The Subject of Holocaust Fiction

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780253016300
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (163 download)

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Book Synopsis The Subject of Holocaust Fiction by : E. Miller Budick

Download or read book The Subject of Holocaust Fiction written by E. Miller Budick and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fictional representations of horrific events run the risk of undercutting efforts to verify historical knowledge and may heighten our ability to respond intellectually and ethically to human experiences of devastation. In this captivating study of the epistemological, psychological, and ethical issues underlying Holocaust fiction, Emily Miller Budick examines the subjective experiences of fantasy, projection, and repression manifested in Holocaust fiction and in the reader's encounter with it. Considering works by Cynthia Ozick, Art Spiegelman, Aharon Appelfeld, Michael Chabon, and others, Budick investigates how the reading subject makes sense of these fictionalized presentations of memory and trauma, victims and victimizers.

All the Horrors of War

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Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN 13 : 1421437708
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis All the Horrors of War by : Bernice Lerner

Download or read book All the Horrors of War written by Bernice Lerner and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable stories of Rachel Genuth, a poor Jewish teenager from the Hungarian provinces, and Hugh Llewelyn Glyn Hughes, a high-ranking military doctor in the British Second Army, who converge in Bergen-Belsen, where the girl fights for her life and the doctor struggles to save thousands on the brink of death. On April 15, 1945, Brigadier H. L. Glyn Hughes entered Bergen-Belsen for the first time. Waiting for him were 10,000 unburied, putrefying corpses and 60,000 living prisoners, starving and sick. One month earlier, 15-year-old Rachel Genuth arrived at Bergen-Belsen; deported with her family from Sighet, Transylvania, in May of 1944, Rachel had by then already endured Auschwitz, the Christianstadt labor camp, and a forced march through the Sudetenland. In All the Horrors of War, Bernice Lerner follows both Hughes and Genuth as they move across Europe toward Bergen-Belsen in the final, brutal year of World War II. The book begins at the end: with Hughes's searing testimony at the September 1945 trial of Josef Kramer, commandant of Bergen-Belsen, along with forty-four SS (Schutzstaffel) members and guards. "I have been a doctor for thirty years and seen all the horrors of war," Hughes said, "but I have never seen anything to touch it." The narrative then jumps back to the spring of 1944, following both Hughes and Rachel as they navigate their respective forms of wartime hell until confronting the worst: Christianstadt's prisoners, including Rachel, are deposited in Bergen-Belsen, and the British Second Army, having finally breached the fortress of Germany, assumes control of the ghastly camp after a negotiated surrender. Though they never met, it was Hughes's commitment to helping as many prisoners as possible that saved Rachel's life. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including Hughes's papers, war diaries, oral histories, and interviews, this gripping volume combines scholarly research with narrative storytelling in describing the suffering of Nazi victims, the overwhelming presence of death at Bergen-Belsen, and characters who exemplify the human capacity for fortitude. Lerner, Rachel's daughter, has special insight into the torment her mother suffered. The first book to pair the story of a Holocaust victim with that of a liberator, All the Horrors of War compels readers to consider the full, complex humanity of both.

The Subject of Holocaust Fiction

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253016320
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis The Subject of Holocaust Fiction by : Emily Miller Budick

Download or read book The Subject of Holocaust Fiction written by Emily Miller Budick and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fictional representations of horrific events run the risk of undercutting efforts to verify historical knowledge and may heighten our ability to respond intellectually and ethically to human experiences of devastation. In this captivating study of the epistemological, psychological, and ethical issues underlying Holocaust fiction, Emily Miller Budick examines the subjective experiences of fantasy, projection, and repression manifested in Holocaust fiction and in the reader's encounter with it. Considering works by Cynthia Ozick, Art Spiegelman, Aharon Appelfeld, Michael Chabon, and others, Budick investigates how the reading subject makes sense of these fictionalized presentations of memory and trauma, victims and victimizers.

