Reviews (1)

The Litvaks...Vibrancy to Demise
The Litvaks, A Short History of the Jews in Lithuania, is a book, of not only history, but one of insight into the vibrancy and the demise of the Jews and of their geographics and culture, religion and fight for survival, within the ever-changing demographics of the country.
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Subjects:  1. History    2. History: World    3. Holocaust    4. Military - World War II    5. Europe    6. European history (ie other than Britain & Ireland)    7. Religion & Beliefs    8. Warfare & Defence   

Reviews (5)

Interesting but Not Compelling
THE JEWS OF LITHUANIA serves well as a general introduction to one of the most diverse, vibrant Jewish communities to have flourished anywhere at any time. This is a general History with a lot of errors.
This is a poorly written general History.The title of the book is misleading.The book concentrates on the modern era.There is alot of imformation on the old Kehilla era of Jewish History.This is a periodfrom 1400 - 1700 at least.This book gives only the minimal description ofthis era.The authors idea of Jewish History in that pre-modern era, whichin Lithuania extended until the mid 1800's was to tell about therelationship that the ruler of that area had with the Jews.The reasonthat I gave this book such a low rating is that it is full of Historicalerrors.For example she writes that the Decembrist revolution happened in1827, it really happened in 1825.While many of her Historical errors areminor, like saying that the infamous, 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion',was written in 1928.When it comes to the History of the Orthodox and theYeshivot, the book is full of gross errors and misunderstandings. As anexampe, her attempts to explain the reason why there was a rebellion inSlobodka against the 'Alter' and his form of Mussar is so wrong that it iscomical.The 'Alter' had no official position in his own Yeshiva.A partof his form of Musar was allowing each student to develop on his own. Tight control was not part of this system.Saul Liberman, who later becamethe head of JTS - the Conservitive Seminary in the USA, learnt in Slobodka. Even though it was already known at that time that he had some liberalideas.One of the Alter's most promenant students, R. Avrohom Elya Kaplen,later became head of the Rabbinical School in Berlin and was one theRabbinical leaders of the Mizrachi movement.Another one of the Alter'sstudents was R. Aharon Kotler who founded the most promenant 'Torah' onlyYeshiva in the USA in Lakewood NJ. This is not the only gross error in thebook.Another example is that she only gives the last un-official chiefRabbi of Vilna, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky only one comment, and it isn'ta positive one.R. Chiam Ozer was once offered the official title, butturned it down.He was one of the leaders of Lithuanian Jewry for over 40years, and a fascinating and brilliant man.You would think that hedeserves more than one negitive comment.

A good introduction into the history of the Jews in Lithuani
I found this book to be a very good introduction into the history of the Jews in Lithuania.I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in the subject.Read more

Subjects:  1. Eastern Europe - General    2. Ethnic relations    3. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    4. History    5. History - General History    6. History Of Jews    7. History: World    8. Jewish - General    9. Jews    10. Lithuania    11. European history (ie other than Britain & Ireland)    12. History of specific racial & ethnic groups    13. Jewish studies    14. Modern period, c 1500 onwards    15. c 1000 CE to c 1500   

Reviews (6)

out of the frying pan into the fire
Rebeccasreads highly recommends IZZY'S FIRE as a compelling account of how a Lithuanian Jewish couple & their son survived the Nazi occupation, & hide for 3 years in a Catholic farmer's root cellar. & then surviving the Communist "liberation" of their homeland.
The triumphant true story of a holocaust survivor and members of her family
Izzy's Fire: Finding Humanity In The Holocaust is the triumphant true story of a holocaust survivor and members of her family escaped the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, survived trials and successfully hid until the war's end in a hiding places granted them by a Catholic farmer. She, her husband, and other refugees dug a hole between two potato cellars, and with the unselfish aid of that selfless, risk taking Catholic family, miraculously survived the Holocaust. Afterward she and her husband emigrated to America and encountered a joyful reunion decades later. Izzy's Fire gives voice to those who survived the Holocaust in hiding, and is a welcome addition to Holocaust studies shelves.
Required reading for all high school students.
There are many people today that feel "entitled" due to race, relegion or the condition of the home in which they were born. This is a story about a family who's life was turned upside down by war; who lived in barns, potato holes and lived in fear of being murdered as was the fate of many of their family members. Through perserverance and a strong faith in God, they were able to get to America and lived the "american story" of pulling themselves up from poverty to owning a successful business. All young people need to read this story. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. General    4. History    5. History: World    6. Holocaust    7. Holocaust survivors    8. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)    9. Ipson family    10. Jewish - General    11. Jewish Studies    12. Jews    13. Kaunas    14. Lithuania    15. Personal narratives    16. Richmond    17. Virginia    18. World - General   

