Book Description
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.
Customer Reviews:
A great Journey.......2007-10-17
Marvelous use of language. Imaginative formating. Death is a terrific character. Old subject matter looked at in an inventive way.
Five stars reserved.......2007-10-17
I read maybe one book a year that would deserve five stars...and I read a lot of books. This book ranks right up with Lonesome Dove, Life of Pi, and Left Hand of Darkness as one that will transcend genre and time to become one that is read over and over.
What is particularly striking is Zusak's very accurate descriptions of a very difficult place in history, and the emotional makeup of the people who went through it. He has layered this with contemporary sensibility by using Death as an omniscient narrator. At the beginning of the book, I was somewhat put off by this as he uses the same visual cues as Terry Pratchett in putting the words of Death in boldface, but eventually it became clear that the conceit was necessary and serves as a distancing device. If the story had been told as a first person narrative from one of the main characters, or even from multiple viewpoints, it would have been too sentimental. As it is, it unflinchingly shows tragedy and brutality, kindness and humor, leavened with just enough irony to make it one of the great novels.
My 95 year old aunt is also an avid book lover, and even more particular. Luckily this book has made it easy to pick out her Christmas present. My only hesitation in buying it for her in audiobook form is that this book relies on its physical presence almost as much as a graphic novel. It would take a very skillful reading to put this across.
A truly remarkable book.......2007-10-15
"A human doesn't have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both."
So muses the narrator of Markus Zusak's powerful and moving bestselling novel of 2006, THE BOOK THIEF, which is now out in paperback. As you might guess, this is no ordinary narrator. The contemplative first person guiding you through this book is Death, an at-once fitting and ironic vanguard for a tale that both celebrates the power of words and agonizes over the consequences of their use.
Set against the tragedy-stained canvas of World War II, Death tells the story of young Liesel Meminger (the eponymous book thief) growing up in Nazi Germany under the watchful eye of a staunch foster mother and kindly foster father who teaches her to read. She attends meetings of the BDM, a youth group aimed at indoctrinating young girls into Hitler's ideology. She plays soccer with the boys on her street, holding her own in any disputes that arise. And all the while, dreams of her dead brother haunt and goad her into a fascination with reading and words that inevitably leads to her life of crime.
As she settles into her new home, Liesel befriends Rudy Steiner, a boy her age who becomes known for his love of Olympic runner Jesse Owens (Rudy paints himself black and runs through the town's streets). Together, they navigate the confusing world set before them by the adults in their lives and attempt to come to terms with the racism prevalent in their homeland's current political state. Liesel also makes the acquaintance of the mayor's wife, whose pristine library astounds Liesel and becomes an open playground for Liesel's "thievery."
It is a meeting with Max Vandenburg, a 24-year-old Jewish man being hidden in Liesel's basement by her compassionate foster parents, that alters the course of Liesel's life. Max, too, is haunted by nightmares of a family he lost in the harrowing aftermath of Kristallnacht. Together, Max and Liesel discover a shared love of words that leads to a decisive understanding about the role words play in both bravery and cowardice. Each, in their own way, sets out to use this knowledge to shape the world around them.
While other writers have employed Death as a narrator, Zusak makes his own indelible mark on the technique in the dimensions he gives to the character. Death is simultaneously dispassionate about his work and the impact it can have while striving to understand humanity's resilience. Death boasts an omniscience of what will happen in life but also a naivety about what can happen in the human heart.
In the ultimate expression of his dichotomous theme, Zusak creates a touching love letter to books and writing, framed in arguably the most horrific period in human history. But his greatest triumph is delivering a reminder that no writer enters this world quietly. Writers are born of eruptions and detonations, and the truly exceptional ones, like Zusak, continue to channel these explosive energies to craft a truly remarkable book that will be admired for generations.
--- Reviewed by Brian Farrey
A New View on a Bad Time.......2007-10-14
The Book Thief was one of my first ventures from my warn cocoon of fantasy adventure novels. I must say I was left... amazed.
Markus Zusak manages to weave a beautiful story with the not-quite-real settings and characters. But manages to put them into terribly real situations with the nitty gritty of life.
The story tells of the holocaust from a different perspective. Whereas we find most books such as The Diary of Anna Frank telling the story from inside the Ghettos and concentration camps, this book shifts your view 180 degrees. Looking at the situation from the other way around. Seeing as I've grown up in Israel, this is a view very rarely acknowledged.
The storytelling is flowing and engrossing. It takes about 50 pages to take off, but when it does. You get caught in the slipstream and are just dragged from page to page.
I recomended this book to many people and have passed it around to my family, people from work... Everyone thought the same thing - 5 stars!
good book.......2007-10-10
The book was in good shape. The print was large enough to read comfortaby. I liked the book.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Book Description
On the night of the presidential election in 1876, a gang of counterfeiters out of Chicago attempted to steal the entombed embalmed body of Abraham Lincoln and hold it for ransom. The custodian of the tomb was so shaken by the incident that he willingly dedicated the rest of his life to protecting the president's corpse.
In a lively and dramatic narrative, Thomas J. Craughwell returns to this bizarre, and largely forgotten, event with the first book to place the grave robbery in historical context. He takes us through the planning and execution of the crime and the outcome of the investigation. He describes the reactions of Mary Todd Lincoln and Robert Todd Lincoln to the theft--and the peculiar silence of a nation. He follows the unlikely tale of what happened to Lincoln's remains after the attempted robbery, and details the plan devised by the Lincoln Guard of Honor to prevent a similar abominable recurrence.
Along the way, Craughwell offers entertaining sidelights on the rise of counterfeiting in America and the establishment of the Secret Service to combat it; the prevalence of grave robberies; the art of nineteenth-century embalming; and the emergence among Irish immigrants of an ambitious middle class--and a criminal underclass.
