David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-holocaust"
ANITA'S PIANO
ANITA’S PIANO is an original Holocaust story told from a nine-year-old’s point of view (fourteen at the end). It also includes pictures of Anita and her family as well as such mundane information as a recipe or two.
At the beginning of the book, Anita lives in Czechoslovakia; Hitler is just about to claim the Sudetenland for Germany. Such well-known events as Kristallnacht begin to portend a cataclysmic future for Anita’s family; the requirement that all Jews wear a five-point yellow star occurs, and Anita is shocked that her old friends seem to be avoiding her.
Family history is intermixed with the above. Anita’s grandmother tells her about a suicide in the family. Anita (married name Schorr) has a little brother Michael whose spirits she attempts to keep up, even if she has to lie to do it.
Eventually Anita’s family must surrender their home; they’re moved to a ghetto where her father is mustered into the ghetto guard. They are given little food. As more people arrive, more of the original newcomers are moved, and that’s how Anita and her family arrive in Auschwitz.
Several other surprising anecdotes are included such as when Anita is waiting in line to be vaccinated for hepatitis by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. She begins to cry and a Nazi nurse takes pity on her and gives her cocoa.
Anita life is saved when her mother suggests she volunteer for a work detail. She’s supposed to be eighteen, but somehow she qualifies; the food gets better, and she meets a Wehrmacht lieutenant who gives her part of his sandwiches and lets her go swimming in the ocean. But she’s separated from her family and has no way of knowing what has happened to them.
Anita is a likable character; the reader really cares what will happen to her, but the book starts with her in a refugee camp, so we already know she survived the war. The only suspense is what happened to her father, mother, brother and the rest of the family.
Author Marion A. Stahl includes “historical highlights” at the end of the book, starting with the Sino-Japanese war in 1939, ending with the surrender of the German Army Group Center in Czechoslovakia in May of 1945.
At the beginning of the book, Anita lives in Czechoslovakia; Hitler is just about to claim the Sudetenland for Germany. Such well-known events as Kristallnacht begin to portend a cataclysmic future for Anita’s family; the requirement that all Jews wear a five-point yellow star occurs, and Anita is shocked that her old friends seem to be avoiding her.
Family history is intermixed with the above. Anita’s grandmother tells her about a suicide in the family. Anita (married name Schorr) has a little brother Michael whose spirits she attempts to keep up, even if she has to lie to do it.
Eventually Anita’s family must surrender their home; they’re moved to a ghetto where her father is mustered into the ghetto guard. They are given little food. As more people arrive, more of the original newcomers are moved, and that’s how Anita and her family arrive in Auschwitz.
Several other surprising anecdotes are included such as when Anita is waiting in line to be vaccinated for hepatitis by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. She begins to cry and a Nazi nurse takes pity on her and gives her cocoa.
Anita life is saved when her mother suggests she volunteer for a work detail. She’s supposed to be eighteen, but somehow she qualifies; the food gets better, and she meets a Wehrmacht lieutenant who gives her part of his sandwiches and lets her go swimming in the ocean. But she’s separated from her family and has no way of knowing what has happened to them.
Anita is a likable character; the reader really cares what will happen to her, but the book starts with her in a refugee camp, so we already know she survived the war. The only suspense is what happened to her father, mother, brother and the rest of the family.
Author Marion A. Stahl includes “historical highlights” at the end of the book, starting with the Sino-Japanese war in 1939, ending with the surrender of the German Army Group Center in Czechoslovakia in May of 1945.
The Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
BLOODLANDS is about Stalin and Hitlers murder of fourteen million non-combatants between the early 1930's and 1945. The Bloodlands refer to the lands between eastern Germany and the part of Russia that Hitler invaded in 1941 when he broke the alliance with Russia.
