A unique Holocaust memoir.
Three generations of a Jewish family centered in Salonica reveal their perspectives on the World War II German occupation, which decimated the religious enclave.
The primary elements of this unusually constructed text, “the first account of the Shoah available in Greek,” appeared in book form in 1948 in Athens, with the title translated into English as And Yet Not All Died. The author was Isaac Matarasso (1892-1958), a doctor who survived the German death camps through a variety of maneuvers, some of which he initiated, others of which can only be described as serendipity or blessed coincidences. As did so many others, Matarasso experienced horrific physical and psychological violence. According to his daughter-in-law, Pauline Matarasso (b. 1929)—the translator of the present volume, which includes contributions from other members of the family as well as additional “more personal pieces” that Isaac wrote—he suffered in ways he almost certainly never fully revealed. Isaac divides his detailed, searing account into three chronological phases: the “partial toleration” of the Germans, aided by turncoat Greeks; the absolute oppression, marked by forced labor and deprivation; and the deportation to the concentration camps: “The Jews were herded like cattle into a concentration camp, where the full range of Nazi brutalities was brought to bear, ending with the deportation of about 46,000 Jews out of the city’s population of 50,000, crammed into cattle trucks.” Isaac's son Robert (1927-1982) experienced some of the nightmare as a teenager, and his memories are included here in the form of passages from an uncompleted memoir he worked on decades after the invasion. Robert covers many of the same events as his father, but unlike Isaac, he wrote in a more intimate first-person voice. Some readers may be distracted by the fragmented nature of the narrative, but the resurrection and enhancement of the 1948 manuscript is a triumph.
A unique Holocaust memoir.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4729-7588-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
In this biographical stew, keeping the Abbys, Elsies, and Isabels straight demands a detailed menu and a hearty appetite for information about this American dynasty. Whatever their other faults and virtues, the Rockefeller women were nothing if not fecund, and in Stasz's (The Vanderbilt Women, 1991) narrative the players' identities begin to blur by the third generation (John D. Sr.'s children). Standing out from the crowd is the founding mother, Eliza Davison (b. 1813), whose wandering (and ultimately bigamous) husband was home at least long enough to father six children; of them, John Sr., and William went on to found Standard Oil and the Rockefeller family of legend. John's wife, Laura Spelman, from a family whose Ohio homes were noted stops on the Underground Railway, created a home dedicated to piety and service. The family has its share of rebels, eccentrics, and prima donnas. John D. Jr. married Abby Aldrich, whose five sonsJohn D. 3rd, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and Davidbecame political and economic powerhouses as well as the subjects of diverting scandal. The book's pace becomes nearly breathless with reports of this and the next generation's marriages, divorces, offspring, and charities. Stasz tries to make a case for the Rockefeller women as the power behind the family's philanthropy, but she doesn't quite succeed. Although their influence resulted in the family fortune being funneled into some of this country's most valued institutionsSpelman College, New York City's Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the YWCA, among othersthe family money always remained under the firm control of the Rockefeller men. The women seemed to be best at their assigned roles: wives, mothers, and society's moral guardians. Cluttered with forgettable characters and focusing on John D. Sr. as much as his womenfolk, this is nevertheless a reminder of how the Rockefeller fortune has shaped the cultural institutions of this country. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13156-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
An invaluable report by US Army personnel assembled immediately after liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. This vast project, undertaken by German-speaking members of the Army's Psychological Warfare Division, somehow lay unpublished for 50 years. One faded carbon copy turned up, allowing Hackett (History/Univ. of Texas, El Paso) the opportunity to translate and edit the Army interview team's findings and testimonies. Part I, the main report, is a formal presentation of the camp's history, organization, operation, inmate population and treatment; some of the most incriminating data is from Buchenwald's own administrative files. The second part consists of individual reports, imprecise but impressive, written by some of the more lucid of the 21,000 survivors. Because the reportage is the work of soldiers rather than journalists, some revealing opinions slip through: The skeletal survivors, one report candidly notes, ``are brutalized, unpleasant to look on. It is easy to adopt the Nazi theory that [the victims] are subhuman, for many have in fact been deprived of their humanity.'' While much of the recorded mass murder involves Jews from a half dozen nations, there is documentation here of the mistreatment of homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Allied prisoners of war, and anti-fascists. More moving than the lists of victims are the detailed descriptions of elaborate tortures of individuals: One gypsy was placed in a tiny wooden crate with driven nails to meet his slightest movement, while Jewish laborers were forced to bury two of their colleagues alive. Significant chapters cover medical experimentation on humans, the treatment of children, the record of resistance and sabotage, and the poswar trials of key Nazis who operated in Buchenwald. This is an essential document of WW II and Holocaust history. (maps, not seen) (Book-of-the-Month Club selection; History Book Club featured selection)
Pub Date: April 11, 1995
ISBN: 0-8133-1777-0
Page Count: 444
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
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