This rousing story of hapless con men, intrepid federal agents, and ordinary Springfield citizens who honored their native son by keeping a valuable, burdensome secret for decades offers a riveting glimpse into late-nineteenth-century America, and underscores that truth really is sometimes stranger than fiction.
Customer Reviews:
I'm off to Springfield..........2007-09-21
A must read before your next tour to Springfield, IL and I apologize to all my grade school teachers for rolling my eyes during those trips. This has got to be one of the most intriguing series of historical data I have ever read. Craughwell will place you squarely in the middle of it all.
wonderful book.......2007-07-22
The box was full of ants. They spilled out when I opened the box. It was really creepy.
Love This Book!.......2007-07-16
I had just finished American Brutus and was hungry for more on the subject when I came across this charming and extremely well told narrative of the plot to steal Lincoln's body. Mr. Craughwell has a pitch perfect ear, capturing both the tragedy of the assassination and the rollicking comedy of a young country where enterprise and illegality often overlapped. Counterfeit wampum, the tricks of the embalming trade, the excesses of tabloid journalism...this is the kind of book that gets you hooked on history for life and delights those of us who got hooked so many years ago.
Thomas Craughwell exhumes a bizarre and long forgotten episode in our nations history........2007-07-16
It was an incident that I had never heard of or read about anywhere. Indeed, when I asked about a dozen friends and relatives not one of them had ever heard about it either. On Election Night 1876 Terrence Mullen and Jack Hughes attempted to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from the sarcophagus inside the Lincoln Monument at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Il. It was all part of a bizarre plot concocted by a two-bit counterfeiter known as Big Jim Kennally. "Stealing Lincoln's Body" recalls this somewhat obscure tidbit of history. This is a fascinating tale that will go a long way to help the reader understand just what was going on in these United States back in 1876 and in the years that followed.
Perhaps the most important fact that you will come across in "Stealing Lincoln's Body" is that in 1876 nearly half of the money in circulation was counterfeit. I found this to be absolutely incredible! This was a serious problem that was wreaking havoc with the nation's economy as we attempted to bounce back from the Civil War. One of the most accomplished counterfeiters of that era was a man named Benjamin Boyd who hailed from Cincinnati, OH which at that time was recognized as the counterfeit capitol of the nation. It was his arrest and incarceration in October, 1875 that would eventually lead to the plot to steal the body of President Lincoln.
"Stealing Lincoln's Body" reveals the intimate details of how the plot to steal the President's body and hold it for ransom was hatched. You will be introduced to Elmer Washburn, chief of the Secret Service and to detective Patrick Tyrrell who were both instrumental in foiling the plot to steal Lincoln's body. And you will meet John Carroll Power, the custodian of the Lincoln Monument and the group of men who were part of a secret society that would come to be known as "The Lincoln Guard of Honor". In addition, you will discover the fascinating secret about the actual whereabouts of President Lincoln's body in the years following the attempt to steal it. You will also learn a bit about what was going on in the very sad life of Abraham Lincoln's widow Mary. She would never get over the assasination of her husband. In addition, you will gain some new insights into the life of the Lincoln's only surviving son Robert Todd Lincoln. Robert would have to be classified as somewhat of an enigma and his life certainly would take any number of strange twists and turns along the way.
I found "Stealing Lincoln's Body" to be an extremely engrossing read. I also would be remiss if I failed to mention the 20 pages of photographs included here that really seemed to bring these events to life for me. Thomas Craughwell has done a fine job of bringing to light an important piece of American history. Recommended!
One of the best!!.......2007-07-09
One of the best history books I've read in a long time! Some fascinating and little known facts. Couldn't put it down!
Average customer rating:
- Still hooked on the Corps
- The incredibe journey continues
- In Dangers Path
- "IN DANGERS PATH"
- Standard W.E.B. Griffin fare
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In Danger's Path: Corps 08 (Corps)
W. E. B. Griffin
Manufacturer: Jove
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ASIN: 0515126985 |
Book Description
An explosive new package for a New York Times bestselling Corps novel.
In his new capacity, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering sees many of his trusted men called to duty, plus one he never expected: his son. Together, they will venture into terra incognita.
Customer Reviews:
Still hooked on the Corps.......2007-06-12
I am actually getting sad that I'm nearing the end of this incredible series about the US Marine Corps. Griffin's characters continue to captivate, and he always introduces new ones that you hope to see more of in the future. In this case a Chief Petty Officer called McGuire is one that I certainly want to hear more of. This book takes McCoy and Zimmerman into the Gobi Desert on a very dangerous mission that has a two-fold goal - one to establish a permanent weather station in the Gobi, and the other to rescue a band of US people who have been trying to get out of Japanese held spots in China. We get to see all the planning and preparation work carried out by Flem Pickering's men as they plan this incredibly dangerous mission again behind enemy lines. Griffin's descriptions of the unforgiving Gobi Desert are also unforgettable. What a barren land this must be. Anyway, the book kept me going right from the beginning. I love Griffin's writing style.
The incredibe journey continues.......2007-02-10
This series is the best one I think I have ever read. With characters that have been developed in earlier books coming back in the series with a little back story for those who have not read the previous books. All books in the series can stand on their own, but read in order, they tell an incredible tale. I am always checking to see when the next book will be available and preorder it the day I see it. I devour them, they are so well written and interesting, worthwhile reading.
In Dangers Path.......2006-11-10
The Corps series is one of the best series I have read. I can't wait for him to come out with the next book.
"IN DANGERS PATH".......2005-09-21
This one of my favorite "Corps" books by WEBG. I have read several of the reviews of this book. I find them too nit-picky.
Lighten up! This is fiction!!
Semper Fi,
Hugh W. Davis
Standard W.E.B. Griffin fare.......2004-09-30
Nothing overly special about this book. Griffin stands true the the schitck of his genre, mainly 1) Deflowered Virgins, 2) Rich Playboys in the military service, and 3) Enlisted men who must become officers by the end of the story. If you can deal with that, its no better or worse than the other books in the series.