Reviews (1)

An interesting thesis
Clark has wriiten an interesting book about the history of Prussia in which he argues that Prussia has been misunderstood as a reactionary militaristic state when in reality it was the most progressive of the German states. Throughout the eighteenth century the Prussian government would protect small farmers from abusive aristocratic landowners and also educate the Prussian peasantry. This legacy of reforms would continue throughout the nineteenth century with a nationalized health insurance program and a state pension system. Moreover the Prussian state was tolerant to various ethnic groups such as Poles and Jews since there was no such thing as Prussian identity because Prussia included Catholics from the Rhineland and Protestant Poles in East Prussia. Clark contends that the Prussian idea of an enlightened cosomopolitan Prussian state dissapated after the German wars of Unification and the nationalist idea that stressed a racial notion of the nation took over. In the closing chapters of the book Clark seems to blame Nazism on the southern Germans and the Austrians since they formed most of the Nazi leadership and the fact that Prussiawas the last German state to keep a democratic majority of mainly the SPD until the collaspse of the Weimer Republic. The only weakness of Clark's book is that he seems to ignore the fact that the origins of German nationalism originated in the writings of Herder and Hamman, who were both Prussians,despised the enlightenment and wanted a nation based on exclusively linguistic ties and not a cosmopolitan Prussian state. Nevertheless this book gives an interesting and new view of German history. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    2. Lithuania    3. Poland    4. Russia    5. c 1700 to c 1800    6. c 1800 to c 1900   

Reviews (6)

A welcome eye-witness testimony
Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale From Lithuania To Jerusalem is the autobiographical story of Solly Ganor, a man who survived the unspeakable holocaust of the Second World War when he was 13 years old through the intervention and rescue of a Japanese American soldier in 1945 (who himself had been releases from a U.S. internment camp for Japanese Americans just a few months earlier. Light One Candle is a powerful and vividly told memoir of struggle, starvation, and the brutal tolls of concentration and extermination camps. Light One Candle is a welcome eye-witness testimony and a very highly recommended addition to personal reading lists as well as academic and community library Holocaust Studies reference collections.

a well written thought provoking account
i have read well over two hundred memoirs.This is worth crying over (not that other ones aren't also) and listening to very carefully.without sentimentality - without profession of feelings that may or may not have been felt but remembered...solly ganor brings the reader inside his mind and heart.

The best personal account of the Holocaust I've read.
In LIGHT ONE CANDLE, Solly Ganor takes the reader into that nightmare world of the Holocaust--I could practically feel the harsh elements, the constant danger of the camps.This book isn't anther rote recitation ofdeath counts.There's so much heart and compassion for all those sweptupin these horrors.The insights into camp life include the primal nature oflife stripped to itsbasics--such as the "storyteller" who keepsthe outside world and traditions alive.Particularly poignant is Cooky,Ganor's childhood friend whose account of the slaughter at the Ninth Fortis more compelling than Dante's own descent into Hell.Ipersonally feelGanor's book is deserving of some national/international award.Actually,reading the book I wonder how Ganor got it all done.It must have been sopainful to revisit these terrible, incomprehensible, sublime, poignantmemories.To me it's the best book on the Holocaust, personal orotherwise--certainly it should be a companion to any serious study of thissubject.To me it hits at the heart, gets into the soul.It's thehumanity of the account,particularly those heart-rending final glimpses ofthe condemned trying to smile as they wave good-bye. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1928-    2. Asia - General    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Ganor, Solly,    5. History    6. History: World    7. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)    8. Jews    9. Kaunas    10. Lithuania    11. Persecutions    12. Personal Memoirs    13. Personal narratives    14. Travelers    15. Biography: general    16. The Holocaust   

