A welcome addition to Holocaust literature that remains relevant to our current isolationist times.
Dobbs (Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—from World War to Cold War, 2012, etc.) follows the trail and the trials of the Jewish population of Kippenheim, a small village near the Black Forest.
For decades in this rural area, there was little friction with the locals, and anti-Semitism seemed to be confined to cities and towns. As the author writes, “for many Christian Kippenheimers, antisemitism was more a matter of class resentment than racial hatred….A cultural and psychological gulf developed between the Christian farmers and the Jewish tradesmen.” Despite the gulf, there wasn’t much violence. However, everything changed with Kristallnacht, a supposed “spontaneous protest” against “murderous” Jews. The senseless roundup and destruction of Jewish men was the signal, to those who were paying attention, that Germany was not safe. In this potent, focused history, Dobbs tells the alternately heart-wrenching and uplifting story of the Kippenheim Jews who entered the tangle of bureaucracy involved in the efforts to obtain visas and flee Germany. Most wished to go to the United States, but there were immigration quotas, and those quotas were filled in 1938, with little hope of expansion. Thankfully, there were those who eventually made it to America, but they were often greeted with xenophobia. In his thorough research, the author discovered many instances of those who bent the rules to help—e.g., tireless organizations like the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Rescue Board as well as many brave individuals—and he generously shares those stories with readers in the hopes that we will never forget what happened to the thousands of “unwanted” refugees who fled the Nazi killing machine. In her foreword, Sara Bloomfield, the director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, encapsulates the author’s project: No amount of studying or writing or memorializing can bring back those who were murdered….But it can help us remember them as people who lived, not just victims who died.”
A welcome addition to Holocaust literature that remains relevant to our current isolationist times.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-3319-3
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
An intimate and provocative glimpse into the lives of adolescent schoolgirls at two West Coast middle schools by journalist Orenstein (formerly managing editor of Mother Jones). Orenstein was motivated by the disturbing findings of a 1990 study from the American Association of University Women. It revealed that girls' self-esteem plummets as they reach adolescence, with a concomitant drop in academic achievement- -especially in math and science. By sixth grade, both boys and girls have learned to equate masculinity with opportunity and assertiveness and femininity with reserve and restraint. In her attempt to delve more deeply into this phenomenon, Orenstein observed and interviewed dozens of young girls inside and outside their classrooms. The resulting narratives are likely to move and vex readers. The classrooms at Weston Middle School ring with the symptoms: Even girls who consider themselves feminists tend to ``recede from class proceedings'' while their male classmates vociferously respond to teachers' questions; girls who are generally outspoken remain silent in the classroom. When probed, they tell Orenstein that they are afraid of having the wrong answer and of being embarrassed. They are not willing to take the risks that boys routinely take. The girls are overly involved with their appearance, with clothes and beauty products, instead of their studies. Sexual desirability becomes the central component of their self-image, with negative feelings often translating themselves into eating disorders. At the Audubon Middle School, with its predominantly minority population, it is apparent that ``the consequences of silence and marginalization for Latinas are especially dire.'' The Latina girls we meet often become gang members and mothers, while school becomes increasingly irrelevant. A comprehensive bibliography and annotated notes enhance Orenstein's ardent and significant exploration of the adolescent roots of key women's issues. (First serial to the New York Times Magazine)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42575-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
In the latest leg of an idiosyncratic intellectual journey, Pellegrino looks at the stories of the Old Testament through the lenses of genetics, paleontology, and archaeology. Pellegrino (Unearthing Atlantis, 1990, etc.) has an autodidact's omnivorous curiosity to match his high-flying imagination. In this new hodgepodge, he expands on the speculations he put forward in his previous expedition into antiquity, in which he hypothesized that the volcano-buried Minoan city of Thera was the inspiration for the legendary Atlantis. Here he conjectures that when an eruption in the second millennium b.c. obliterated the Minoan civilization, its long-distance effects may have been responsible for the plagues of Egypt and the Aegean diaspora that brought the Philistines to Canaan. He also annexes other theories having to do with the contentious ``Mitochondrial Eve'' hypothesis (based on mitochondrial DNA research, it theorizes that genetic the mother of us all lived between 250,000 and 140,000 b.c.) and the Ark of the Covenant's wanderings. Using diverse scientific sources and historical perspectives—Sumerian clay tablets, Egyptian steles, the writings of Herodotus, and, naturally, the Bible—he ``telescopes'' anthropological and archaeological theories to fit Biblical myths like those of Noah and Nimrod, compressing patterns of history into oral tradition's legends. With a natural sense of storytelling, he blends theories of antiquity with the adventures of field work: He is best describing the modern difficulties of conducting digs in Gaza, Jericho, and Iraq (where he radically situates the Biblical Cities of the Plain destroyed by God's wrath). There is, however, a good deal of padding by this accidental archaeologist: reconstructed dialogue, digression, repetition, and flights of fancy that leave solid ground far below. For all its interdisciplinary breadth and originality, this reads like a beery breeze-shooting session with a college prof. (16 pages of b&w drawings, maps, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-40006-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
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