A valuable work of Holocaust research and Jewish history.
An intricate, chilling portrait of a group of Jewish “avengers” of the Holocaust.
In this work translated from the Hebrew, Porat, former chief historian of Yad Vashem, focuses on Abba Kovner (1918-1987), a partisan fighter from the Vilna ghetto (in present-day Lithuania) who became a messianic figure to the waves of traumatized young survivors of the Nazi death camps. Kovner’s manifesto of resistance against the Germans resonated mightily to those “whose lives were reduced to rubble.” For the millions who suffered under the Nazi regime, “life as it had been was replaced by forced relocation, torture, hunger, physical exhaustion, and disease.” Kovner gathered around 50 devoted men and women in a carefully orchestrated underground army, and the group devised two potential plans for wide-scale revenge on the Germans. Plan A involved the poisoning of water sources in several major German cities, while Plan B would target SS and other German prisoners of war in Allied camps. Porat presents many fresh, moving perspectives from the archives, enlivening the narrative with important information gleaned from her interviews with many of the surviving Nokmim (“avengers”). As she chronologically recounts the group’s incredible story, she circles back to the question of why these young people would sacrifice everything for revenge. “They adopted vengeance as an indispensable stage in their rehabilitation,” she writes, “without which they could not return to life, society, and social order.” Moreover, they strongly believed that the blood of the murdered demanded recompense, and the specter of antisemitism still loomed. Porat also tells the little-understood story of how Kovner navigated the more moderate Yishuv (administrators of the Land of Israel) and Haganah (Zionist military) leaders, whose postwar focus was on the rescue and transit of survivors and the construction of a political homeland for the future. Many of the Nokmim kept their silence for decades and rued their inability to carry out their “divine retribution on a cosmic, biblical scale.”
A valuable work of Holocaust research and Jewish history.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5036-3031-4
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Stanford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.
An epistolary memoir of Nelson Mandela’s prison years.
From August 1962 to February 1990, Mandela (1918-2013) was imprisoned by the apartheid state of South Africa. During his more than 27 years in prison, the bulk of which he served on the notorious Robben Island prison off the shores of Cape Town, he wrote thousands of letters to family and friends, lawyers and fellow African National Congress members, prison officials, and members of the government. Heavily censored for both content and length, letters from Robben Island and South Africa’s other political prisons did not always reach their intended targets; when they did, the censorship could make them virtually unintelligible. To assemble this vitally important collection, Venter (A Free Mind: Ahmed Kathrada's Notebook from Robben Island, 2006, etc.), a longtime Johannesburg-based editor and journalist, pored through these letters in various public and private archives across South Africa and beyond as well as Mandela’s own notebooks, in which he transcribed versions of these letters. The result is a necessary, intimate portrait of the great leader. The man who emerges is warm and intelligent and a savvy, persuasive, and strategic thinker. During his life, Mandela was a loving husband and father, a devotee of the ANC’s struggle, and capable of interacting with prominent statesmen and the ANC’s rank and file. He was not above flattery or hard-nosed steeliness toward his captors as suited his needs, and he was always yearning for freedom, not only—or even primarily—for himself, but rather for his people, a goal that is the constant theme of this collection and was the consuming vision of his entire time as a prisoner. Venter adds tremendous value with his annotations and introductions to the work as a whole and to the book’s various sections.
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63149-117-7
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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