8th Army) during the years 1943 and 1944. The contadini farmers and workers on the estate, living in conditions closer to the Middle Ages than the mid Twentieth Century, had no interest in or involvement with the forces of war but equally had no option but to suffer its consequences. They, led by Iris Origo and her Marchese husband, juggled simultaneously playing host to refugee Italian children, escaping British airmen and prisoners of war, partisan fighters, and a German officers' mess, not to mention day to day dealings with facist officialdom. All this in the knowledge that the penalty for a "mistake" was summary execution. An easily readable "must read" not just for those who love Italy and a good story, but for anyone who would like to reaffirm their faith in humanity in the context of a greater understanding of the reality of occupation and war.
a different view of Tuscany.......2002-11-05
Iris Origo makes heroic humanist efforts seem effortless. There is no question as to whether she and her husband will save countless soldiers and civilians, regardless of nationality or politics. I will never view Tuscany with the same eyes, after her description of marching with 28 children (some babies, only 2 her own) over the hills to Montepulciano and safety. The writing is beautiful, the story inspiring.
World War II in the Italian countryside........2002-06-29
Iris Origo is an Anglo American woman married to an Italian called Alberto Origo. She settles in the rural Italian countryside of Tuscany. Her husband is a prominent landowner in a small valley. When Italy gets involved in World War II, Iris keeps a small diary. In the book 1943 and 1944 are revealed as hardship years for the Italian people. Food is scarce, and airplanes are indiscriminate in attacks on civilians and soldiers. What is worse are the Fascists who have become vicious in the face of a sullen people. Origo describes how her and her family managed during these most difficult times. I feel this book is a good read for those who want to discover how a civilian population copes with war.
Book Description
Jewish teenagers David, Yitzhak, Moshe, Eva, and Anne all kept diaries and were all killed in Hitler's death camps. These are their stories, in their own words. Author Jacob Boas is a Holocaust survivor who was born in the same camp to which Anne Frank was sent. Includes a photo insert.
Customer Reviews:
So far, so good.......2007-06-06
I recently bought this book and I've been reading it during my lunch break at work and so far I'm very interested and it seems like I can't stop reading it! I will probably take it home with me on the weekend and just finish it. It's sad to know what kind of things happened to little kids like them, and at the same time it's amazing to see how they were dealing with their terrible reality and how mature they were for being just kids during this horrible time in History.
I highly recommend it!
Very good.......2007-04-05
I decided to actually read this book after taking Boas' History of the Holocaust course and finding out that he was in fact born at the Westerbork transit camp in Holland, so I figured that since he had a connection with it through his family that he would know how to put together a well made book. And I was correct, this book made me cry, I really liked it. He had talked a little about this book in class and at first it kinda seemed boring, but I'm glad that i didn't listen to my gut feeling and actually went and checked it out. I would recommend anyone that wants to read more of a first hand experience to read this, the letters are very heart touch and sad. I am trying to track down the other books he has written so I can get a little more understanding in addition from what I had learned through his course.
Book=Very GOOD!.......2007-04-02
I thought this book was very good and descriptive in what happened to the teenager's lives and the victims of the Holocaust. It was sad to know how well-off Americans in the U.S. and other fortunate people had it then. When I was reading, it was sad to picture how hard it would be then for not just teenagers but everyone,especially when they talked about how they didn't want to die yet and the shame and humiliation they felt as jews. I liked how Boas described their lives and events so well that I didn't feel I missed out anywhere. I also liked how he would compare the teenagers lives and choices with the others. But I would have liked it more if he would have described more about what the Nazis would do to the victims after they were transported. Otherwhise, I liked this book very much.
We Are Witnesses.......2006-03-16
I am not a big fan of non-fiction history books. I find them hard to concentrate on because there are so many facts that they become overwhelming. But We Are Witnesses is a non-fiction history book that I liked. First, I liked it because it was set during WWII, which is something I am interested in. Secondly, this book is about five teenagers, which I can relate to because I am in the same age group. Each of their diaries was found. They all were Jewish, they all died.
