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A Hebraic Obsession
A ten-year old boy hides at the top of a stairwell listening to his father tell his harrowing story-a story about almost being gassed to death in a Nazi concentration camp. He doesn't dare ask his father to explain. His dad offers no further details. Follow Mort Laitner's journey from childhood to retirement as he obsesses about his father, the Holocaust, Judaism, and life. Laitner learns about his father's nightmarish travels during World War II from his father's Holocaust tapes, from books describing how he worked as a doctor in slave labor camps, from a doctoral thesis on Holocaust studies, and from a transcript of his father's testimony at a US military tribunal which led to a Nazi commandant's death sentence. Clue by clue, missing details come to light describing that fateful day when his father stood naked and faced the gas chamber. Read the remarkable story of how Wolf Laitner was sent to Russia with a unit of 349 fellow Jewish prisoners in disguise. They were given German military training and uniforms bearing swastikas, then sent to Russia during Operation Barbarossa to work on the railway system. Hitch a ride across America, Europe, Asia and Africa, from the 1950s through the new millennium as Mort Laitner shares his family's stories about survival, prejudice, luck, love, and miracles.
386 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 7, 2015
What an amazing book. Highly recommended. This book was loved by me and my husband.
November 4, 2014
There was a lot of discussion about A Hebraic Obsession by Mort Laitner on Linked In. It seemed such a remarkable tale that I wanted to read it as soon as I could. I ordered it on Amazon, although I try not to use that company too often. I prefer to buy things in the village, if I can. However, the only way I could get this book was to order it and have it sent to me from the USA.
The book took weeks to arrive, so long that I thought it had been lost. However, when it did arrive, I was not disappointed. This is a unique and important book. It tells Mort’s father’s story. Wolf Laitner was born in Poland. He was a medical doctor, but that is not the half of it. He must have been a truly remarkable man. Mort claims that his father’s only mistake was not to believe that Adolph Hitler would invade Poland.
His father paid dearly for that belief. The book starts when Mort was a boy of only 10 years old. He was hiding at the top of the staircase in his home. He was listening to he father tell his own harrowing story to his friends. Many of them bore the numbers tattooed on to their wrists by the Nazis during World War II. He lived through the hell on earth that was Auschwitz. He was in the lines to go into the gas chamber when he was called out from the line and reprieved. He kept what he called “Holocaust tapes”: these were his own recorded memories. Mort only had access to these after his father’s death.
I would not want to detract from the story by attempting to offer a synopsis here. Suffice to say the story needs to be read. Parts of it tell of misery and cruelty beyond imagination. Man’s inhumanity to his fellow man is laid bare in the author’s inimitable style.
The author is an attorney at law, a professor of Law and Ethics at Barry University in Miami, Florida, and at Florida International University an American public research university in Greater Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park in Miami-Dade County. He lives with his family in Southern Florida.
I highly recommend A Hebraic Obsession, although much of it is not an easy read.
The book took weeks to arrive, so long that I thought it had been lost. However, when it did arrive, I was not disappointed. This is a unique and important book. It tells Mort’s father’s story. Wolf Laitner was born in Poland. He was a medical doctor, but that is not the half of it. He must have been a truly remarkable man. Mort claims that his father’s only mistake was not to believe that Adolph Hitler would invade Poland.
His father paid dearly for that belief. The book starts when Mort was a boy of only 10 years old. He was hiding at the top of the staircase in his home. He was listening to he father tell his own harrowing story to his friends. Many of them bore the numbers tattooed on to their wrists by the Nazis during World War II. He lived through the hell on earth that was Auschwitz. He was in the lines to go into the gas chamber when he was called out from the line and reprieved. He kept what he called “Holocaust tapes”: these were his own recorded memories. Mort only had access to these after his father’s death.
I would not want to detract from the story by attempting to offer a synopsis here. Suffice to say the story needs to be read. Parts of it tell of misery and cruelty beyond imagination. Man’s inhumanity to his fellow man is laid bare in the author’s inimitable style.
The author is an attorney at law, a professor of Law and Ethics at Barry University in Miami, Florida, and at Florida International University an American public research university in Greater Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park in Miami-Dade County. He lives with his family in Southern Florida.
I highly recommend A Hebraic Obsession, although much of it is not an easy read.
February 9, 2015
This book held my interest and was hard to put down. I am interested in the Holocaust, but can't sit through long history books and sad movies. The story unfolded for me with the way the author sought answers from his father while growing up, and then answered his own son's questions. At first, I thought the writer jumped around too much, but then I appreciated the funny chapters in between the more dramatic chapters. 5 stars, for sure.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews