Oral History Books - Page 2

Things We Couldn't Say

Diet Eman

Amazon Price: $16.32 List Price: $24.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 65 new & used starting at $3.69

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Christian at War 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I have read more than 75 books of this genre depicting this period of history. "What would I have done under the same circumstances?" That is the question I am always asking of myself whilst reading these stories. This is the story of a group of people with the courage of their convictions...Diet's story is inspiring and touching. It illustrates perfectly that the power of prayer is undeniable and when 'all one can do is pray' one has done everything.

An account of valour 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The true story of true Christians, and Dutch patriots, Diet Eman and Hein Sietsma, and their courageous risk of everything to resist Nazi tyranny and hide thousands of Dutch Jews.
True Christians always love the Jewish people and Israel, and true nationalists are opposed to both Communism and Nazism, both the antithesis of national self-determination.
Diet recounts her own life, and experiences and what she saw and heard, as well as her deep faith in G-D, that guided her in all she did and thought.
Diet recounts her experiences in Scheveningen prison, where she describes how Jewish families, who were caught in hiding, were hauled into the prison, mothers, fathers and children: 'On the nights the guards brought Jews in, we always heard the children crying all through that place. It was bad enough for us to have to suffer through a place, like Scheveningen, but it was terrible to hear those poor innocent children crying.'
It is up to true Christians and righteous gentiles to stand by the State of Israel today, in the struggle for her survival and that of her children, against the monstrous Islamic-extreme leftist hate machine.

Editorial Review:

Here is the incredible true story of Diet Eman, who, with her fiance, Hein Sietsma, risked everything to rescue Dutch Jews imperiled by Nazi persecution in occupied Holland during World War II. Eman's first-person narrative vividly captures the gripping events of her brave saga.

Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times

Studs Terkel

Amazon Price: $13.56 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: New Press Amazon Marketplace: 100 new & used starting at $1.84

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The latest oral history from the unrivaled master of the genre.

Hope Dies Last is Studs Terkel's inspiring new oral history of social action in America. An alternative, more personal history of the "American century," Hope Dies Last forms a legacy of the indefatigable spirit that Studs has always embodied, and an inheritance for those who, by taking a stand, are making concrete the dreams of today.

For Terkel, these interviews represent a change that has taken place in the last few years of uncertainty in America. From a doctor who teaches his young students compassion, to the now-retired brigadier general who flew the Enola Gay over Hiroshima, these interviews tell us much about the power of the American dream and the force of individuals who hope for a better world. Terkel's subjects express with grace and warmth their secret hopes and dreams, combining to tell an inspiring story of optimism and persistence that resonates with the eloquence of conviction.

Oral History : A Novel

Lee Smith

By: Ballantine Publishing Group Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A piece of Appalachia 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This is the only Lee Smith book I've read, so comparisons with other Smith books are impossible.

The story traces the history of an Appalachian family from the late 19th century to the late-mid 20th century. It is told from various points of view, by various characters, at various times, resulting in a book which on the surface might seem "downright Faulknerian." However, Smith's main concern is the story and not the experience of reading it (which could, on some level, be said of Faulkner's literary goals), hence readings don't have to wrestle with the language. That being said, readers unfamiliar with the grammatical and lexical idiosyncracies of Appalachian English might sit scratching their heads at some of the characters' utterances, but the language is far from incomprehensible.

"Oral History" offers a view into a period and location that, until recent years, has remained fairly secluded. It's a pleasurable and rewarding read.

Appalachian 100 years of solitude 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I recently read this again after a hiatus of 11 years. Lee Smith simply delivers stories, characters, and setting that can't be beat. It was only while sitting here, thinking about how wonderful the book was with the multiple voices and circular story line, that I realized the comaprison to Marquez' Solitude was right there. Both are wonderful books that HAVE to be read.

I still cannot choose my favorite book of Lee Smith (Fair & Tender Ladies or Oral History). Both have characters that draw you in, along with stories that captivate the imagination. Read both and let me know which one you favor.

Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich (Penguin History)

Alison Owings

By: Penguin Books Ltd Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $13.88

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An Important Book Causing Fascination and Soul-Searching 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I agree with just about all the comments of all the other reviewers of this book, both positive and critical. The author interviewed a wide array of German women that lived through the Third Reich and were able to tell about it during the time she interviewed them (mostly the mid-to-late '80s). I am as upset about the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust as anyone, yet I agree with the reviewer who pointed out that the author focused all the passion of her interviews just about exclusively to this topic. I would have very much liked to have seen more about other aspects of lives and decisions made during the Third Reich, such as the people giving up their civil rights so quickly after the Nazis were in power and then so soon after that there was no such thing as free speech and I don't know what it was like in Germany before the Nazis, but there was definitely zero freedom of the press during the Third Reich. One thing I learned that I did not know before was that people would be arrested for even the barest comment that Germany might not win the war (not to mention any criticism of Jewish stores being boycotted). Shoot, a person could be arrested apparently just for showing any outward sign of compassion to Jews or prisoners and informers were everywhere. Anyhow, it is fascinating reading and I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about this era of history. I had not realized some things before I read this book, such as the role of women in Nazi Germany. Women were definitely repressed far beyond what I had realized before. The most frustrating thing for me in reading this book was the poor translations (or poor editing of translations). There were sentences that no matter how many times I read them, they simply did not make any sense to me at all. Also, often words or phrases were left untranslated, and knowing no German myself, this too was frustrating, nicht? I also would have liked to hear less of the personal slant of the author's perspective. All in all, though, I think I would have given this book 5 stars if it has been edited to reasonable readability. Yes, some of the German style of pigeon-English would have been lost, but then again, these women (or most of them) were not speaking English anyhow; they were speaking German, and what they said was translated into English. Why not translated into a more readable English? I believe a lot more people would read and benefit from reading this book had that been the case. I love the diversity of the women interviewed -- not only in social status and roles they played during the Third Reich but also their different ways of coping and different attitudes toward life. Some lived in great fear; others made little room in their hearts or minds for fear, because they were too busy doing what was clear they must do -- whether hiding a Jew or whatever. Very interesting stuff and terribly relevant even today in a world that still has not yet learned how to come to terms with its problems without war and the crimes endemic of war.

Auschwitz and After

Charlotte Delbo

List Price: $35.00 By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $3.75

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

If you read no other book on the Holocaust, read this one. 5 out of 5 stars.
20 of 23 people found this review helpful.

The other two reviews are so insightful and accurate, in my opinion, I should have little to add. Yet, after reading "Auschwitz and After", I felt I had to express something of how the book made me understand and grow. As a convert to Judaism (born in 1951, I was on the pathway my whole life, I realize now), I have read many, many books/memoirs/histories on the Holocaust. Many of them have been very moving, indeed, beginning with Anne Frank's Diary, on through to "Maus". Though I acknowledge that these words have been said before, I still believe that Charlotte Delbo's words put me into that Hell more than any other survivor's testimony to date. Delbo's words do more than say "this happened and that happened". They are poetry...yet how can poetry apply to any experience in a death camp? Surprisingly, scarily, the poetry transports the reader there more truly than any film, any historical analysis, even better than any well-written survivor account. At first I thought I would not like it; my sensibilities were offended that someone would write in poetic format about an experience at a death camp ("Maus" was different; it was a cartoon, yes, but drawn by the son of a survivor, not a survivor). After finishing Delbo's triology, I feel that her words (not all in poetic form) made me understand as much as anyone who did not experience a death camp, how it felt, how one survived, what one endured when one "came back" to the "real world".

Due to the passage of time, we are losing the remaining Holocaust survivors. Hence, Spielberg's and others' efforts to record the testimony before it is too late. There has been more attention lately paid to the children of the survivors' and how their parents' experiences affected their lives. Delbo's words transcend the words of one survivor - she really makes the reader understand what happned to those who "came back", how little they had to give, in some cases, to their spouses, to their children. American culture puts a lot of emphasis on "getting over, moving on". To some extent, I believe this is usually a healthy thing to try to do; but some experiences fall outside the realm of being able to "get over it". I would suggest that some experiences are so traumatic that one cannot "process" them and get over them. How is forgiveness possible when the entire world is affected as a result? Some experiences mark a person and maybe a culture permanently, and to deny or to try to repress this is unhealthy. At the end of their lives now, most published Holocaust testimonies report that the death camp experience "never leaves you" - something "survivors" probably didn't believe when they were first liberated. The fact that the Holocaust survivors are becoming fewer and fewer makes Delbo's book all the more important because it conveys the true horror, the true evil of human degradation and genocide - and explains why the Holocaust, as well as other genocides have and will reverberate from generation to generation. Her book made me realize that understanding and vigilance, not "processing" and forgiveness is the answer.

