A vital addition to the finite canon of Holocaust studies rooted in personal connection.
A masterful synthesis of family history and Holocaust investigation that blurs lines among perpetrators, justice, and national identity.
Kinstler, the former managing editor of the New Republic, captures a worrisome historical reality in our current moment of creeping authoritarianism. “Survivors have been telling the story of the Holocaust for the better part of a century,” she writes, “and still the judges ask for proof.” Her grim landscape is the “Holocaust by bullets” in the Baltic states following the Soviet Union’s brutal annexation. When the Nazis invaded, local auxiliaries in Latvia, the Arajs Kommando, outdid the Germans in cruelty, murdering Jews without remorse. Aviator Herberts Cukurs, one key member, ducked culpability after the war, but he was assassinated by Mossad in 1965 in Uruguay. (For more on Cukurs, see Stephan Talty’s The Good Assassin.) Kinstler was drawn to the story via a haunting connection: Her long-vanished grandfather, Boris, was also in the Kommando, but he may have been a double agent for the Russians (he “officially” committed suicide following the war). Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which led to the release of reams of Holocaust documentation, including perpetrator and survivor testimonies, Latvian nationalists and revisionists sought to rehabilitate Cukurs in strange ways, including an operatic stage musical that “sought to absolve both him and his nation from any allegations of complicity.” This also led to renewed investigations into both his murder and his activities inside the Riga ghetto and subsequent massacres of Jews, all of which fueled Kinstler’s determined investigation. “I remained bewildered that, so many decades after the Second World War, questions of complicity, culpability, rehabilitation and restitution were still making their way through the courts,” she writes. The author writes with literary flair and ambition, highlighting the important stories of surviving principals and delving into such relevant topics as jurisprudence, post–Cold War Eastern Europe, and cultural efforts to come to terms with, or rationalize, still-obscured aspects of the Holocaust.
A vital addition to the finite canon of Holocaust studies rooted in personal connection.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5417-0259-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORY | HISTORY | TRUE CRIME | TRUE CRIME | HISTORICAL & MILITARY | HOLOCAUST | HOLOCAUST | MILITARY | MILITARY | JEWISH | JEWISH | WORLD | WORLD
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.
The veteran newscaster reflects on her triumphs and hardships, both professional and private.
In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Couric (b. 1957) transforms the events of her long, illustrious career into an immensely readable story—a legacy-preserving exercise, for sure, yet judiciously polished and insightful, several notches above the fray of typical celebrity memoirs. The narrative unfolds through a series of lean chapters as she recounts the many career ascendency steps that led to her massively successful run on the Today Show and comparably disappointing stints as CBS Evening News anchor, talk show host, and Yahoo’s Global News Anchor. On the personal front, the author is candid in her recollections about her midlife adventures in the dating scene and deeply sorrowful and affecting regarding the experience of losing her husband to colon cancer as well as the deaths of other beloved family members, including her sister and parents. Throughout, Couric maintains a sharp yet cool-headed perspective on the broadcast news industry and its many outsized personalities and even how her celebrated role has diminished in recent years. “It’s AN ADJUSTMENT when the white-hot spotlight moves on,” she writes. “The ego gratification of being the It girl is intoxicating (toxic being the root of the word). When that starts to fade, it takes some getting used to—at least it did for me.” Readers who can recall when network news coverage and morning shows were not only relevant, but powerfully influential forces will be particularly drawn to Couric’s insights as she tracks how the media has evolved over recent decades and reflects on the negative effects of the increasing shift away from reliable sources of informed news coverage. The author also discusses recent important cultural and social revolutions, casting light on issues of race and sexual orientation, sexism, and the predatory behavior that led to the #MeToo movement. In that vein, she expresses her disillusionment with former co-host and friend Matt Lauer.
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53586-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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