The Death's Head Chess Club

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Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 0374713979
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis The Death's Head Chess Club by : John Donoghue

Download or read book The Death's Head Chess Club written by John Donoghue and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel of the improbable friendship that arises between a Nazi officer and a Jewish chessplayer in Auschwitz SS Obersturmfuhrer Paul Meissner arrives in Auschwitz from the Russian front wounded and fit only for administrative duty. His most pressing task is to improve camp morale and he establishes a chess club, and allows officers and enlisted men to gamble on the games. Soon Meissner learns that chess is also played among the prisoners, and there are rumors of an unbeatable Jew known as "the Watchmaker." Meissner's superiors begin to demand that he demonstrate German superiority by pitting this undefeated Jew against the best Nazi players. Meissner finds Emil Clément, the Watchmaker, and a curious relationship arises between them. As more and more games are played, the stakes rise, and the two men find their fates deeply entwined. Twenty years later, the two meet again in Amsterdam—Meissner has become a bishop, and Emil is playing in an international chess tournament. Having lost his family in the horrors of the death camps, Emil wants nothing to do with the ex-Nazi officer despite their history, but Meissner is persistent. "What I hope," he tells Emil, "is that I can help you to understand that the power of forgiveness will bring healing." As both men search for a modicum of peace, they recall a gripping tale of survival and trust. A suspenseful meditation on understanding and guilt, John Donoghue's The Death's Head Chess Club is a bold debut and a rich portrait of a surprising friendship.

Holocaust Literature

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Publisher : UPNE
ISBN 13 : 1611683599
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (116 download)

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Book Synopsis Holocaust Literature by : David G. Roskies

Download or read book Holocaust Literature written by David G. Roskies and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2012 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive assessment of Holocaust literature, from World War II to the present day

A Thousand Darknesses

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199779775
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis A Thousand Darknesses by : Ruth Franklin

Download or read book A Thousand Darknesses written by Ruth Franklin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-19 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the difference between writing a novel about the Holocaust and fabricating a memoir? Do narratives about the Holocaust have a special obligation to be 'truthful'--that is, faithful to the facts of history? Or is it okay to lie in such works? In her provocative study A Thousand Darknesses, Ruth Franklin investigates these questions as they arise in the most significant works of Holocaust fiction, from Tadeusz Borowski's Auschwitz stories to Jonathan Safran Foer's postmodernist family history. Franklin argues that the memory-obsessed culture of the last few decades has led us to mistakenly focus on testimony as the only valid form of Holocaust writing. As even the most canonical texts have come under scrutiny for their fidelity to the facts, we have lost sight of the essential role that imagination plays in the creation of any literary work, including the memoir. Taking a fresh look at memoirs by Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi, and examining novels by writers such as Piotr Rawicz, Jerzy Kosinski, W.G. Sebald, and Wolfgang Koeppen, Franklin makes a persuasive case for literature as an equally vital vehicle for understanding the Holocaust (and for memoir as an equally ambiguous form). The result is a study of immense depth and range that offers a lucid view of an often cloudy field.

Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 311066741X
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction by : Elisa-Maria Hiemer

Download or read book Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction written by Elisa-Maria Hiemer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-06-21 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Polish, Czech, and Slovak Holocaust Fiction aims to increase the visibility and show the versatility of works from East-Central European countries. It is the first encyclopedic work to bridge the gap between the literary production of countries that are considered to be main sites of the Holocaust and their recognition in international academic and public discourse. It contains over 100 entries offering not only facts about the content and motifs but also pointing out the characteristic fictional features of each work and its meaning for academic discourse and wider reception in the country of origin and abroad. The publication will appeal to the academic and broader public interested in the representation of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and World War II in literature and the arts. Besides prose, it also considers poetry and theatrical plays from 1943 through 2018. An introduction to the historical events and cultural developments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Czech, and Slovak Republic, and their impact on the artistic output helps to contextualise the motif changes and fictional strategies that authors have been applying for decades. The publication is the result of long-term scholarly cooperation of specialists from four countries and several dozen academic centres.

