A welcome and necessary addition to the growing canon of firsthand accounts of Jewish survival during World War II.
Rosenfeld presents a new English translation of a diary of a Holocaust survivor.
Kagan was a renowned Jewish scholar, editor of Yiddish literature, and author of several books following his immigration to the United States from Italy in 1950. He first published the diary of his Holocaust survival in the original Yiddish in 1955. Readers now have access to an English version of this diary; Kagan’s daughter donated the handwritten original to the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York after Kagan’s death in 1993. It’s a firsthand account, starting in 1943, of a survivor whose experience included one of the lesser-known aspects of the Holocaust: the fact that many Jewish people in Eastern Europe managed to evade the Gestapo by hiding in forest camps. To be sure, this diary covers much more than this topic, including the perilous situation of the “Righteous Gentiles” who hid the author and other Jews until they could do so no longer, as well as Kagan’s tough decision to flee the Kovno Ghetto, which he regretted before learning the fate of those who’d stayed behind. Still, it’s Kagan’s account of hiding in nature with his wife, sister-in-law, and others, evading predators both human and animal, that makes this work stand out: (“That first night we hardly shut our eyes. Animals of all sorts scream and growl.”) Overall, this diary offers raw, firsthand recollections, conveying fear, despair, and hope—as well as the later challenges of readjusting to freedom. It also honestly shows the ambivalence of the people who sheltered Kagan and others in a one-room cottage with few hiding places. Portions of the work can be very difficult to read, such as a recollection of sexual liaisons between a Jewish woman and her rescuers, which the author tentatively acknowledges may not have been consensual.
A welcome and necessary addition to the growing canon of firsthand accounts of Jewish survival during World War II.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9798998779862
Page Count: 149
Publisher: White Goat Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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