In We Are Witnesses there are five main characters, David Rubinowicz, Yitzhak Rudashevski, Moshe Flinker, Eva Heyman, and Anne Frank. There is a whole chapter on each one of them. They all have the same big conflict, the Nazis. The Nazis forced the Jews to move into a ghetto, and each character had to do that. They all lived in different parts of Europe. They all had money issues. But each one was unique in their own way. For example, Yitzhak joined a club that would meet and do research projects, and learn a few new things. This was Yitzhak's favorite time of day. Eva Heyman admired her mother and wanted to be just like her. Each day was a struggle to live. There was barely enough food for any of them to eat. They all had to put their faith in God, that He would save them from the power of the Nazis.
Each character had their own religious beliefs but Moshe Flinker's was the most unique of all. He believed that if the Germans kept on taking over more land and the Jews kept on being killed then, when it seemed like all hope was lost, God would save the Jews from the Nazis. Moshe Flinker's story also was one that stuck out in my mind because he almost made it to Vichy France, which was a part of France that was not taken over by the Germans. Another memorable story was when David Rubinowicz was forced to move from his house and into a ghetto, but he many times was able to walk to his old house. One of the times he witnessed a Jew getting shot right in front of him.
From the very beginning of the book, the author tells that all of the characters die. They all did, but their life stories will be something that you never will forget. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who likes non-fiction history books. There were very good parts to the book but also some bad parts. The bad parts were where it got confusing. For example, when the author got into too much detail about a character's life. Also when Moshe Flinker tried to explain his religious beliefs it got very confusing. Although I knew the deaths of all the characters were certain from the beginning, I wanted to read this book because these people had to live with fear every day. But each one was strong enough to not let that fear get to them, and tried to live their lives like you and me.
Keeping history alive!.......2005-07-21
This set of stories helps keep history alive for teenagers that have no concept of the depth horror that intolerance can achieve. All teens should read it!
Amazon.com
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), honored as a frontline veteran of World War I, was a distinguished professor at the University of Dresden. A scant few months later he was merely a Jew, protected from deportation to a death camp only by his marriage to an Aryan. He suffered every other indignity to which German Jews were subjected, from losing his job to having his driver's license revoked to being denied permission to own a pet, and all are recorded with bitter clarity in his diary entries, which cover the years 1933 to 1941. (A second volume continuing through 1945 will be published in English in 1999.) The German edition of this book caused a sensation when it was published in 1995, and it's easy to see why: the relentless, quotidian nature of Nazi racism comes through forcefully in Klemperer's litany of daily humiliations and insults, a painful chronicle of situations in which readers can readily imagine themselves. Like Anne Frank, but with a more adult understanding of political fanaticism and human weakness, he makes the abstract horror of genocidal persecution very intimate, very personal, and very real. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
The publication of Victor Klemperer's secret diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. "In its cool, lucid style and power of observation," said The New York Times, "it is the best written, most evocative, most observant record of daily life in the Third Reich." I Will Bear Witness is a work of literature as well as a revelation of the day-by-day horror of the Nazi years.
A Dresden Jew, a veteran of World War I, a man of letters and historian of great sophistication, Klemperer recognized the danger of Hitler as early as 1933. His diaries, written in secrecy, provide a vivid account of everyday life in Hitler's Germany.
What makes this book so remarkable, aside from its literary distinction, is Klemperer's preoccupation with the thoughts and actions of ordinary Germans: Berger the greengrocer, who was given Klemperer's house ("anti-Hitlerist, but of course pleased at the good exchange"), the fishmonger, the baker, the much-visited dentist. All offer their thoughts and theories on the progress of the war: Will England hold out? Who listens to Goebbels? How much longer will it last?