However, there are serious problems with continuity in this book. Names and events that took place in prior books and are remembered in this one are so inaccurate, I'm seriously starting to suspect that after Book III or so, these things are being ghostwritten.
Book Description
In 1915, under the cover of a world war, some one million Armenians were killed through starvation, forced marches, forced exile, and mass acts of slaughter. Although Armenians and world opinion have held the Ottoman powers responsible, Turkey has consistently rejected any claim of intentional genocide. Now, in a pioneering work of excavation, Turkish historian Taner Akam has made extensive and unprecedented use of Ottoman and other sources to produce a scrupulous charge sheet against the Turkish authorities. The first scholar of any nationality to have mined the significant evidencein Turkish military and court records, parliamentary minutes, letters, and eyewitness accountsAkam follows the chain of events leading up to the killing and then reconstructs its systematic orchestration by coordinated departments of the Ottoman state, the ruling political parties, and the military. He also probes the crucial question of how Turkey succeeded in evading responsibility, pointing to competing international interests in the region, the priorities of Turkish nationalists, and the international communitys inadequate attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice. As Turkey lobbies to enter the European Union, Akams work becomes ever more important and relevant. Beyond its timeliness, A Shameful Act is sure to take its lasting place as a classic and necessary work on the subject.
Customer Reviews:
Deliberately misguided.......2007-04-15
I have read the book thoroughly and found quite good in terms of the sources used and the consistency of the theme. However, I realized that the author deliberately does not touch some fields in order not to jeopardize his position among his Armenian employers. Firstly, He claims that the only thing Ottoman Armenians wanted was the Reforms; if the government had implemented the changes they agreed with Dashnak Party, It would have been no revolt whatsoever. He also claims that most of the revolts that took place in various towns in Anatolia were simply the resistance for the deportation decision. On the contrary, we clearly know that the motive was not a Reform demand. The motive was a demand that leads to and independent Armenian State within the Turkish territories. He also dismisses the Armenian terrorist activities within the empire in order not to justify the deportation. Fortunately, He tells every account about the wide support that was provided to the Russian army and Western powers by Armenians.
The other thing I have found quite interesting is that he hardly mentions how "genocide" took place. According to his writing, special organization was responsible for killing Armenians so Regular army was told not to interfere and most of the cases Armenians were massacred just out of the towns where they were living. That was it. How can you overlook something that is extremely important for your case even though telling every small political and administrative event that occurred during the period? I think if a court deals with this issue they have to find psychical evidence which is the bodies of 1.5 millions people across the country. Even if your family members were subjected a massacre, even other hundreds of other families claim to have been massacred. These do not prove that this was genocide as you can find similar stories on the other side.
I think the problem we have is that Armenian people are so convinced that genocide took place against them and we can change not their mind and we do not have to. But they have to accept that if injustice was done to them, Propaganda books or propagandists are not something that they can rely on. The truth is always exposed sooner or later. I would advise them (Armenia) to take Turkey to court, called International Justice Court, in Lahey in Switzerland to get a conviction and get on with their lives. That's why I do not find Armenians genuine on this subject. Why spent millions of dollars for propaganda and why not submit a petition to the Court.
Turkey is a beautiful country, big enough to embrace all kind of people and live in harmony as long as violence does not occur. When we look at the shore lines throughout Turkey we can easily claim that hundreds of thousands of people who originally were born outside of Turkey live in a peaceful environment which I envy as a person who live outside of Turkey.
Thanks for readin my opinions
An important work.......2007-02-19
This important work by a Turkish scholar and dissident examined not every detail of the genocide but the question of Ottoman policy and the Turkish regime's responsibility. The first third of the book examines the Ottoman policy towards minorities and the way in which Islam was blended into Turkish nationalism.
The second third of the book examines Turkish policy and culpability during the war and the genocide that stretched from 1915 through to 1921. The book establishes the fact that the Ottoman-Turkish state was responsible for planning the genocide, that they were not just 'local massacres' or an outcome of 'war' and 'chaos'. This is important for it lays the groundwork for the last portion of the book which examines attempts by the allied powers to bring the genocidaires to justice.
The last portion examines Kemal Ataturk and his post-war regime and its role in resolving issues of genocide and justice. In the end the Turkish state denied the genocide and not only that but worked hard to cleanse all the other minorities include the Greeks, the Pontic Greeks, the Assyrians and the Jacobites, along with the Kurds.
This is an important book and the author makes many important incisive comments and observations not found elsewhere.
Seth J. Frantzman
"What ever happened to Anatolia?".......2007-01-29
"A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility", Tanner Akcam, NY, Metropolitan Books, 2006. ISBN 10:0-8050-7932-7, HC, 376 pg., plus Preface 13 pg., Notes 88 pg., & an Index 17 pg.; 9 1/2" x 6 1/2". A 3rd book by Turk sociologist/historian translated by Paul Bessemer in 1999.
Akcam details the rise & fall of the Ottoman Empire, its racial, ethnic & religious makeup, & how, during its decline, Turkish Nationalism developed under "CUP" & of principals involved. It unfolds ghastly details of the Ottoman Empire's annihilation of the non-Muslims, largely Christian Armenians, but also Greeks & Kurds, etc. Its proclammatory targeted deporatations included use of the Baghdad to Berlin railway, death marches, mass shootings & beatins & drownings, & starvation. It details Allied Powers' secret pacts to divide up the Ottoman Empire to control trade in the Black & Meditterranean Seas via the Dardenelles. It concludes with attempts to formalize trials against officials who had contrived the Armenian Genocides (AG) & describes various obstacles & finals outcomes with amnesty for the majority. A triumvirate of "Young Turks, namely - Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha, Cemel Pasha & their ideologue Gokalp promoting "Turkification is nicely outlined.