Where to begin. Ideology and megalomania, if not psychosis, play a role. In the early thirties Stalin began his five-year plans by creating agricultural communes in the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine. Private farmers called kulaks lived there; it's not clear whether Stalin even asked them if they wanted to join communes. He just starved them out. Author Timothy Snyder claims 3.3 million peasants were murdered during that time. Stalin wanted to industrialize the USSR, and the big factory cities needed the grain. He also exported grain while his people were starving. Coincidentally perhaps (although I doubt it) his wife committed suicide at the same time.
Next came the great Terror of 1937-38. Westerners are familiar with the purge of intellectuals and political adversaries during this period, but Stalin also eliminated a further 700,000 national minorities. If you were sent to the Gulags in the early thirties you were lucky, but if you returned to the Ukraine in 1937, having served your time, you were targeted again.
Hitler had a utopian idea that he would invade Russia, kill or starve the Slavs living there and move German farmers into the area. That's the principal reason for breaking the pact, besides hating communists. The first part of the invasion of Russia was a blitzkrieg, just like his rapid defeat of the lowlands and France. Hitler's army took hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners and starved them to death in prison camps, that is unless he needed slave labor. Prior to the invasion of the USSR, Hitler had invaded Poland. He had to split Poland with the Soviets, but they both tried to eliminate the leadership: politicians, university professors, scientists, high school and elementary teachers.
Hitler had originally planned to deport the Jews. Snyder mentions Madagascar as a possible destination. That became an unrealistic destination once the war started because England ruled the seas. Something Americans don't realize is that there were very few jews in Germany, not even a million, but once Hitler invaded Poland and Russia he suddenly held sway over five million of them. Shooting Jews was the principal method of extermination during the original invasion of the USSR; they then moved to gassing them, using portable vans and carbon monoxide.
Around 1941, Hitler realized he wasn't going to be able to defeat the Soviets; they were starting to push back. But he could get rid of the jews, by gassing them. That was Himmler's idea and Hitler approved. Americans soldiers did release prisoners at several concentration camps where jews were gassed, but according to Snyder they didn't see the worst of it. That happened in the Bloodlands. Treblinka was not a concentration camp; it was built to kill jews. Auschwitz, the most famous of the concentration camps, was originally intended to be a work camp. I.G. Farbin needed slave laborers; only later were the gas chambers and crematoriums added. To realize the significance of the fourteen million number, which doesn't even include soldiers, that number is thirteen million more people than all of the deaths in all of the wars America has fought in its entire history.
At one point Snyder tries to explain how this mass murder could happen. He criticizes himself in that numbers are mentioned too much; the nazis killed eleven million people, about six million jews, and five million others, but the human mind can't grasp such a large figure. After a while it doesn't mean anything. Snyder recommends we try to individualize the people that died, and he makes a half-hearted attempt at doing so. A Jewish girl leaves a message for her mother on the wall of a synagogue as she's being burned alive. There's too little of that in this book. It's mostly depressing. The poor Ukrainians were massacred four times, in the early thirties by Stalin, again during the Great Terror, by Hitler who wanted “living room” for his farmers, and once again by Stalin who was afraid the Ukrainian partisans would be hard to control after the war.
You really can't explain how two monsters like Stalin and Hitler happened to exist at the same time in almost the same place, but several authors have taken a crack at it. Snyder recommends Hannah Arendt, author of ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM and novelist Vasily Grossman, author of LIFE AND FATE and the incomplete EVERYTHING FLOWS. Grossman especially has become more and more popular throughout the years. LIFE AND FATE was published abroad in 1980.
Where to begin. Ideology and megalomania, if not psychosis, play a role. In the early thirties Stalin began his five-year plans by creating agricultural communes in the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine. Private farmers called kulaks lived there; it's not clear whether Stalin even asked them if they wanted to join communes. He just starved them out. Author Timothy Snyder claims 3.3 million peasants were murdered during that time. Stalin wanted to industrialize the USSR, and the big factory cities needed the grain. He also exported grain while his people were starving. Coincidentally perhaps (although I doubt it) his wife committed suicide at the same time.
