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Leonard Gross
Hardcover | Pages: 299 pages Rating: 4.29 | 1541 Users | 152 Reviews
Identify About Books The Last Jews in Berlin
| Title | : | The Last Jews in Berlin |
| Author | : | Leonard Gross |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 299 pages |
| Published | : | January 1st 1982 by Simon & Schuster |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. World War II. Holocaust. War |
Interpretation Toward Books The Last Jews in Berlin
Sometimes you have to wonder what exactly it is editors do to earn their keep. To my mind this book suffers from a very bad editorial decision. The material is organised in such a way that a lot of the reader’s intimacy with the characters is lost.The title tells the story. It’s the story of several Jewish individuals trying to elude the Gestapo in Berlin. The problem is, just as you start getting emotionally involved with one character, the narrative switches to another story. And so on and so forth. When, several chapters later, you’re returned to the first character you’ve forgotten who he is. I can’t help feeling this would have been a much more gripping and moving book had the author been allowed to write each story consecutively from beginning to end instead of the rather crazy idea of fragmenting the book to a chronological imperative. We all have a basic idea now of the timeline of events in WW2 so I never understood what purpose was served by jumping abruptly from one narrative to another.
I did learn some fascinating facts. That Jews were offered their freedom if they betrayed ten other Jews and then became what were known as “catchers”. That Catholics were terrified they would be next, after the Jews, and so were more willing to help Jews. And that so many German citizens were willing to put their lives at risk often to help complete strangers. Of course you can’t help asking yourself how you yourself would have behaved in such a situation. I’m ashamed to say I found it hard to believe I would put my family at risk to shelter people I didn’t know. It’s rather like asking yourself if you’d take a migrant family into your home but with the added risk of knowing you’d be deported or killed if your act of charity were discovered by the authorities. The ordinary Germans were in an awful situation and this book allows you to sympathise a little with their plight. It also makes you realise that some people are simply destined to survive – because to survive as a Jew in Berlin you needed not just one stroke of good fortune but an unbroken continuity of almost miraculous good fortune. There’s much that’s heartwarming here; it’s just a shame the material was organised so clumsily. 3.5 stars.
List Books During The Last Jews in Berlin
| Original Title: | The Last Jews in Berlin |
| ISBN: | 0671247271 (ISBN13: 9780671247270) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating About Books The Last Jews in Berlin
Ratings: 4.29 From 1541 Users | 152 ReviewsAppraise About Books The Last Jews in Berlin
When Hitler seized power in 1933 there were 160,000 Jews living in Berlin. By the end of the war in 1945 only a few hundred were still there. This well-researched book chronicles the experiences of some of those few survivors. Based on first-hand testimony, Gross tells their stories in great detail and it makes for some harrowing reading. However, by reconstructing conversations and by imagining others I found a false note creeping in, and would have preferred if the author had kept to aThe second Holocaust book I ever read (back in the fifth grade--what was my mother thinking?), and my all-time favorite. Helpful hint--if reading the book for the first time, it helps to read all of the individual stories together, instead of just working your way through the book page by page. You'll get confused as to who's who, since each chapter focuses on one of the book's main characters.
Reading this book was not an easy task. It's well-written, and uses language that is accessible to those outside academia. But the subject matter was some of the hardest I've ever read. "The Last Jews in Berlin" matches "A Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank and "Night" by Elie Wiesel in terms of importance to the Jewish narrative of the Holocaust. Before reading this book, I was unaware of the number of Jewish "U-Boats" that remained underground in Berlin long after the city was declared
Written shortly after the war this book chronicles a handful of Jewish survivors who made it through the Nazi regime by going underground and beat the odds saw the end of the Third Reich. Some of the figures I identified with. Stories like this are uplifting and heroic. But Paraphrasing Bertold Brecht, Heroes are great but it is better to live in times when we don't need them. How I wish we lived in such times as to not need heroes.
This book covers in detail the stories of a dozen or so Jewish individuals who managed to survive the Holocaust hiding in plain sight in Berlin, in the very heart of Nazism. The author conducted extensive interviews with his subjects and, I expect, those that helped hide them, and he covers their stories almost day by day. It's very well-written and at times almost reads like a suspense novel -- I didn't want to put it down. Highly recommended.
Sometimes you have to wonder what exactly it is editors do to earn their keep. To my mind this book suffers from a very bad editorial decision. The material is organised in such a way that a lot of the readers intimacy with the characters is lost. The title tells the story. Its the story of several Jewish individuals trying to elude the Gestapo in Berlin. The problem is, just as you start getting emotionally involved with one character, the narrative switches to another story. And so on and so
Sometimes you have to wonder what exactly it is editors do to earn their keep. To my mind this book suffers from a very bad editorial decision. The material is organised in such a way that a lot of the readers intimacy with the characters is lost. The title tells the story. Its the story of several Jewish individuals trying to elude the Gestapo in Berlin. The problem is, just as you start getting emotionally involved with one character, the narrative switches to another story. And so on and so
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