by Peter Grose ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2015
In chronicling the daring activity that went on for years, Grose keeps readers on edge with a heartwarming story of ordinary...
In his American debut, Grose tells a little-known story of a pacifist pastor and the heroic Huguenot population of a plateau in France. These are the ordinary people of a handful of parishes who saved thousands from the Nazis.
Word spread quickly that the villages around Le Chambon-sur-Lignon would help not only Jews, but also illegal aliens and young men avoiding deportation to Germany’s factories. Perhaps it was the Huguenot background of persecution that fostered a people who kept secrets, minded their own business and helped their fellow sufferers. When André Trocmé took over as pastor from Charles Guillon, he preached nonviolent resistance and love of one's enemies. The plateau was a popular summer vacation spot and had little other attraction. There were no minerals, agriculture or wine production, which a nation at war might requisition, so it was effectively a safe haven. As a vacation spot, it had a wealth of guesthouses and hotels. All the pieces fell into place for the plateau after Trocmé met a Quaker who convinced him to take in children released from prison camps. Guillon moved to Geneva, where he was able to channel cash from American Quakers into the area. Oscar Rosowsky, an 18-year-old Latvian typewriter repairman, was a master forger, and Virginia Hall, an American spy, arranged for parachute supply drops after D-Day. In addition, some of the most important players in this operation were the Boy Scouts. Trocmé and many of his guides were Scouts with survival skills, and they were able to lead escapees safely to Switzerland. Almost everyone in the region took in at least one refugee, and they were so discreet that few neighbors knew of the others’ actions. The author ably narrates this inspiring story of “the courage and leadership of some remarkable men and women.”
In chronicling the daring activity that went on for years, Grose keeps readers on edge with a heartwarming story of ordinary heroes who just did what was required.Pub Date: April 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60598-692-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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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 Yorker staff 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
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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