This symphony of voices is ordered by the brilliant, grumbling Klemperer, struggling to complete his work on eighteenth-century France while documenting the ever- tightening Nazi grip. He loses first his professorship and then his car, his phone, his house, even his typewriter, and is forced to move into a Jews' House (the last step before the camps), put his cat to death (Jews may not own pets), and suffer countless other indignities.
Despite the danger his diaries would pose if discovered, Klemperer sees it as his duty to record events. "I continue to write," he notes in 1941 after a terrifying run-in with the police. "This is my heroics. I want to bear witness, precise witness, until the very end." When a neighbor remarks that, in his isolation, Klemperer will not be able to cover the main events of the war, he writes: "It's not the big things that are important, but the everyday life of tyranny, which may be forgotten. A thousand mosquito bites are worse than a blow on the head. I observe, I note, the mosquito bites."
This book covers the years from 1933 to 1941. Volume Two, from 1941 to 1945, will be published in 1999.
Customer Reviews:
A must read memoir.......2007-07-08
This is a great memoir that any history buff or historian or anyone should read. It ranks right up there with Anne Frank's diary. It offers a unique view since Mr. Klemperer was married to a German woman during the Holocaust. It is this unique view on the Holocaust that makes this memoir so good.
Fascinating Account of pre-WWII life in Germany.......2007-02-01
Victor Klemperer's diary of pre war Germany provides fascinating insight into what life was like for ordinary citizens in Germany. Interspersed with the mundane aspects of life, e.g., shopping, driving, going to the dentist, etc. are ever increasing examples of the insanity that was Nazi Germany. It was a little difficult to get into, but it soon became a page tuner. The later years are particularly interesting. I couldn't put it down.
Excellent Source for insight on Nazi Germany.......2007-01-10
This Diary was an excellent read for many reasons. It was a good primary source for information on Nazi Germany and at the same time was compelling and extremely interesting. The keeper of this diary was also a great author which makes this diary very easy to read as if it were a memoir. His story is great and it was extremely fun to see historical events through his eyes. Through his diary the reader has the ability to get a feel of what everyday people thought of the Nazis and what their true feelings were toward the National Socialist party. If you do not know a lot about German/Nazi history I would reccomend a refresher course somehow. I read this diary while taking a class on the topic of Nazi Germany and it was extremely interesting for me.
Harrowing reading.......2006-10-28
Anybody who wants to know what it was like to be a Jew under the Nazi regime should read this book and the second volume of Klemperer's diaries.
First the bestiality and the stupidity of the Nazis are shown with a simplicity and an absence of hatred that make them more disgusting. Then the courage, the resilience and the determination of this humble Professor are a lesson of courage, modesty and survival for all. One of the books that left upon me the most lasting impression, hesitating between the joy of the "happy end" and the depression about what I read. These two books should be made compulsory reading in any serious history studies...And no serious historian should avoid to read those two books.
A powerful and uplifting account of life under the Nazis.......2006-10-10
I have read many books on the history of Europe and World War 2, but for the most part they cover the big picture - the major events and key participants. Victor Klemperer's diaries ("I Will Bear Witness") describe how people like himself were tossed about by the arbitrary power of the Nazis. This record of his personal experiences from 1933 to 1945 makes the history come vividly alive in all its horror and sadness.
Through the diaries we see the inexorable erosion of his rights (and the rights of all Jews) and the tyrannies of arbitrary power. Klemperer was forced to give up his car, he was forbidden to use the library, he could not have a phone, his typewriter was confiscated, and Jews had to hand in keys to their trunks.
Each day seemed to bring another "small" persecution, another wearing down of the spirit - except that Klemperer did not succumb, although he often despairs of surviving. He read almost every day and made notes on literary works he planned to write some day - if he survived. He bore witness by recording his actual experiences of tyranny.
Klemperer describes the exercise of raw power, cloaked in the trappings of Nazi law. Any official could do pretty much as he pleased with any Jew. It is almost impossible for those of us living in countries that respect the rule of law, and in which we can assert our rights, to truly feel the powerlessness, fear and humiliation that Klemperer felt almost every day under the Nazis. The Gestapo seem to select victims almost at random, but every persecution is handled with legal punctiliousness.