Interestingly, I found no devices, events or acts Adolf Hitler used in his quest for a "final solution" that had not been used a decade earlier by these Turkish Muslims, & this includes concentration & work camps, pillaging, rape, tortures, mass drownings, digging one's own grave, & starvation. Hitler was a copy cat in his genocide, devising nothing new save a numbering system.
The read is good, at times tedious, but at all times explaining the complexity of the AG. Resolution of some unsettled goings on will never occur as the unfolding of this history is truly enigmatically complex, full of disingenuous conspiracies but demonstrates the pressing need to prosecute those guilty of crimes against humanity, i.e. the genocide & gendercides. Turkey steadfastly denies the AG, but it also had changed their official language C. 1922 so original records are largely confined to scholars. I believe the book is the most accurate accounting of the AG written to date.
Vital for understanding causes of the Armenian Genocide.......2007-01-10
In this important book the pioneering Turkish historian Taner Akcam makes his work on the causes of the Armenian Genocide available to those who do not speak German, the language of his most important previous book on the subject. Akcam, who for years has worked in Germany as well as more recently in the United States, is especially strong in explaining how Turkish nationalism grew increasingly radical before and during the First World War. This is a very important contribution to the growing literature on the subject, including Donald Bloxham's The Great Game of Genocide. A number of recent books such as Benjamin Lieberman's Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe, Michael Mann's Dark Side of Democracy, and Norman Naimark's Fires of Hatred, provide comparative discussion of the Armenian Genocide.
In his discussion of causes and consequences of genocide Akcam takes a somewhat similar chronological approch to Vahakn Dadrian, but this is still not exactly a comprehensive history of the subject. Peter Balakian's Burning Tigris is very good on American responses, but the world still awaits the first truly comprehensive and authoritative history of the Armenian Genocide.
first genocide of the 20th century.......2007-01-09
He has made a good start. I applaud Professor Akcam's revealing and objective look at one of the worst acts of outrage against humanity of the 20th century. Certainly the Armenian people bore the brunt of the inspeakable acts of violence directed against them by inhuman hordes of Turks who burning raping and pillaging. Unfortunately he leaves out the mass killing fields covered covered with the dust of hundreds of thousands of Greek and Assyrian Christians who predated the Muslim Turks by thousands of years.
I wish I could be hopeful for the day when Turks can face up to their dismal and violent past. I do not hold much hope of that as long as islam is the ideology of choice for them.
Book Description
" The Night Club Era should rate as a Broadway Koran. Other books on the subject are unnecessary if they agree with it, wrong if they differ from it, and in either case should be burned." -- Alva Johnston, from the Introduction
Written in the aftermath of Prohibition, Stanley Walker's The Night Club Era is a lively and idiosyncratic account of the people and places that defined New York's night life during the era of "the great American madness." Here we meet murderers and millionaires, gangsters, bartenders, celebrities of the stage, screen, and society, and a host of other colorful characters who populated the city's diverse night clubs, from El Fey to the Cotton Club. Walker relives the "night of incredulous sadness" on which the Volstead Act went into effect, visits a classic speakeasy, discussing the owner's delicate arrangements with policemen, prohibition agents, and bootleggers, and details the frequently brutal swindles practiced in the city's numerous clip joints and the tactics of the era's crime organizations, explaining precisely what happens when one is "taken for a ride." Among the larger-than-life night club habitués Walker sketches are Owney Madden, the elder statesman of the city's rackets; Walter Winchell, America's most influential columnist and the "brash historian of our life and times"; Mayor James J. Walker, who typified the gaudiness, smartness, and insouciance of the city he ran, yet was never too refined to shoot dice on hotel room floors; and Texas Guinan, the beloved entertainer, hostess, and entrepreneur who greeted customers with her trademark phrase "Hello, sucker!" Vividly told, The Night Club Era offers a singular, serious -- though never sober -- history of New York City during Prohibition.
Book Description
Hannah ArendtÂ's authoritative report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann includes further factual material that came to light after the trial, as well as ArendtÂ's postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account.
Customer Reviews:
A Classic that Elaborates on the Genocide of Jews and Others.......2007-09-20
I am delighted to see this classic back in print. Jewish author Hannah Arendt has provided a wealth of timeless information that goes far beyond the trial of the German war criminal Adolf Eichmann. This review is based on the original (1964) edition.
Arendt (p. 39) gives the readers a taste of the scale of the Kristallnacht (November 1938): 7,500 Jewish shop windows broken, all synagogues burned, and 20,000 Jewish men incarcerated in concentration camps. In common with many others who wrote during the first two decades after WWII, Arendt (p. 5, 11-12) addresses the issue of Jewish passivity in the face of death during the later roundups and transports to the death camps.
Arendt briefly discusses the fate of Jews of some individual European nations. She mentions the conniving of the Bulgarians (with, of course, the implied freedom to do so) performed in order to avoid sending their Jews to the death camps, and the fact that Finland, Germany's ally, was never seriously pressured to turn over her 2,000 Jews to be murdered (p. 170). Clearly, the latter part of the oft-repeated statement, "Not all of the victims of the Nazis were Jews, but all Jews were victims of the Nazis" is incorrect.
Throughout this work, Arendt gives various biographical details of Adolf Eichmann. For example, she mentions that he was a Gottglaubiger (p. 27), a Nazi term for those who had broken with Christianity, and which Eichmann maintained right up to the very moment of his hanging, having refused the solace and Bible reading of a Protestant minister (p. 252).
Arendt briefly discusses Hitler's flouting of the Versailles treaty and his rise to power. While Jan T. Gross has asserted that there were Poles who praised Hitler in the 1930's, Arendt makes it clear that this was far from limited to Poland during that time: "...Hitler was admired everywhere as a great national statesman." (p. 37).