Editorial Review:

This unique and profoundly moving memoir of life in the concentration camps and afterward was written by a French female resistance leader, a non-Jew who became an important literary figure in post-war France. Now available in English in its entirety for the first time, this book includes vignettes, poems, and prose poems that speak eloquently of horror, heroism, and conscience.

In the Country of Brooklyn: Inspiration to the World

Peter Golenbock

Amazon Price: $23.40 List Price: $32.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: William Morrow Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $17.65

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

One of every seven people in the United States can trace their family back to Brooklyn, New York—all seventy-one square miles of it; home to millions of people from every corner of the globe over the last 150 years. Now Peter Golenbock, the author of the acclaimed book Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, returns to Kings County to collect the firsthand stories of the life and times of the people of Brooklyn—and how they changed the world.

The nostalgic myth that is Brooklyn is all about egg creams and stickball, and, of course, the Dodgers. The Dodgers left fifty years ago, but Brooklyn is still here—transformed by waves of suburban flight, new immigrants, urban homesteaders, and gentrification. Deep down, Brooklyn has always been about new ideas—freedom and tolerance paramount among them—that have changed the world, all the way back to Lady Deborah Moody, who escaped religious persecution in both Old and New England, and founded Coney Island and the town of Gravesend in the 1600s.

So why was Jackie Robinson embraced by Brooklynites of all colors, and so despised everywhere else? Why was Brooklyn one of the first urban areas to decay into slums—and one of the first to be reborn? And what was it that made Brooklynites fight for their rights, for their country, for their ideas—sometimes to the detriment of their own well-being? In the Country of Brooklyn, filled with rare photos, is history at its very best—engaging, personal, fascinating—a social history and a history of social justice; an oral history of a land and its people spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; a microcosm of how Americans there faced and defeated discrimination, oppression, and unjust laws, and fought for what was right. And the voices and stories are as amazing as they are varied.

Meet: Daily Worker sportswriter Lester Rodney • rock and roll DJ "Cousin Brucie" Morrow • labor leader Henry Foner • Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa • journalist and author Pete Hamill • Black Panther–turned-politician Charles Barron • Hall of Fame baseball player Monte Irvin • Spanish Civil War veteran Abe Smorodin • borough president Marty Markowitz • real estate developer Joseph Sitt • jujitsu world champion Robert Crosson • songwriter Neil Sedaka • NYPD officer John Mackie • ACLU president Ira Glasser • and many others!

It's Brooklyn as we've never seen it before, a place of social activism, political energy, and creative thinking—a place whose vitality has spread around the world for more than 350 years. And a place where you can still get a decent egg cream.

The Reawakening.

PRIMO. LEVI

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Carnival World 5 out of 5 stars.
58 of 60 people found this review helpful.

Like Survival in Auschwitz and The Periodic Table, The Reawakening is populated with Levi's brilliant language and fascination with character. In Survival, Table and Reawakening, Levi is careful not to force facts into a satisfyingly explanatory story. The Reawakening is a picaresque without the moral center. Levi travels home through a carnival world, a Europe simultaneously stunned and ecstatic, a landscape of displaced characters, Greek villagers in Polish refugee camps, complicit Germans sitting down to the first course of horrific recent history and guilt, cadaverous lager inmates staggering into a world forever altered. It is a world populated with impresarios, rakes, opportunists, suicides, daredevils and rubes. But, more than anything else, The Reawakening is brimming with life; Levi makes his way home eyes forward.

I found myself thinking of two other books while reading Reawakening--Kosinski's The Painted Bird and Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. Like Kosinski, Levi reminds us that much of rural eastern Europe was cruel and primitive before the Nazi's made a virtue of these qualities. And, like Wolfe's Gant family, the characters in Levi's account are often exuberant to the point of mania.

I think that Levi is one of the great writers and thinkers of our time. In this way, I'm not a reliable critic. Reviewing The Reawakening is akin to reviewing Hamlet for me.

The Hungry Years: America in an Age of Crisis, 1929-1939

T. H. Watkins

List Price: $32.50 By: Henry Holt and Co. Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $2.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Don't be fooled by the subtitle! 2 out of 5 stars.
19 of 20 people found this review helpful.