Holocaust, War and Transnational Memory

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317121414
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

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Book Synopsis Holocaust, War and Transnational Memory by : Stijn Vervaet

Download or read book Holocaust, War and Transnational Memory written by Stijn Vervaet and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-23 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until now, there has been little scholarly attention given to the ways in which Eastern European Holocaust fiction can contribute to current debates about transnational and transgenerational memory. Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav literary narratives about the Holocaust offer a particularly interesting case because time and again Holocaust memory is represented as intersecting with other stories of extreme violence: with the suffering of the non-Jewish South-Slav population during the Second World War, with the fate of victims of Stalinist terror, and with the victims of ethnic cleansing in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. This book examines the emergence and transformations of Holocaust memory in the socialist Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav eras. It discusses literary texts about the Holocaust by Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav writers, situating their oeuvre in the historical and discursive context in which it emerged and paying attention to its reception at the time. The book shows how in the writing of different generational groups (the survivor generation, the 1.5, and the second and third generations), the Holocaust is a motif for understanding the nature of extreme violence, locally and globally. The book offers comparative studies of several authors as well as readings of the work of individual writers. It uncovers forgotten authors and discusses internationally well-known and translated authors such as Danilo Kiš and David Albahari. By focusing on work by Jewish and non-Jewish authors of three generations, it sheds light on the ethical and aesthetical aspects of the transgenerational transmission of Holocaust memory in the Yugoslav context. As such, this book will appeal to both students and scholars of Holocaust studies, cultural memory studies, literary studies, cultural history, cultural sociology, Balkan studies, and Eastern European politics.

Second-generation Holocaust Literature

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Publisher : Camden House
ISBN 13 : 9781571133526
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (335 download)

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Book Synopsis Second-generation Holocaust Literature by : Erin Heather McGlothlin

Download or read book Second-generation Holocaust Literature written by Erin Heather McGlothlin and published by Camden House. This book was released on 2006 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expands the definition of second-generation literature to include texts written from the point of view of the children of Nazi perpetrators.

Children of the Flames

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0140169318
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Children of the Flames by : Lucette Matalon Lagnado

Download or read book Children of the Flames written by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1992-05-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, Nazi doctor Josef Mengele subjected some 3,000 twins to medical experiments of unspeakable horror; only 160 survived. In this remarkable narrative, the life of Auschwitz's Angel of Death is told in counterpoint to the lives of the survivors, who until now have kept silent about their heinous death-camp ordeals.

Mapping the Bones

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0399546677
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis Mapping the Bones by : Jane Yolen

Download or read book Mapping the Bones written by Jane Yolen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jane Yolen, the bestselling and award-winning author of The Devil's Arithmetic, returns to World War II and the Holocaust with this timely and necessary novel. It's 1942 in Poland, and the world is coming to pieces. At least that's how it seems to Chaim and Gittel, twins whose lives feel like a fairy tale torn apart, with evil witches, forbidden forests, and dangerous ovens looming on the horizon. But in all darkness there is light, and the twins find it through Chaim's poetry and the love they have for each other. Like the bright flame of a Yahrzeit candle, his words become a beacon of memory so that the children and grandchildren of survivors will never forget the atrocities that happened during the Holocaust. Filled with brutality and despair, this is also a story of poetry and strength, in which a brother and sister lose everything but each other. Nearly thirty years after the publication of her award-winning and bestselling The Devil's Arithmetic and Briar Rose, Yolen once again returns to World War II and captivates her readers with the authenticity and power of her words. Perfect for fans of Markus Zuzak's The Book Thief and Ruta Sepetys's Salt to the Sea.

The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies

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Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 019165079X
Total Pages : 791 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies by : Peter Hayes

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies written by Peter Hayes and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 791 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few scholarly fields have developed in recent decades as rapidly and vigorously as Holocaust Studies. At the start of the twenty-first century, the persecution and murder perpetrated by the Nazi regime have become the subjects of an enormous literature in multiple academic disciplines and a touchstone of public and intellectual discourse in such diverse fields as politics, ethics and religion. Forward-looking and multi-disciplinary, this handbook draws on the work of an international team of forty-seven outstanding scholars. The handbook is thematically divided into five broad sections. Part One, Enablers, concentrates on the broad and necessary contextual conditions for the Holocaust. Part Two, Protagonists, concentrates on the principal persons and groups involved in the Holocaust and attempts to disaggregate the conventional interpretive categories of perpetrator, victim, and bystander. It examines the agency of the Nazi leaders and killers and of those involved in resisting and surviving the assault. Part Three, Settings, concentrates on the particular places, sites, and physical circumstances where the actions of the Holocaust's protagonists and the forms of persecution were literally grounded. Part Four, Representations, engages complex questions about how the Holocaust can and should be grasped and what meaning or lack of meaning might be attributed to events through historical analysis, interpretation of texts, artistic creation and criticism, and philosophical and religious reflection. Part Five, Aftereffects, explores the Holocaust's impact on politics and ethics, education and religion, national identities and international relations, the prospects for genocide prevention, and the defense of human rights.