Reading the diaries today and knowing the history of Germany and the Jews, we are struck by the fact that Klemperer did not flee the country in good time like so many other Jews - and other members of his own family. But at the time, the future was unknown and there were always reasons for him to stay: Lack of money. He was almost 60 and would have felt reluctant, if not unable, to start a new life and earn money in another country. His wife was often sick and clung desperately to her new house. Our lives bind us to place. "Blut and Boden" (blood and soil) as the Nazis put it.
He was a reflective academic, unused until the war started to the rough and tumble of survival. Although the final entries in his diary after the bombing of Dresden show a remarkable feat of endurance in his and Eva's homeless wanderings to seek sanctuary.
The early part of the diary tells of his struggle to get a loan and to build a house. "Don't do it!" I cry silently. Don't you know a terrible war is coming and that the Jews will be rounded up? Don't you know you will be herded into a ghetto? Don't you know that Dresden will be fire-bombed (his new house is made of wood)?
But how could he know? We see the future as a continuation of the past. We cannot know for certain what events of today will have catastrophic consequences in the future. For Klemperer, things got slowly worse over time, each change bearable (if only just) - like boiling a frog. There was no sudden cataclysm that would have prompted even the most timid to flee - until too late.
Today we see small erosions of liberty, justified by the War on Terrorism: secret monitoring of the phone calls of "suspects" is OK, the Geneva Convention does not apply to Guantanamo Bay and "coercion" of prisoners is not torture. The end justifies the means, we are told - although not in such truthful terms. We think that none of these arbitrary exercises of power apply to us. But where will they lead? We do not know. But the experiences of Klemperer under the Nazis show where they have led in the past.
The diary is essentially as Klemperer wrote it - there has been no post facto editing to make it more literary or historically apt. The result is powerful and horrifying to the reader who is like some Olympian God watching Klemperer struggle, knowing the trials to come and the futility of his struggles.
His hopes, fears and vulnerabilities are laid before us, without any editing to remove the embarrassing entries - or other entries that lesser writers would have preferred not to see the light of day, such as his furtive theft of a spoonful of jam in the Jews House in Dresden. This honesty makes the diaries such a powerful and compelling statement.
But despite the ever-present threat of arrest and "evacuation" to Poland, from which no one ever returns and about which only the sketchiest rumours are known, Klemperer finds courage to enjoy the new flowers of spring, the beauty of fresh snow on tree branches, and the pleasures of visiting his friends and fellow victims.
One of the most poignant entries in the diary is for August 1, 1943. He had received an order to come to Gestapo HQ for "questioning". By that stage of the war, virtually no Jew returned from such questioning. Their families were notified that the person was deported and "shot while trying to escape". Some "committed suicide" in the cells before then. With the words "Perhaps this is my last entry", Klemperer records his feelings and his love for his wife Eva.
Every thinking person who is worried about the state of the world today should read this book. In the struggle against terrorism we see governments in liberal democracies encroaching on our liberties, condoning torture, telling lies - all in the name of a greater good, the War on Terror. This is no different in principle to the way Nazis, and all other totalitarian regimes, justified their actions and sought to hide the truth. The propaganda is exactly the same.
Of course the liberal democracies are unlikely to round up people suspected as enemies, put them in concentration camps and torture them - or are they?
We must never take our liberties for granted, nor accept that the end (in the war on terror) justifies the means. Klemperer's diaries are a powerful reminder of where that can lead.
Average customer rating:
- the hatching of a heart
- Run to the Seven Storey Mountain
- An account of the first steps of a spiritual journey
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Run to the Mountain: The Story of a VocationThe Journal of Thomas Merton, Volume 1: 1939-1941 (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 1)
Thomas Merton
Manufacturer: HarperOne
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ASIN: 0060654759 |
Book Description
Krishnamurti is a leading spiritual teacher of our century. In The First and Last Freedom he cuts away symbols and false associations in the search for pure truth and perfect freedom. Through discussions on suffering, fear, gossip, sex and other topics, Krishnamurti's quest becomes the readers, an undertaking of tremendous significance.