While most recent Holocaust materials focus on the real or imagined collaboration of locals in the sending of Jews to their deaths, Arendt is unsparing in her criticism of Jewish collaborators in this regard: "Without Jewish help in administrative and police work--the final roundup of Jews in Berlin was, as I have mentioned, done entirely by Jewish police--there would have been either complete chaos or an impossibly severe drain on German manpower. (p. 117). She adds that, because of this collaboration, only a few thousand Germans, most of whom furthermore only did office work, were able to send hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths (p. 117). Finally, Arendt concludes that: "Wherever Jews lived, there were recognized Jewish leaders, and this leadership, almost without exception, cooperated in one way or another, for one reason or another, with the Nazis. The whole truth was that if the Jewish people had been unorganized and leaderless, there would have been chaos and plenty of misery but the total number of victims would hardly have been between four and a half and six million. (According to Freudiger's calculations about half of them could have saved themselves if they had not followed the instructions of the Jewish councils..." (p. 125).
Arendt (p. 42, 118, etc.) elaborates on the actions of a Jew, Rudolf Kastner (Kasztner). He made a deal with Eichmann in which 1,684 Jews were allowed to go to Palestine in exchange for Kastner's silence before and during which 476,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Jan Tomasz Gross, who has gotten a great deal of publicity for his books (NEIGHBORS and FEAR), has stated that the 2-3 million Poles who died in the hands of the Germans were largely the collateral victims of military action. Arendt knows better: "...Eichmann knew that right behind the front lines all Russian functionaries ("Communists"), all Polish members of the professional classes, and all native Jews were being killed in mass shootings." (p. 95). "At no point, however, either in the proceedings or the judgment, did the Jerusalem trial mention even the possibility that extermination of whole ethnic groups--the Jews, or the Poles, or the Gypsies--might be more than a crime against the Jewish or the Polish or the Gypsy people, that the international order, and mankind in its entirety, might have been grievously hurt and endangered." (pp. 275-276). Arendt realizes the alternative future: "The measures against Eastern Jews were not only the result of anti-Semitism, they were part and parcel of an all-embracing demographic policy, in the course of which, had the Germans won the war, the Poles would have suffered the same fate as the Jews--genocide. This is no mere conjecture: the Poles in Germany were already being forced to wear a distinguishing badge in which the "P" replaced the Jewish star, and this, which we have seen, was always the first measure to be taken by the police in instituting the process of destruction)." (pp. 217-218).
Arendt praises the Danes for saving Jews during WWII and then, without mentioning the incomparably more difficult conditions under which Polish rescuers of Jews labored, nevertheless gives the Poles their due. After listing some individual examples of Polish assistance to Jews, Arendt adds the following: "One witness claimed that the Polish underground had supplied many Jews with weapons and had saved thousands of Jewish children by placing them with Polish families. The risks were prohibitive; there was the story of an entire Polish family who had been executed in the most brutal manner because they had adopted a six-year-old Jewish girl." (p. 231).
Beneath the thin layer of civilization.......2007-07-19
In covering, from a moral and ethical rather than legal standpoint, the trial of former Nazi Adolf Eichmann, Arendt must have known she was jumping head first into certain controversy. While I disagree with her insistence on international law, as opposed to an Israeli-ran trial (unlike Arendt, I have the hindsight of the Milosevic trial, not to mention pretty much every other pathetic joke of international law flouted by the U.N. but to which no nation honestly adheres outside Belgium), I must say that she made a rather convincing case regarding the "banality of evil".
Her point seemed to be, to the outrage of her critics, that seemingly normal men are capable of doing terrible deeds. It doesn't take a monster to act monstrous. Her critics accused her of attempting to humanize a Nazi war criminal, but I think what most people were secretly offended at was her assertion of the duality of human nature. We like to think of history and sociology in terms of black and white, good and evil. There are good guys, and there are bad guys, and there is no blur between them...
What Arendt is saying is that, save the occasional saint, we are all capable of committing the crimes that Eichmann did. It may take years of systematic propaganda, carrots and sticks, career enhancements, and whatnot, but in the end, the leap Eichmann took from ethical civilization into barbaric genocide wasn't a far leap at all. Weimar Germany wasn't a Third World country. For an industrialized, cultured, and Western nation to descend so rapidly into the dark age of Nazism is not a sign of any inherent flaw in German civilization, but rather of how thin the line between humanity and barbarism truly is.
Whether you agree with Arendt or not, the book will make you think. There's nothing wrong with hearing a fresh and opposing viewpoint, even for debate's sake.
Book Description
For the first time in the United States comes the tragic and profoundly important story of the legendary Canadian general who “watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect.” When Roméo Dallaire was called on to serve as force commander of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda, he believed that his assignment was to help two warring parties achieve the peace they both wanted. Instead, he was exposed to the most barbarous and chaotic display of civil war and genocide in the past decade, observing in just one hundred days the killings of more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans. With only a few troops, his own ingenuity and courage to direct his efforts, Dallaire rescued thousands, but his call for more support from the world body fell on deaf ears. In Shake Hands with the Devil, General Dallaire recreates the awful history the world community chose to ignore. He also chronicles his own progression from confident Cold Warrior to devastated UN commander, and finally to retired general struggling painfully, and publicly, to overcome posttraumatic stress disorder—the highest-ranking officer ever to share such experiences with readers.
Customer Reviews:
An important book that could have used a good editor........2007-07-16
I agree with some of the negative comments about this book. It's an important book, but a good editor should have pared away a fair amount of the "today I had a meeting with..." and other items from his daily journal. The book would have been stronger by eliminating all too many of his detailed daily journal items. He could have gotten the message across better without burying us in all the acronyms, as someone mentioned. If someone gave a speech to the general public, and used all of those acronyms, a fair number of listeners would tune out. Sorry, but it's true. Very glad that I read the book, though!