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When I saw this book and read the dustjacket notes I assumed it would be what the title suggested: a "narrative" history of the Great Depression, told primarily through the experiences of persons who lived through it.

I was sorely disappointed.

Make no mistake -- the book contains a wealth of well-researched data quite valuable to the study of the depression, but written like a college text, with appropriate footnotes, instead of as a literary exercise such as David McCullough's TRUMAN.

Nothing wrong with that, but the book should be marketed and reviewed as an academic effort rather than as a "narrative history."

Editorial Review:

The acclaimed author of Righteous Pilgrim delivers this dramatic account of the Great Depression as seen by those who lived through it. Less concerned with the power brokers in Washington than with the daily struggles of ordinary people at the grass roots, The Hungry Years draws on little-known oral histories, memoirs, local press, and scholarly monographs to capture the voices of Americans in a time of unprecedented crisis. The result is narrative history at its best: a comprehensive single volume that traces the stages of the disaster chronologically without losing touch with the wounds it inflicted or the ways people responded. Humane and compassionate, historically sound, full of story and anecdote, The Hungry Years puts the reader at the very heart of the maelstrom that was the American Depression.

The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself

List Price: $14.95 By: University of Michigan Press Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $1.24

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Woman's Voice and the Experience of Slavery 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

First published in 1831, "The History of Mary Prince" is an extraordinary cultural document. It is the first published account of a female British ex-slave. Mary Prince, a slave in the West Indies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, tells the story of her life in an effort to awaken sympathy for the abolitionist movement in England.

Mary particularly emphasizes instances of the arbitrary punishments meted out by her various masters. She repeatedly questions how the British, a civilized nation, could permit its colonists to treat its colonial work force like brute beasts. Mary elicits our attention and respect in the ways she manages to resist the brutality of her masters, both physically and vocally. She often shows herself speaking out against cruelty regardless of social taboos, accepted colonial norms of unquestioning obedience, and the image of the "benevolent" slave owner.

Mary's narrative is also remarkable for her characterization as the "self-made heroine." Mary tells us extensively about her attempts to save enough money to purchase her freedom, and to engage, convert, and marry the man of her choice. As the editor of this edition points out, as Mary begins to learn the value of her labor, she more easily manipulates her owners into realizing their own powerlessness over her. A sort of Wollstonecraftian feminist hero, Mary Prince bases her self-definition on her ability to be financially, as well as physically independent, and to improve herself through education and religion.

One limitation of "The History of Mary Prince" is the fact that it was only dictated by Prince. It was transcribed and published by British abolitionists, who may have suggested the emphasis on brutality and deemphasis on specifically sexual violence. It is impossible to know the extent of the editing process, which was out of Prince's hands. Nonetheless, this edition, edited by Moira Ferguson, contains many relevant historical documents which provide a rich context for Prince's narrative.

Editorial Review:

The autobiography of Mary Prince, a black woman who escaped slavery in the West Indies

The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir

George Lucius Salton

List Price: $24.95 By: University of Wisconsin Press Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $11.49

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In September, 1939, George Lucius Salton's boyhood in Tyczyn, Poland, was shattered by escalating violence and terror under German occupation. His father, a lawyer, was forbidden to work, but eleven-year-old George dug potatoes, split wood, and resourcefully helped his family. They suffered hunger and deprivation, a forced march to the Rzeszow ghetto, then eternal separation when fourteen-year-old George and his brother were left behind to labor in work camps while their parents were deported in boxcars to die in Belzec. For the next three years, George slaved and barely survived in ten concentration camps, including Rzeszow, Plaszow, Flossenburg, Colmar, Sachsenhausen, Braunschweig, Ravensbrück, and Wobbelin. Cattle cars filled with skeletal men emptied into a train yard in Colmar, France. George and the other prisoners marched under the whips and fists of SS guards. But here, unlike the taunts and rocks from villagers in Poland and Germany, there was applause. "I could clearly hear the people calling: "Shame! Shame!" . . . Suddenly, I realized that the people of Colmar were applauding us! They were condemning the inhumanity of the Germans!" Of the 500 prisoners of the Nazis who marched through the streets of Colmar in the spring of 1944, just fifty were alive one year later when the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division liberated the Wobbelin concentration camp on the afternoon of May 2, 1945. "I felt something stir deep within my soul. It was my true self, the one who had stayed deep within and had not forgotten how to love and how to cry, the one who had chosen life and was still standing when the last roll call ended."