Next came the great Terror of 1937-38. Westerners are familiar with the purge of intellectuals and political adversaries during this period, but Stalin also eliminated a further 700,000 national minorities. If you were sent to the Gulags in the early thirties you were lucky, but if you returned to the Ukraine in 1937, having served your time, you were targeted again.
Hitler had a utopian idea that he would invade Russia, kill or starve the Slavs living there and move German farmers into the area. That's the principal reason for breaking the pact, besides hating communists. The first part of the invasion of Russia was a blitzkrieg, just like his rapid defeat of the lowlands and France. Hitler's army took hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners and starved them to death in prison camps, that is unless he needed slave labor. Prior to the invasion of the USSR, Hitler had invaded Poland. He had to split Poland with the Soviets, but they both tried to eliminate the leadership: politicians, university professors, scientists, high school and elementary teachers.
Hitler had originally planned to deport the Jews. Snyder mentions Madagascar as a possible destination. That became an unrealistic destination once the war started because England ruled the seas. Something Americans don't realize is that there were very few jews in Germany, not even a million, but once Hitler invaded Poland and Russia he suddenly held sway over five million of them. Shooting Jews was the principal method of extermination during the original invasion of the USSR; they then moved to gassing them, using portable vans and carbon monoxide.
Around 1941, Hitler realized he wasn't going to be able to defeat the Soviets; they were starting to push back. But he could get rid of the jews, by gassing them. That was Himmler's idea and Hitler approved. Americans soldiers did release prisoners at several concentration camps where jews were gassed, but according to Snyder they didn't see the worst of it. That happened in the Bloodlands. Treblinka was not a concentration camp; it was built to kill jews. Auschwitz, the most famous of the concentration camps, was originally intended to be a work camp. I.G. Farbin needed slave laborers; only later were the gas chambers and crematoriums added. To realize the significance of the fourteen million number, which doesn't even include soldiers, that number is thirteen million more people than all of the deaths in all of the wars America has fought in its entire history.
At one point Snyder tries to explain how this mass murder could happen. He criticizes himself in that numbers are mentioned too much; the nazis killed eleven million people, about six million jews, and five million others, but the human mind can't grasp such a large figure. After a while it doesn't mean anything. Snyder recommends we try to individualize the people that died, and he makes a half-hearted attempt at doing so. A Jewish girl leaves a message for her mother on the wall of a synagogue as she's being burned alive. There's too little of that in this book. It's mostly depressing. The poor Ukrainians were massacred four times, in the early thirties by Stalin, again during the Great Terror, by Hitler who wanted “living room” for his farmers, and once again by Stalin who was afraid the Ukrainian partisans would be hard to control after the war.
You really can't explain how two monsters like Stalin and Hitler happened to exist at the same time in almost the same place, but several authors have taken a crack at it. Snyder recommends Hannah Arendt, author of ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM and novelist Vasily Grossman, author of LIFE AND FATE and the incomplete EVERYTHING FLOWS. Grossman especially has become more and more popular throughout the years. LIFE AND FATE was published abroad in 1980.
The Orphan's Tale
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the ORPHAN'S TALE is the versatility of the author, Pam Jenoff. She has a bachelor's degree in international affairs, a masters degree in history from Cambridge and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, besides her writing credits.
As a diplomat she handled Holocaust affairs in Poland. She got the idea for this book from the archives of Yad Vashem, the WWII Jewish museum. One of the lead characters, Noa, gets pregnant by a German soldier and is thrown out of her home by her father. The only job she can find, after the Nazis take her baby, is as a cleaning lady at a railroad terminal. One day she hears an eerie sound coming from one of the cars. It's a carload full of dead and dying babies. But one is still alive; she reaches in, grabs him, and starts walking. She could never hold her job and keep the baby. Also at Yad Vashem, Jenoff ran across a circus that rescued Jews. Noa is taken in by a fictional circus and taught how to be an aerialist. The second main character is Astrid, who teaches her how to work on the flying trapeze in a matter of weeks. Astrid is a Jewish woman who was married to a German soldier until Hitler outlawed such marriages. He told her to hit the bricks. Astrid was raised as a feature performer on the flying trapeze at another circus. They were disbanded because the owner, Astrid's father, was Jewish. But their main competitor takes her in.
