A truly worthwhile addition to the body of Holocaust studies.
Moving true story of two sisters who survived—and resisted—the Holocaust.
Van Iperen’s narrative revolves around the house that she and her family restored, the High Nest, a remarkable Dutch country home that served as a nerve center of anti-Nazi resistance and housed several Jews during the frightening years of German occupation. At the center of the story of their home is the tale of Jewish sisters Janny and Lien Brilleslijper, whose courage, resilience, and strong sense of hope touched many lives during a time of atrocity. The author captures this important piece of Holocaust history with exceptional skill and nuance, allowing readers to feel a personal kinship with the individuals that populate the narrative. The author takes readers on a journey from one moving chapter to another as the Nazi grip on Holland’s Jews grew tighter and tighter. While Jewish rights were stripped away and increasing numbers of families were shipped to ghettos or deported to camps, the Brilleslijper sisters provided significant aid to the Dutch resistance, overseeing an underground press, organizing a black market of necessary goods and lifesaving documentation, and hiding those on the run. Eventually, the residents of the High Nest were discovered and shipped to the Westerbork Transit Camp, followed by Auschwitz, where “almost all” of them were “killed upon arrival.” As the Soviet army approached, the sisters were moved to Bergen-Belsen, where they came extraordinarily close to meeting the same fate as another pair of sisters they befriended, Margot and Anne Frank. The author’s attention to detail makes the horrors of the Holocaust come to life—not only the physical horrors of the camps, but also the emotional and mental torment of life spent in fear and hiding. The ending, though happy, proves bittersweet in contrast to the incomprehensible scale of torment and death of the era.
A truly worthwhile addition to the body of Holocaust studies.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-309762-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.
Antisemitism is alive and well and worth talking about.
Fersko, senior rabbi at the Village Temple in Manhattan and vice president of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, argues that Americans of all backgrounds must discuss antisemitism. The author notes that many people view antisemitism as a problem of the past, an issue that is rare and isolated in 21st-century America. She demonstrates convincingly that this mindset is misinformed and that antisemitism is on the rise. Early on Fersko provides a lengthy explanation of antisemitism as “the longest-held, farthest-reaching conspiracy theory in the world.” She explains that antisemitism is a belief in a variety of lies and stereotypes about Jews and Judaism, which manifests in everything from seemingly innocuous remarks to outright physical violence. Fersko points to seven points of dialogue that Jews and non-Jews need to address in order to help battle antisemitism, including race, Christianity, microaggressions, the Holocaust, and Israel. Throughout, she urges readers to educate themselves about the past and to learn to recognize the prejudices about Jews that many Americans inherit unknowingly. Though Fersko addresses such obvious sources of antisemitism as right-wing and racially based extremist groups, she makes it clear throughout the book that the American left is also a major source of antisemitism today. In some cases, this is seen in virulent anti-Israel stances, where left-wing activists portray Jews as racists and oppressors. In other cases, American liberals simply perpetrate tropes and stereotypes about their Jewish friends and neighbors, often through microaggressions, misplaced humor, miseducation about the Holocaust, etc. Though there are certainly points for debate, the text serves as a meaningful starting point for dialogue. If nothing else, she provides the important reminder that the age-old specter of antisemitism is not extinct; in many ways, it’s stronger and more dangerous than at any time since the Holocaust.
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9781541601949
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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