Customer Reviews:
the hatching of a heart.......2002-02-21
A good friend of mine sent me all seven volumes of Merton's journals. It was a gift of immeasurable worth and value. I will no doubt still be reading through these wonderful books for years to come.
Having just finished the first volume, "Run to the Mountain," I stand in awe of the sheer depth and scope of the life we've each been given. The life presented here, that of Thomas Merton, is remarkable in many ways. "Run to the Mountain" is the chronicle of the years when he started instructing English in college up to his entry at the Trappist monastery in Gethsemani Kentucky.
Beyond the external events of his times (the late thirties and forties) lies the bigger story of Merton's eternal destiny. Not since my own salvation have I encountered a story which so clearly illustrates God's pursuing love and grace. The reader can palpably feel Merton being called by God in these pages.
It is quite tempting to imagine what might have become of Merton had he not heeded his call. These pages (and most of his later works) make clear his incredible power as a writer. It is not hard to imagine that he would have become at least as, if not more famous than Jack Kerouac, his fellow student at Columbia. It is one of the great "what ifs" (and there are several) of Merton's life.
It is a great thing to be able to read about Thomas Merton's journey--to see him be changed and opened. It is an even greater privilege to take his thoughts and words with me on my own journey. This is one gift I am trully grateful for. Get this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Run to the Seven Storey Mountain.......2001-06-29
This is Thomas Merton's journal covering his years teaching literature at St. Bonaventure's college in New York. It concludes as Merton is on the cusp of making a decision to enter the Trappist Order.
As for the contents of the journal, you will need to be a bit patient. Because this is a journal, even though abridged, you will have to slog through a lot of Merton's thoughts on certain poets, writers etc.
The interesting thing is that it gives some insight on Merton as an intellectual. But at this stage in his life, he doesn't seem comfortable in that skin. In fact, he often laments his arrogance and wonders whether any of these things (i.e., book reviews, articles in the Times) are really all that worth discussing in the first place.
A great deal of the material, particularly towards the end, is material that you will find repeated in Seven Storey Mountain. It would appear to me that Merton took a good read through his journal when he sat down to write Seven Storey Mountain. Of course, the journal is not polished, but it is every bit as fascinating as Seven Storey Mountain.
I also found Merton's thoughts on WWII, as it ravaged Europe, quite fascinating. A significant portion of this journal involves thoughts on war and what it means to be in a war; whether we should fight wars.
In sum, this journal is largely a reflection on literature, coversion, and war. If you are a fan of Merton, read this immediately. If you haven't really been exposed to Merton, read Seven Storey Mountain first and then return to the journal.
As for me, I give it four stars!
An account of the first steps of a spiritual journey.......1998-09-07
An outstanding account of the beginning of a vocation. From the first stirrings of spirituality to the full fleged desire to enter a monastery, Fr. Merton records his faith and doubts, his triumphs and disasters, his hopes and fears. His writing is eloquent yet simple. And his style becomes more free and prayerful as he comes closer to entering the Trappist monastery at Gethsemani. A wonderful book to feed and encourage the soul of anyone on a spiritual journey.
Book Description
Teddy Suhern's U-564 is among the most famous in the illustrious history of Germany's U-boats of World War II, and Suhren himself ranks in the top tier of U-boat commanders, admired both for his extraordinary successes and his infamously anti-establishment attitude. This photographic history of Suhren's U-564 patrol in the summer of 1942 provides new insight into the submarine's trials and successes. The photographs, taken by an onboard war correspondent, show the U-boat in action in the Atlantic and Caribbean, as the Kriegsmarine teetered on the verge of its ultimate downfall. Found in U-564's concrete pen in Brest in 1945, the photographs remained in a shoebox under a bed for nearly sixty years, but now, through the painstaking research of Lawrence Paterson and the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, they are presented for the first time in this unique history of the boat, her crew, and their illustrious and much-loved commander.