Excellent book, a MUST read for all.......2007-03-07
I had high expectations when I began reading this book due to the praise it had received. When you start with such high expectations, you normally end up being disappointed. That wasn't the case here, this book lived up to my expectations!
Dallaire's book is, I believe, the best account out there of the tragic events that unfolded in Rwanda in 1994. Due to his responsibilities, he was aware of most of what was happening in most places within Rwanda, and he was also aware of what was going on at the UN and at the security council. He's the one person who was in the best position to tell this story as it happened. He also did a fine job writing it, the book reads quite well.
The main lesson that seems to come out of this story is that all the people or organisations that could have made a difference were too self-interested to take risks for innocent people. The RPF (the Tutsi rebel army that eventually took over the country and ended the slaughter) took their time to advance since they tried to minimize their casualties, the Western countries in the security council didn't want to spend money or send soldiers, and the moderates in the Rwandan government watched silently in order to save their prestige or for their security. In the end, a handful of UN soldiers (none from the West besides Dallaire and a few Canadians) and brave and generous Rwandans were the only ones that tried to help, despite the odds that were against them.
This book does a great job at informing us and in drawing lessons from this horror. In essence, it's a great work.
if you expect stories, be prepated to be disappointed.......2007-02-21
This is a great book, a must read to balance the voice of the UN Sceptics out there. The UN Peacekeeping Missions are not all incompetent, the system is. Who is the system? It's the Security Council with their various Committees. When things go right, the Security Council gets the praises, when things go wrong, people like Roméo Dallaire gets the blames.
There are many things UN Sceptics out there do not know but love to criticize i.e. the UN does not have its own troops, the UN Peacekeeping Mission's Military and Civilian Personnel rarely has control of the strategic operations or budget of a mission; it is the UN Security Council who does. Another very important must know-point, before criticizing the quality of the troops in a UN Mission; please please first ask the question "Where are the troops from those `high quality' countries?" When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. When there's no political will to stop bad things from happening, the Rwandan genocide is what you get.
Roméo Dallaire wrote from first hand experience, for those who could not write out because of contractual obligation. Dallaire's account was a good picture of betrayal, naïveté, and international politics we all experience.
While Roméo Dallaire wrote briefly about the Mission 's Chief Administrative Officer who seemed indifferent to Dallaire's request for urgent requirement, he failed to understand another UN internal political undercurrent, nobody will stick their neck out, not then, not now .. because they get chopped.
Someone wrote that book has too many acronyms, people and jargons, too much frustrations .. well folks, welcome to the UN world. In-depth analysis? What's that? Never heard of. This book is REALITY. Period.
A log book, no consistent story flow, yes. An amazing book, yes.......2006-10-23
I have read the reviews of some others here below that this book didn't have a good story line and looked to much like a dairy of this former general.
I agree but that is what puts this book aside from the others. As I work at the UN I know the (basic) frustrations that the he is experienced in his fight and by giving us a cold, day to day, story of how things happened, he actually managed to capture the frustration and disapointment that he wants us to experience.
Most people say that it's a good review when they can not put a certain book down. For me this book was a completly different experience. I simply HAD to put it down, my frustration became to much.
I recommend this book to anyone, its a lesson in humanity. It might be frustrating, disgusting and everything in between, but it should be a mandatory reading for every human being.
Compelling.......2006-10-11
I just finished reading this book and found it both compelling and haunting. I couldn't put it down. If you are looking for a balcony analysis this is not for you but if on the other hand you want to know what it was like... no what it was really like, day to day, and step into the shoes of someone who was there then this is the book for you. Gen. Dallaire had access to and negotiated over and over again with the top leaders on both sides of the conflict and tells the story, the few triumphs and many failings of the groups in Rwanda, the member nations, and the UN itself, like no one else possibly could. My hats off to him for taking the time to tell this story, no doubt a painful one, in detail and for having given so much personally during that year of his life to save lives and minimize the deaths in Rwanda with the cards that were dealt him. Few, I believe would have persisted as long as he did trying to make a difference under similar conditions.
Book Description
Michael Lesy's portrait of a gruesome era could be fiction—but it's not.
"Things began as they usually did: Someone shot someone else." So begins a chapter of Michael Lesy's disturbingly satisfying account of Chicago in the 1920s, the epicenter of murder in America. A city where daily newspapers fell over each other to cover the latest mayhem. A city where professionals and amateurs alike snuffed one another out, and often for the most banal of reasons, such as wanting a Packard twin-six. Men killing men, men killing women, women killing men—crimes of loot and love. Just as Lesy's first book, Wisconsin Death Trip, subverted the accepted notion of the Gay Nineties, so Murder City gives us the dark side of the Jazz Age. Lesy's sharp, fearless storytelling makes a compelling case that this collection of criminals may be the progenitors of our modern age. 60 illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Murder City - Good Book.......2007-05-08
If you have any interest in the history of Chicago, the twenties, or just true crime, this is a really interesting book. The author chose several stories of Chicago murders that took place in the early twentieth century - including the tale of the women who inspired the musical "Chicago". There is a good assortment of stories - not just "mob murders' fow which Chicago in the twenties is known.
Lament for a former Chicago Newspaper.......2007-03-30
The real stars of this book are the photographs from the defunct "Chicago Daily News." This newspaper was a casualty of declining circulation in the Seventies. It was arguably one of the finer journals in the city, but it was a victim of the television evening news broadcasts that helped eliminate reader interest in newspapers published in the afternoon. "The Chicago Today," the rechristened "Chicago American," succumbed at the same approximate time. "The Daily News" was unique in that it did not print a separate Sunday issue. Saturday's edition was filled with all of the weekend supplements.