Trauma in First Person

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253030218
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Trauma in First Person by : Amos Goldberg

Download or read book Trauma in First Person written by Amos Goldberg and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of what can be learned by looking at the journals and diaries of Jews living during the Holocaust. What are the effects of radical oppression on the human psyche? What happens to the inner self of the powerless and traumatized victim, especially during times of widespread horror? In this bold and deeply penetrating book, Amos Goldberg addresses diary writing by Jews under Nazi persecution. Throughout Europe, in towns, villages, ghettos, forests, hideouts, concentration and labor camps, and even in extermination camps, Jews of all ages and of all cultural backgrounds described in writing what befell them. Goldberg claims that diary and memoir writing was perhaps the most important literary genre for Jews during World War II. Goldberg considers the act of writing in radical situations as he looks at diaries from little-known victims as well as from brilliant diarists such as Chaim Kaplan and Victor Kemperer. Goldberg contends that only against the background of powerlessness and inner destruction can Jewish responses and resistance during the Holocaust gain their proper meaning. “This is a book that deserves to be read well beyond Holocaust studies. Goldberg’s theoretical insights into “life stories” and his readings of law, language and what he calls the “epistemological grey zone” . . . provide a stunning antidote to our unthinking treatment of survivors as celebrities (as opposed to just people who have suffered terrible things) and to the ubiquity of commemorative platitudes.” —Times Higher Education “Every decade or so, an exceptional volume is born. Provocative and inspiring, historian Goldberg’s volume is one such work in the field of Holocaust studies. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice “Amos Goldberg’s Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing During the Holocaust is an important and thought-provoking book not only on reading Holocaust diaries, but also on what that reading can tell us about the extent of the destruction committed against Jews during the Holocaust.” —Reading Religion “Amos Goldberg’s work offers an innovative approach to the subject matter of Holocaust diaries and challenges well-established views in the whole field of Holocaust studies. This is a comprehensive discussion of the phenomenon of Jewish diary writing during the Holocaust and after.” —Guy Miron. Author of The Waning of Emancipation: Jewish History, Memory, and the Rise of Fascism in Germany, France, and Hungary “This is an important contribution to trauma studies and a powerful critique of those who use the “crisis” paradigm to study the Holocaust.” —Dovile Budryt, Georgia Gwinnett College, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

The Flight Portfolio

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307959414
Total Pages : 577 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis The Flight Portfolio by : Julie Orringer

Download or read book The Flight Portfolio written by Julie Orringer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Invisible Bridge comes a gripping tale of forbidden love, high-stakes adventure, and unimaginable courage filled with "suspense and tragedy, unexpected twists and deliverance” (The Seattle Times). • THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES TRANSATLANTIC MARSEILLE, 1940. Varian Fry, a Harvard-educated journalist and editor, arrives in France. Recognizing the darkness descending over Europe, he and a group of like-minded New Yorkers formed the Emergency Rescue Committee, helping artists and writers escape from the Nazis and immigrate to the United States. Amid the chaos of World War II, and in defiance of restrictive U.S. immigration policies, Fry must procure false passports, secure visas, seek out escape routes through the Pyrenees and by sea, and make impossible decisions about who should be saved, all while under profound pressure—and in a state of irrevocable personal change. In this dazzling work of historical fiction—one that illuminates previously unexplored elements of Fry’s story, and has, since its publication, brought us new insight into his life.

Representing Perpetrators in Holocaust Literature and Film

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780853039594
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (395 download)

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Book Synopsis Representing Perpetrators in Holocaust Literature and Film by : Jenni Adams

Download or read book Representing Perpetrators in Holocaust Literature and Film written by Jenni Adams and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays analyze representations of the Holocaust perpetrators. In doing so, they explore what has until now held critics back from this topic, including moral and emotional distaste, the dangers of confusing understanding with exculpation, and the possibility of problematic identification.