Customer Reviews:
U-Boat War Patrol: The hidden photographic Diary of U-564.......2007-08-10
One of the most interesting books on the U-Boat arm and the men who manned the boats. The author does a great job of writting the narrative to go with the huge collection of photo taken by a war photographer. The photos recently turned up and this book gives the reader a good perspective of what life ws like on a Type Vll U-Boat. Captained by Knights Cross winner, Reinhard "Teddy" Suhren, one of the most successful U-Boat commanders of the war, life aboard 564 was hard, but not without fun time. The patrol takes place in the summer of 1942, when U-Boats were still the hunters and not the hunted, so many interesting activities occured when the boat was on the surface. Suhren's greeting to fellow U-Boat Commander,Horst "Hein" Uphoff, of U-84,upon his return to Brest is funny and quite amazing, considering the time and place. A must read for all those interested in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Superb read.......2007-01-10
This is an outstanding book on so many levels. Paterson has taken a set of long-lost photographs and painstakingly researched the details of the long war patrol on which they were taken. What emerges is a compeltely engrossing account of the U-boatman's war, with the daily routine described in as much detail as the terrifying moments of high drama. But this is also a human story, especially of the outstanding leadership qualities of the remarkable commander of U-564 at the time, Reinhard 'Teddy' Suhren. If you have even a passing interest in the 'Grey Wolves', you will enjoy this fantastic book. Very highly recommended.
U-boat War Patrol.......2005-02-23
A great blend of photographs and the story of one war patrol. If you enjoyed U BOAT WARS by Buchheim then this is a must book.. Out of my 50 books on U Boats I would rank this in the top five...
Book Description
"In the evening I had to prepare food and cook supper, which exhausted me totally. In politics there's absolutely nothing new. Again, out of impatience I feel myself beginning to fall into melancholy. There is really no way out of this for us." This is Dawid Sierakowiak's final diary entry. Soon after writing it, the young author died of tuberculosis, exhaustion, and starvation--the Holocaust syndrome known as "ghetto disease." After the liberation of the Lodz Ghetto, his notebooks were found stacked on a cookstove, ready to be burned for heat. Young Sierakowiak was one of more than 60,000 Jews who perished in that notorious urban slave camp, a man-made hell which was the longest surviving concentration of Jews in Nazi Europe. The diary comprises a remarkable legacy left to humanity by its teenage author. It is one of the most fastidiously detailed accounts ever rendered of modern life in human bondage. Off mountain climbing and studying in southern Poland during the summer of 1939, Dawid begins his diary with a heady enthusiasm to experience life, learn languages, and read great literature. He returns home under the quickly gathering clouds of war. Abruptly Lodz is occupied by the Nazis, and the Sierakowiak family is among the city's 200,000 Jews who are soon forced into a sealed ghetto, completely cut off from the outside world. With intimate, undefended prose, the diary's young author begins to describe the relentless horror of their predicament: his daily struggle to obtain food to survive; trying to make reason out of a world gone mad; coping with the plagues of death and deportation. Repeatedly he rallies himself against fear and pessimism, fighting the cold, disease, and exhaustion which finally consume him. Physical pain and emotional woe hold him constantly at the edge of endurance. Hunger tears Dawid's family apart, turning his father into a thief who steals bread from his wife and children. The wonder of the diary is that every bit of hardship yields wisdom from Dawid's remarkable intellect. Reading it, you become a prisoner with him in the ghetto, and with discomfiting intimacy you begin to experience the incredible process by which the vast majority of the Jews of Europe were annihilated in World War II. Significantly, the youth has no doubt about the consequence of deportation out of the ghetto: "Deportation into lard," he calls it. A committed communist and the unit leader of an underground organization, he crusades for more food for the ghetto's school children. But when invited to pledge his life to a suicide resistance squad, he writes that he cannot become a "professional revolutionary." He owes his strength and life to the care of his family.
Customer Reviews:
Deterioration.......2007-08-22
Teen-ager Dawid Sierakowiak, imprisoned with his family in the Lodz Ghetto, at first carries on a "normal" life, discussing politics with his friends and keeping up with his studies.
More and more restrictions on the population-- illness, lack of food, hygiene, fuel and money, eventually take their toll on everyone. Existence deteriorates to the point at which Dawid knows he will soon die, and he does so 4 months later.
Every aspect of this slow death to the ghetto residents who are not murdered was planned by the Germans.
There are many photographs, which enhance the narrative.
Should be considered for a Required Reading in High School.......2005-10-23
This book is the most powerful and memorable book on the Holocaust I have ever read. Kids in school read Anne Frank, I suppose because it is so popular. It was the first memoir found, not the most telling or interesting. This book is also a great psychology book as it so graphically shows the heirarchy of needs as the situation becomes more desperate. I wish that teachers of senior or junior honors classes would consider this over Brave New World where the main character gives up. Dawid, is a much more positive book of the human spirit in that he continues to deal with the ever worstening cards he is given and works hard to survive. This book hits on so many topics: history, psychology, the power of the human spirit, man's cruelty and literature as Dawid was an exceptional mind for his age.
A truly moving account of one's life in desperate conditions.......1999-08-28
Simply put, Dawid is an amazing young man. Unfortunately for this world, he probably had to suffer to make a long lasting impact. True greatness rarily comes to those of us who contribute daily to the ENHANCEMENT of life and young Dawid is proof of this. His sometimes yielding but never breaking spirit of joy and hopeful speculation makes him a true hero. While his tragic, and "all too early" death are sad, the important things left behind in his words are timeless. He reminds us all that no matter how (supposedly) bad things get in our (truly) rich lives, a thing such as maniacal tyranny and slavery can never be tolerated. The light at the end of Dawid's tunnel never came to him, but by his words and actions hopefully we will all see that inspiration and determination will also glow.
The most poignant memoir I have read on the Holocaust.......1999-07-31
This book deserves a Five Star "Plus." It is an absolute "must" read for those interested in the destruction of European Jewry. I have read very many memoirs on the Holocaust, some quite good, yet none moved me to tears as much as Dawid's diary. What I found remarkable was that a 15-year old (his age when he started writing his diary) should have so much depth and so much wisdom. His description of his extreme hunger and finally his feelings when his mother was deported are extremely poignant. His love for his mother and the extreme agony he experienced when they took her away defies description.
As Adelson writes in the Foreward, Dawid is "increasingly piqued by the hierarchy of privilege that prevails among Jews in the ghetto." The "privileged" do not lack food or adequate shelter while the "ordinary" Jews (which was the overwhelming majority)literally starve. Dawid, a devout Marxist, writes eloquently about these "privileged" Jews. All this privilege of the few and suffering of the majority further reinforces his Marxist principles.
Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak reflects horror of Lodz Ghetto.......1997-04-07
"A HOLOCAUST VOICE
Writings about the Holocaust take many forms--novels, stories, poems, plays, histories. But, as `The Diary of Anne Frank` showed, none has the effect of actual reports left behind by its victims. `The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak:
Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto` is quite different from Anne Frank's memoirs because, unlike Anne, who was hidden away from the Nazis for years, Dawid lived openly in the sealed ghetto of this Polish city and was a witness to and victim of the deprivations, humiliations and cruelties inflicted on the Jewish populace. He was 15 years old when he began to keep his notes, and 19 when he died of illness and starvation in 1943. His diary, edited by Alan Adelson and translated by Kamil Turowski, is written with a sardonic humor and growing despair that can still horrify today. It is illustrated by shocking photos of life in the Lodz ghetto, most of them taken surreptitiously."
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