The story of an SS war criminal, seen through the eyes of Holocaust survivors, and how it took 50 years to bring him to justice. Joseph Schwammberger's trial at Stuttgart in 1992 marks the end of an era: in the future, Nazi war criminals will be too old to indict or their victims will be unable to identify them with certainty. Freiwald (freelance journalist) and Mendelsohn (legal counsel for the Simon Wiesenthal Center) base their account on interviews with several of the survivors who gave evidence at Stuttgart. What emerges is both an exercise in Jewish soul- searching and a history of Schwammberger's atrocities. The story gains poignancy as the authors blend the details of Schwammberger's life and those of the survivors, although it's sometimes difficult to sort out what's happening. They stress Schwammberger's ordinariness in order to force us to ponder the terrible enigma of the Holocaust and ask what the concept of justice can mean in the wake of such an enormous ``crime.'' We learn how Schwammberger oversaw the liquidation of the Jews of Rozwadow in Poland and publicly shot their rabbi on Yom Kippur because he had abstained from work on the holy day. And how he went from door to door with his dog and armed guards through the ghetto at Przemysl, using tear gas and smoke to force hundreds to be herded into the trains or to be shot. Schwammberger was arrested at the end of the war, but he escaped and made his way to 50 years of refuge in Argentina. The authors discuss at length the Realpolitik that allowed him to be left in peace. Politics again led to Schwammberger's extradition and arrest. The scene of the survivors confronting their tormentor in court becomes for our authors a paradigm of how Germany—and the world—needs to face the past, work through and digest it, and never repeat it. A grim book that weighs vital questions of guilt, responsibility, and forgiveness.
Pub Date: March 28, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03503-4
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