A Small Town Near Auschwitz

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Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191611751
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis A Small Town Near Auschwitz by : Mary Fulbrook

Download or read book A Small Town Near Auschwitz written by Mary Fulbrook and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Silesian town of Bedzin lies a mere twenty-five miles from Auschwitz; through the linked ghettos of Bedzin and its neighbouring town, some 85,000 Jews passed on their way to slave labour or the gas chambers. The principal civilian administrator of Bedzin, Udo Klausa, was a happily married family man. He was also responsible for implementing Nazi policies towards the Jews in his area - inhumane processes that were the precursors of genocide. Yet he later claimed, like so many other Germans after the war, that he had 'known nothing about it'; and that he had personally tried to save a Jew before he himself managed to leave for military service. A Small Town Near Auschwitz re-creates Udo Klausa's story. Using a wealth of personal letters, memoirs, testimonies, interviews and other sources, Mary Fulbrook pieces together his role in the unfolding stigmatization and degradation of the Jews under his authoritiy, as well as the heroic attempts at resistance on the part of some of his victims. She also gives us a fascinating insight into the inner conflicts of a Nazi functionary who, throughout, considered himself a 'decent' man. And she explores the conflicting memories and evasions of his life after the war. But the book is much more than a portrayal of an individual man. Udo Klausa's case is so important because it is in many ways so typical. Behind Klausa's story is the larger story of how countless local functionaries across the Third Reich facilitated the murderous plans of a relatively small number among the Nazi elite - and of how those plans could never have been realized, on the same scale, without the diligent cooperation of these generally very ordinary administrators. As Fulbrook shows, men like Klausa 'knew' and yet mostly suppressed this knowledge, performing their day jobs without apparent recognition of their own role in the system, or any sense of personal wrongdoing or remorse - either before or after 1945. This account is no ordinary historical reconstruction. For Fulbrook did not discover Udo Klausa amongst the archives. She has known the Klausa family all her life. She had no inkling of her subject's true role in the Third Reich until a few years ago, a discovery that led directly to this inescapably personal professional history.

Sala's Gift

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1416542582
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis Sala's Gift by : Ann Kirschner

Download or read book Sala's Gift written by Ann Kirschner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-11-07 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Do you know why I write so much? Because as long as you read, we are together." -- Raizel Garncarz (Sala's sister), April 24, 1941 Few family secrets have the power both to transform lives and to fill in crucial gaps in world history. But then, few families have a mother and a daughter quite like Sala and Ann Kirschner. For nearly fifty years, Sala kept a secret: She had survived five years as a slave in seven different Nazi work camps. Living in America after the war, she kept from her children any hint of her epic, inhuman odyssey. She held on to more than 350 letters, photographs, and a diary without ever mentioning them. Only in 1991, on the eve of heart surgery, did she suddenly present them to Ann and offer to answer any questions her daughter wished to ask. It was a life-changing moment for her scholar, writer, and entrepreneur daughter. We know surprisingly little about the vast network of Nazi labor camps, where imprisoned Jews built railroads and highways, churned out munitions and materiel, and otherwise supported the limitless needs of the Nazi war machine. This book gives us an insider's account: Conditions were brutal. Death rates were high. As the war dragged on and the Nazis retreated, inmates were force-marched across hundreds of miles, or packed into cattle cars for grim journeys from one camp to another. When Sala first reported to a camp in Geppersdorf, Poland, at the age of sixteen, she thought it would be for six weeks. Five years later, she was still at a labor camp and only she and two of her sisters remained alive of an extended family of fifty. In the first years of the conflict, Sala was aided by her close friend Ala Gertner, who would later lead an uprising at Auschwitz and be executed just weeks before the liberation of that camp. Sala was also helped by other key friends. Yet above all, she survived thanks to the slender threads of support expressed in the letters of her friends and family. She kept them at great personal risk, and it is astonishing that she was able to receive as many as she did. With their heartwrenching expressions of longing, love, and hope, they offer a testament to the human spirit, an indomitable impulse even in the face of monstrosity. Sala's Gift is a rare book, a gift from Ann to her mother, and a great gift from both women to the world.