These photographs were culled from an exhibit at the Chicago Historical Society and available online from the Library of Congress. One great challenge that Michael Lesy faced was choosing from the thousands of stills in the museum collection and deciding which would be included in the book. Some of the glass plates are damaged while others are as clear as if the photos were developed yesterday.
I do wish that Lesy would have elected to quote from "The Daily News" more often in the text. References to "The Chicago Tribune" predominate. One would think that having relied upon the shutterbugs at "The Daily News" the author would have checked out the articles that accompanied the pictures.
There are also a number of factual errors and omissions in the text. For example, absolutely no mention is made of the disputed allegations that Ben Hecht discovered several incriminating letters of a homoerotic nature that were written by Carl Wanderer and which helped expose his role in plotting his pregnant wife's murder. According to this controversial account, Wanderer confessed his crime after being confronted with the letters. Lesy is not a Chicago native and his lack of familiarity with local history sometimes shows: He repeatedly refers to Municipal Court Judge Edgar Jonas as "Jones;" Lesy marvels that various juries were composed entirely of men, as if this occurred as a result of the selection process, but archaic Illinois jury laws were not revised to permit females to serve as jurors until the late Thirties. Nonetheless, the book is still interesting to read.
How unfortunate it is that Chicagoans do not have the wealth of newspaper choices that their parents and grandparents enjoyed. The monolithic media monopoly does not serve Illinoisians well, but it is an all too familiar complaint that has driven many to the Internet.
Dad's stories were true!.......2007-03-27
I am really enjoying reading "Murder City"...some of the stories are familiar, as I heard of them from my dad and various aunts & uncles who grew up in Chicago in the 1920s. And some are new to me, but no less interesting, especially the one about the Northwestern University student who died during a hazing incident. If anything, reading this book has led me to believe that human beings never really change, that anger, lust, jealousy and more banal things, such as drunkenness, will lead inevitably to "crimes of passion."
Good If Flawed.......2007-03-18
This is an intresting look at the troubled history of Chicago in the 1920s. Lesy steers clear of "five star" murders like Leopold & Lobe and gives us stories of ordinary people who committed murder. He has a knack for giving timelines on the cases that intersected each other, enabling his reader to feel, as the Chicago public felt, the terrible innundation of killings in the city in the 20s, as well as the undeniable fascination about seeing who would get away with murder. He provides insight into the city's way of working (which hasn't changed that much), as well as some truly interesting facts, such as how the musical Chicago evolved from the cases of two women who murdered their lovers and walked.
Lesy's writing does have flaws. Sometimes he seems to contradict himself. In one case out of Wisconsin he writes that the murder victim burned all the letters of her killer; he then writes that the coroner conducting her autopsy found a letter from the killer stuck in her clothes. Upon review I realized that Lesy should have said that the girl burned all the letters except the one she was "wearing" when he killed her. Lesy's writing sometimes suffers from a lack of clarity that requires the reader to reread passages to get the intended meaning.
Far more serious, though, is the fact that Lesy gets some criminal history wrong. In a chapter that touches on a murder committed by Frank and Peter Gusenberg, he states that the brothers were responsible for the death of Machine Gun Jack McGurn "in a phone booth". Which would be pretty difficult to do since (A) McGurn died on Valentine's Day 1936 in a bowling alley, and (B)McGurn was the chief hitman on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which Frank and Pete Gusenberg died. This lapse is due to plain carelessness and should never have made it into the published manuscript. There are other errors but this is the most glaring.
That being said, Lesy writes well and uses irony and a wry sense of humor that works in a book about Chicago murders, especially when it discusses the city's gangsters and politcians. Flaws and all, I recommend Murder City for any student of Chicago history.
Welcome to reality.......2007-03-15
With reality TV being such a phenomenon these days, I was expecting a book like "Murder City" to come along. A book that takes literary snapshots of moments in the bloodier side of Chicago history. I'm not talking about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the Dean O'Banion murder, or the killing of Assistant State's Attorney McSwiggin. I'm referring to the average Joes and Janes who lived, killed each other, and died without the same fanfare and media frenzy that accompanied the gangster assassinations of the same period. There are some underworld murders examined here, such as the Hymie Weiss hit, but they don't dominate the book. Each chapter is accompanied by photos of victims, crime scenes, or key players in the drama.
Themes that concern us today are found in these pages: abused women killing their attackers, fraternity hazing gone too far, men murdering the women they love as the ultimate act of control. As I read, I kept thinking, "The clothes change, but basic human nature does not."
Book Description
In this gripping memoir by the chief American interpreter atthe Nuremberg trials, Richard Sonnenfeldt recounts a remarkable life. Bythe time he was 18, Sonnenfeldt had grown up in Germany, escaped toEngland, been deported to Australia as a "German enemy alien", arrived inthe U.S., and joined the U.S. army. By age 22 he had fought in the Battleof the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he wasappointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi warcriminals at the Nuremberg trials. During his service, he spent pretrialtime with Hermann Goering as well as other top Nazi leaders like vonRibbentrop, Rudolph Hoess, and Julius Streicher, the infamous editor of theanti-Semitic Der Sturmer. An engineer in later life, he was a principaldeveloper of color TV and computer technology and a key player in NASA'spreparation of the first moon shot.
Customer Reviews:
Just an entertaining read! Great book from a great life........2007-08-07
This is an interesting and well-written account of the young man who was the Chief Interpreter at the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis.
But the aforementioned is only half the story, because the author also tells us about his life in Germany both before the Nazis too power and after. His tales of escape from Germany are so amazing and remind me of a children's book I read as a child called "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" a fictional account of becoming a Jewish refugee in the 1940's. Who knew that fiction could be beaten by true-life!
I found this book very compelling and a great yarn. Truly, after seeing the author on Charlie Rose I became interested in reading the book. I was not disappointed. I am sure you won't be either.
By the way, his accounts of the Nazis he interviews are very compelling! Truly, as has been said before that evil is so often banal!