Reviews (2)

A Librarian's diary as reviewed by a librarian
Herman Kruk was a librarian.Even as the Vilna [Vilnius] ghetto was reduced to inhuman conditions, Kruk risked his life to smuggle books into the public library he set up.While the Nazi regime tried to reduce Jews to a subhuman status, with harsh labor, restrictions, and eventual extermination; Kruk helped to initiate literary contests, plays, and lecture series. His diary reflects the intellectual and cultural activities of the ghetto, as well as the minutiae of the library.
Chaos, Mayhem, Fear, Viciousness, Courage, Kinndess, Love
This is a deeply affecting work, compulsively readable, yet always painful to read, account of the slow garroting of the Jewish community in Vilna. From one page to the next, one is amazed (even now) at the viciousness of the Fascists and the humanity, ingenuity, courage of those they oppressed. God and the devil are both in the details and Kruk gives us plenty of all three. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1897-1944    2. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    3. History    4. History: World    5. Holocaust    6. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)    7. Jewish resistance    8. Jews    9. Judaism - General    10. Kruk, Herman,    11. Lithuania    12. Persecutions    13. Personal narratives    14. Religion - Judaism    15. Vilnius    16. World War, 1939-1945    17. Biography: historical    18. Biography: political    19. European history: Second World War    20. Jewish studies    21. Kruk, Herman    22. Religion / Judaism / General    23. Second World War, 1939-1945    24. The Holocaust   

Subjects:  1. 1922-    2. Biography    3. History: World    4. Jaffe, Ralph,    5. Jews    6. Jews, Lithuanian    7. Kavarskas    8. Lithuania    9. New York    10. New York (State)    11. Jaffe, Ralph   

Subjects:  1. Atrocities    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Historical - Holocaust    5. History - General History    6. Holocaust    7. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)    8. Jews    9. Lithuania    10. Persecutions    11. Personal Memoirs    12. Vilnius    13. World War, 1939-1945    14. Biography: general    15. History / General    16. Jewish studies    17. Political oppression & persecution    18. The Holocaust   

Subjects:  1. 1763-1796    2. Eastern Europe - Poland    3. Economic Conditions    4. Europe - General    5. History - General History    6. Monarchy    7. Poland    8. Political Science    9. Politics and government    10. Politics/International Relations    11. European history: c 1500 to c 1750    12. History / Europe / Eastern    13. Lithuania    14. Political structure & processes   

Subjects:  1. Annexation (International law)    2. Autonomy and independence move    3. Baltic States    4. Dismemberment of states    5. History    6. International    7. International status    8. Law    9. Legal Reference / Law Profession    10. Estonia    11. European history: postwar, from c 1945 -    12. Finland    13. Latvia    14. Lithuania    15. Political structure & processes    16. Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000   

Editorial Review

In 1946, a Russian-born American psychologist named David P. Boder toured displaced-personscamps throughout Western Europe, interviewing victims of the Nazi terror, most of them Jews. Hispublished reports were not widely circulated, writes editor Donald Niewyk, and in any event few peoplewanted to talk or hear about the Holocaust so soon after it had ended. With the passage of half a centuryand the passing of the generation of Shoah, Boder's reports, collected in Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Europe - General    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History: World    6. Holocaust    7. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)    8. Jewish Holocaust Personal Narratives    9. Jews    10. Personal narratives    11. "Jewish Studies; David P. Boder; World War II; survivors' testimonies; ""Displaced Persons"" camps; Europe; Poland; Lithuania; Germany; France; Slovakia; Hungary; Jewish resistance; "    12. Biography: general    13. Europe    14. History / Holocaust    15. Jewish studies    16. The Holocaust   

Reviews (1)

The Baltics in the 20th century
This book will help you to better understand Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which have remarkably different personalities, although often collectively referred to as the Baltics. The countries are treated separately, as they deserve to be, illustrating their individual ambitions, which are often at odds to each other. Read more