Here's the rub. Did you believe the part about the Jewish babies? Well, that part was true, except that many were toddlers. Jenoff emphasizes that the “babies” didn't even know their names. When Jenoff needs to move the story she will very often grasp at straws, so to speak. There's a convenient heart attack; the circus tent catching on fire, making the ending possible; the owner's son fires 2/3 of the support staff, who could have put out the fire easily; they were concerned about fires. They practiced dealing with this very thing. We also have two lovers, one of whom is the teenage son of a local mayor who is in cahoots with the Nazis. The woman can't help herself; she only knows she loves him. Actually, Jenoff needs the love affair more than she needs credibility. Then there's the part where Astrid's ex-husband shows that not even Nazis are all bad as he provides an escape for Astrid. Does he regret what he did to Astrid? Not enough to stand up for her. In the real version of this story, the husband refuses to give up his Jewish wife and joins the circus with her. But Jenoff needed Astrid to be another outcast.
I was a history major and teacher. Certainly the Yad Vasehem anecdotes were interesting, but the Nazi atrocities stand on their own. You don't need fiction when the real thing is so horrible. If you want to know about the Nazi regime, read THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH. You'll find out what happened to the animals who thought murdering Jews was “The final solution”.
As a diplomat she handled Holocaust affairs in Poland. She got the idea for this book from the archives of Yad Vashem, the WWII Jewish museum. One of the lead characters, Noa, gets pregnant by a German soldier and is thrown out of her home by her father. The only job she can find, after the Nazis take her baby, is as a cleaning lady at a railroad terminal. One day she hears an eerie sound coming from one of the cars. It's a carload full of dead and dying babies. But one is still alive; she reaches in, grabs him, and starts walking. She could never hold her job and keep the baby. Also at Yad Vashem, Jenoff ran across a circus that rescued Jews. Noa is taken in by a fictional circus and taught how to be an aerialist. The second main character is Astrid, who teaches her how to work on the flying trapeze in a matter of weeks. Astrid is a Jewish woman who was married to a German soldier until Hitler outlawed such marriages. He told her to hit the bricks. Astrid was raised as a feature performer on the flying trapeze at another circus. They were disbanded because the owner, Astrid's father, was Jewish. But their main competitor takes her in.
Here's the rub. Did you believe the part about the Jewish babies? Well, that part was true, except that many were toddlers. Jenoff emphasizes that the “babies” didn't even know their names. When Jenoff needs to move the story she will very often grasp at straws, so to speak. There's a convenient heart attack; the circus tent catching on fire, making the ending possible; the owner's son fires 2/3 of the support staff, who could have put out the fire easily; they were concerned about fires. They practiced dealing with this very thing. We also have two lovers, one of whom is the teenage son of a local mayor who is in cahoots with the Nazis. The woman can't help herself; she only knows she loves him. Actually, Jenoff needs the love affair more than she needs credibility. Then there's the part where Astrid's ex-husband shows that not even Nazis are all bad as he provides an escape for Astrid. Does he regret what he did to Astrid? Not enough to stand up for her. In the real version of this story, the husband refuses to give up his Jewish wife and joins the circus with her. But Jenoff needed Astrid to be another outcast.
I was a history major and teacher. Certainly the Yad Vasehem anecdotes were interesting, but the Nazi atrocities stand on their own. You don't need fiction when the real thing is so horrible. If you want to know about the Nazi regime, read THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH. You'll find out what happened to the animals who thought murdering Jews was “The final solution”.
