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Remember Us: My Journey from the Shtetl Through the Holocaust Vic Shayne, Martin Small “Martin Small’s poignant recollections of his experiences in German concentration camps . . . constitute an important contribution to the literature of the most tragic chapter of contemporary history.”—Elie Wiesel, author of Night, winner of Nobel Peace Prize Remember Us is a look back at the lost world of the shtetl: a wise Zayde offering prophetic and profound words to his grandson, the rich experience of Shabbos, and the treasure of a loving family. All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. From work camps to the partisans of the Nowogrudek forests, from the Mauthausen concentration camp to life as a displaced person in Italy, and from fighting the Egyptian army in a tiny Israeli kibbutz in 1948 to starting a new life in a new world in New York, this book encompasses the mythical “hero’s journey” in very real historical events. Through the eyes of 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget. 20 b&w illustrations |
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Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster Svetlana Alexievich
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown---from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster---and their stories reveal the fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live. Comprised of interviews in monologue form, Voices from Chernobyl is a crucially important work, unforgettable in its emotional power and honesty.
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Defiance Nechama Tec Nechama Tec tells the story of the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Arguing that the success of the Bielski partisans, as the rescue organization came to be known, would have been unthinkable without the vision of one man, Tec offers penetrating insight into the group's commander, Tuvia Bielski. Tec brings to light the untold story of Bielski's struggle as a partisan who lost his parents, wife, and two brothers to the Nazis, yet never wavered in his conviction that it was more important to save one Jew than to kill twenty Germans. She shows how, under Bielski's guidance, the partisans smuggled Jews out of heavily guarded ghettos, scouted the roads for fugitives, and led retaliatory raids against Belorussian peasants who collaborated with the Nazis.
Herself a Holocaust survivor, Nechama Tec here draws on wide-ranging research and never before published interviews with surviving partisans--including Tuvia Bielski himself--to reconstruct here the poignant and unforgettable story of those who chose to fight.
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The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews Peter Duffy In 1941, three brothers witnessed their parents and two other siblings being led away to their eventual murders. It was a grim scene that would, of course, be repeated endlessly throughout the war. Instead of running or giving in to despair, these brothers -- Tuvia, Zus, and Asael Bielski -- fought back, waging a guerrilla war of wits against the Nazis. By using their intimate knowledge of the dense forests surrounding the Belarusan towns of Novogrudek and Lida, the Bielskis evaded the Nazis and established a hidden base camp, then set about convincing other Jews to join their ranks. As more and more Jews arrived each day, a robust community began to emerge, a "Jerusalem in the woods." After two and a half years in the woods, in July 1944, the Bielskis learned that the Germans, overrun by the Red Army, were retreating back toward Berlin. More than one thousand Bielski Jews emerged -- alive -- on that final, triumphant exit from the woods. |
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America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History John Loftus Fully revised and expanded, this stirring account reveals how the U.S. government permitted the illegal entry of Nazis into North America in the years following World War II. This extraordinary investigation exposes the secret section of the State Department that began, starting in 1948 and unbeknownst to Congress and the public until recently, to hire members of the puppet wartime government of Byelorussia—a region of the Soviet Union occupied by Nazi Germany. A former Justice Department investigator uncovered this stunning story in the files of several government agencies, and it is now available with a chapter previously banned from release by authorities and a foreword and afterword with recently declassified materials. |
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The Last Sunrise : A True Story Harold Gordon This is a true story of a ten year old boy who survived almost (5) years in Nazi Concentration Camps with a positive attitude. A child who lost everyone whom he loved and everything he owned and emerged healthy in body and in mind. He achieved success by letting go of ANGER and RESENTMENT while focusing future and forgiveness. |
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Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship Dr. Andrew Wilson This book is the first in English to explore both Belarus’s complicated road to nationhood and to examine in detail its politics and economics since 1991, the nation’s first year of true independence. Andrew Wilson focuses particular attention on Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s surprising longevity as president, despite human rights abuses and involvement in yet another rigged election in December 2010. Wilson looks at Belarusian history as a series of false starts in the medieval and pre-modern periods, and at the many rival versions of Belarusian identity, culminating with the Soviet Belarusian project and the establishment of Belarus’s current borders during World War II. He also addresses Belarus’s on-off relationship with Russia, its simultaneous attempts to play a game of balance in the no-man’s-land between Russia and the West, and how, paradoxically, Belarus is at last becoming a true nation under the rule of Europe’s “last dictator.” |
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I Chose Life: Biography of a Holocaust Survivor Saul I. Nitzberg, M.D. A Survivor's Search for Peace Mildred Nitzberg Dr. Saul Nitzberg, a survivor of Auschwitz, passed away in February 2000. Because his wife had spent many hours interviewing Dr. Nitzberg, the authors chose to tell his story by using Saul's own words, interlaced with narrative. The numerous papers, letters and documents his wife had preserved over the years supplemented the vivid portrait Saul had painted of his life. Imbedded in a loving family, Saul's life in Poland was tranquil in the early 1930's. However, the insidious onset of World War II destroyed the peace of his country, his community, and the lives of his family. While the ominous sequence of events was most frightening, neither the family nor the surrounding community could possibly envision the terror that was about to befall them. Saul described those events that ultimately led to the occupation of his city by the Russians and then the Germans. He described his four year journey from the Pruzhany ghetto to Auschwitz, and finally to freedom. The events of Saul's life following liberation were both fulfilling and remarkably compelling, but peace continued to elude him. His only brother, Lova, had been sucked up into the vortex of the war and had disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. The United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in the Cold War and there was no way to communicate with Soviet citizens. SOME DAY THE IRON CURTAIN WILL LIFT, AND IWILL GO TO RUSSIA TO SEARCH FOR MY BROTHER. Saul repeated these words to his wife over and over. Separated from his brother for thirty-three years, he was not sure that Lova was still alive. Yet, Saul's yearning to attempt to find him never waned. When the Iron Curtain lifted, he traveled to Russia in order to satisfy that need. His experiences surrounding the trip were shrouded in intrigue. It was a heart-rending venture, filled with moments of uncertainty, angst, and the nagging fear that it was quite possible that his quest would end in failure. Still another need kept Saul from achieving closure. Pressed to |
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The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 Mr. Timothy Snyder Modern nationalism in northeastern Europe has often led to violence and then reconciliation between nations with bloody pasts. In this study, Timothy Snyder traces the emergence of Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belarusian nationhood over four centuries. He discusses various atrocities (including the first account of the massive Ukrainian-Polish ethnic cleansings of the 1940s), and examines Poland's successful negotiations with its newly independent Eastern neighbours, as it has channelled national interest toward peace. |
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Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia Jan Tomasz Gross Jan Gross describes the terrors of the Soviet occupation of the lands that made up eastern Poland between the two world wars: the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. His lucid analysis of the revolution that came to Poland from abroad is based on hundreds of first-hand accounts of the hardship, suffering, and social chaos that accompanied the Sovietization of this poorest section of a poverty-stricken country. Woven into the author's exploration of events from the Soviet's German-supported aggression against Poland in September of 1939 to Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, these testimonies not only illuminate his conclusions about the nature of totalitarianism but also make a powerful statement of their own. Those who endured the imposition of Soviet rule and mass deportations to forced resettlement, labor camps, and prisons of the Soviet Union are here allowed to speak for themselves, and they do so with grim effectiveness. |