Subjects:  1. Europe - Former Soviet Republics    2. General    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History: World    6. Modern - General    7. Estonia    8. Latvia    9. Lithuania    10. POLITICS & GOVERNMENT    11. Political Science / General    12. Political geography   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Diplomatic History    3. Foreign relations    4. History    5. History: American    6. International Relations - General    7. Lithuania    8. Politics / Current Events    9. Recognition (International law)    10. United States    11. United States - General    12. World War, 1939-1945    13. Central government policies    14. Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe)    15. History / United States / General    16. International Law    17. International relations    18. Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000    19. Second World War, 1939-1945   

Subjects:  1. Eastern Europe - General    2. Eastern Europe - Poland    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History: World    6. Poland    7. Poland - History    8. To 1795    9. European history: c 1500 to c 1750    10. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    11. European history: c 500 to c 1500    12. Lithuania    13. Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church    14. Sociology, Social Studies   

Reviews (3)

Great Reading!!!!
I couldn't put this book down and didn't want it to end.Harry could easily write a sequel to this book of how he transitioned into American life.This book is very easy reading and insightful of the atrocities that happened in Lithuania.Harry I admire you.

Please keep genealogy searches off the review page
While I know that genealogy searching can be difficult, please share this information where it will do the most good: with the author.As a Librarian, I depend on the kind of informative, concise, and relevant reviews that are shared on a regular basis by those kind souls who have actually read the book in question.Not having read the book, my stars are simply there so that I could post the messege.Thank you

Haven't read it yet!Just find out!
Hello, Harry!I am your cousin, Leslie Hoffman Levenson (my mom's name was Ina Ginsberg, daughter of my grandfather Jack Ginsberg).I learned about your book on this title a while ago. I'd like to hear from you thru email shown at below (LEV10315@aol.com).Our cousin, Esther Ginsberg Cohen(daughter of Alex Ginsberg)also learns about you recently thru our cousin,Shelly and Marlee Ginsberg who went to the Museum of Holocaust in Wash. DC. Esther and I found each other by accident!Long story!We also found outthere The Ginsberg brothers (Jack, Alex and Barney) did have sisters backin Lithuania we never knew ever existed).Please contact me and let youknow that you have more cousins still living and well! Unfortunately,your book is out of print!Is there any way we can obtain that?Pleasedon't put this on line as we the cousins are trying to locate you!:-) Weare surely proud of your accomplishment for writing this book we want toread. We would love to know more about our descendents despite the historythat happened.Thank you so much, Harry from your long lost cousin, LESLIEof Granada Hills, CA born in Buffalo, NY in 1948 daughter of Morris and InaHoffman (both still living). ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Eastern Europe - General    2. Historical - General    3. History    4. History - Military / War    5. History: World    6. Holocaust    7. Jewish Holocaust   

Subjects:  1. Archives    2. Baltic States    3. Belarus    4. Bibliography    5. Directories    6. History - General History    7. History: World    8. Library & Information Science    9. Russia (pre & post Soviet Union)    10. Libraries & information centres   

Subjects:  1. 1918-1940    2. Baltic States    3. Estonia    4. Europe - Baltic States    5. Foreign relations    6. History    7. History: World    8. International Relations - General    9. Latvia    10. Politics / Current Events    11. Inter-war period, 1918-1939    12. International relations    13. Lithuania    14. Second World War, 1939-1945   

Subjects:  1. Baltic States    2. Education    3. Education / Teaching    4. Educational change    5. European Union countries    6. General    7. History    8. Politics/International Relations    9. Relations    10. Estonia    11. Latvia    12. Lithuania   

Reviews (1)

A great book for European Jewish history
It is well worth reading but I wish it was longer and more detailed.And, would it be so terrible if it were discovered that changes to Jewish religious practice in 18th Century Poland were borrowed or influenced from sources outside the Jewish religion?Maybe one day we will know more. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Eastern Europe - General    2. Europe - General    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History: World    6. Jewish - General    7. Judaism - General    8. Modern - 18th Century    9. Europe    10. History / General   

Subjects:  1. 1900-1986    2. Biography    3. Biography & Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Diplomats    6. General    7. Historical - General    8. History - General History    9. Holocaust    10. Japan    11. Jews    12. Judaism - General    13. Kaunas    14. Lithuania    15. Persecutions    16. Righteous Gentiles in the Holo    17. Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust    18. Sugihara, Chiune,    19. Biography: general    20. Religion / Judaism / General    21. Sugihara, Chiune