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Insightful & Exciting.......2006-11-15
I bought Witness to Nuremberg after reading the other "Amazon" reviews and I was not disappointed. I could not put the book down! I want to comment on the writing. Sonnenfeldt's story of incredible adventure is told in a most captivating way with flashes of humor and never a boring moment!
There emerges a teen and later, a man who turns adversity to his advantage, who always looks forward. Just 22 at Nuremberg, after a solo trek through five continents, he is the chief interpreter for the American prosecution who becomes a star interrogator to unmask the groveling and miserable personalities of the Nazi defendants. He tells us who ordered the Holocaust and why we did not know its true dimension until eleven months after the war ended. Even more remarkable is his return to Germany, fifty years after the Nuremberg trials, where he became a media celebrity as he related his conversations with the Nazis. This book is a worthy companion to the many books of Holocaust survivors. You must read it.
An Important, Captivating Memoir.......2006-11-10
During 1945-46, Richard Sonnenfeldt, age 22, was the chief interpreter on the U.S. prosecution team at Nuremberg. In this role, he served U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor, and his interrogation team as the lead interpreter in the pre-indictment interrogations of many imprisoned Nazis, including all 22 who became Nuremberg defendants.
Sonnenfeldt actually was much more than the U.S. prosecution's lead interpreter at Nuremberg. Because of his German and English language skills, his smarts and maturity, and his surprising rapport with and control over many of the prisoners, Sonnenfeldt actually became a de facto senior interrogator. His work and successes as interpreter and interrogator are recorded in the many thousands of pages of interrogation reports that are central parts of the Nuremberg trial and historical record. At the end of the Nuremberg trial year, Justice Jackson saw to it personally that Sonnenfeldt received a military decoration for his work.
But that's actually not the half of it. In outline form, this is Richard Sonnenfeldt's quite amazing life story:
* born Jewish, son of two physicians, in Gardelegen, a town in north central Germany, in 1923;
* happy, assimilated boyhood until Nazism and Nuremberg laws change everything, including shutting down his parents' work;
* getting out of Germany, along with his younger brother, to a boarding school in England;
* being interned in England as an enemy alien once active war with Germany started in 1940;
* being shipped with other internees and German POWs from England to Australia;
* being paroled from Australia to India, and making it on his own there;
* getting passage from India to the U.S. (His parents, in a separate miracle, had made it from Germany to Sweden and from there to Baltimore);
* becoming, as his ship docked in New York, a media event because he was an unsupervised boy who had survived all of these "adventures";
* working, while still a teenager, as an electrician in Baltimore and entering Johns Hopkins night college;
* being drafted into the U.S. Army, becoming a U.S. citizen, and fighting in Europe as a combat soldier;
* entering the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945;
* in May 1945, being called out of a motor pool in Austria, because of his bilingual skills, to serve as General William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan's OSS interpreter;
* moving with Donovan into the Justice Jackson/war crimes project that became Nuremberg;
* serving as the principal and preferred interpreter of each prisoner, including Hermann Goering;
* playing a significant role in interrogating and studying each of them;
* being half of the 2-man team that served the October 1945 indictment on each Nuremberg defendant;
* working for the U.S. prosecution throughout the trial;
* returning to Baltimore and succeeding as a Johns Hopkins engineering student;
* becoming a distinguished engineer with RCA, where he was part of the team that invented color television;
* working on NASA projects;
* working as an executive at NBC;
* obtaining patents on numerous inventions;
* becoming a husband and very proud father;
* sailing three times across the Atlantic; and
* never talking much about his past until his grandchildren started to interview him for school projects and papers.
Richard Sonnenfeldt's life is an extraordinary true story, and he has written it modestly and well. His book deserves to reach a very large general audience, and I am confident that any reader, from children through seniors, will find it to be relevant, exciting and inspiring.
A terrific "read.".......2006-11-09
Barbara Schlang's review.....Richard W. Sonnenfeldt's just published book (Witness to Nuremberg) reveals personal conversations with the top Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg trials, shedding a merciless light on their criminality, but it is also a tale of adventure never told before. He was just twenty-two when he became Chief Interpreter for the American prosecution at the War Crimes trials of 1945-46.
Born into a Jewish family in Germany, he fled to attend school in England in 1938, to escape the Nazi terror. But when the Germans conquered France two years later, his erstwhile hosts interned him as a German national and deported him in a prison ship, that was torpedoed by a German U-boat, but made it to Australia. The British then realized their mistake and ordered him back to England to be freed, but now his boat was diverted to in Bombay, India. Instead of returning to England he managed to go to the United States, all solo, at age seventeen. On arrival in New York he became a media celebrity in April 1941. Two and a half years later he was an American citizen and combat soldier who fought in France, Germany and Austria. He was one of the first to see the concentration camp of Dachau and its prisoners, too stunned amid mountains of corpses to grasp that freedom was theirs.
General "Wild Bill" Donovan, the head of OSS (predecessor to the CIA) who was organizing the American prosecution for the Nuremberg trial then picked up him as his interpreter.
At Nuremberg, directing a staff of fifty, he produced over 10,000 pages of sworn testimony, interpreting and later himself conducting interrogations of the twenty top surviving Nazis. He had Goering, the No.2 Nazi, acknowledge his signature on the order of July 1941 to organize the holocaust. He extracted from Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, a detailed statement how three and one half hapless victims were exterminated at Auschwitz, at a rate over 20,000 a day.
After the verdicts, which punished ten of the defendants by hanging them, he returned to America, served on the team that created color TV and became a noted executive. To celebrate his fiftieth year in business he crossed the Atlantic in his sailboat, also celebrating his 75th birthday.
He was invited to return to the small German town where he grew up and his reports of
I Am the Messenger
Water for Elephants: A Novel
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)
Suite Francaise
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party
