The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris

The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris PDF Author: Jonathan Kirsch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871407027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year "Reading this excellent, thought-provoking biography, one is all too easily reminded of Camus’s 1942 novel, The Stranger." —Philip Kerr, Wall Street Journal

The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris

The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris PDF Author: Jonathan Kirsch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871407027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year "Reading this excellent, thought-provoking biography, one is all too easily reminded of Camus’s 1942 novel, The Stranger." —Philip Kerr, Wall Street Journal

The Short Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan

The Short Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan PDF Author: Jonathan Kirsch
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 087140740X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
On the morning of November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a desperate seventeen-year-old Jewish refugee, walked into the German embassy in Paris and shot Ernst vom Rath, a Nazi diplomat. Two days later vom Rath lay dead, and the Third Reich exploited the murder to unleash Kristallnacht in a bizarre concatenation of events that would rapidly involve Ribbentrop, Goebbels, and Hitler himself. But was Grynszpan a crazed lone gunman or agent provocateur of the Gestapo? Was he motivated by a desire to avenge Jewish people, or did his act of violence speak to an intimate connection between the assassin and his target, as Grynszpan later claimed? Part page-turning historical thriller and part Kafkaesque legal drama, The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan brings to life the historical details and moral dimensions of one of the most enigmatic cases of World War II. This compelling biography presents a story with twists and turns that “no novelist could invent” (Alice Kaplan).

Hitler's Pawn

Hitler's Pawn PDF Author: Stephen Koch
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1640093389
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A remarkable story of a forgotten seventeen–year–old Jew who was blamed by the Nazis for the anti–Semitic violence and terror known as the Kristallnacht, the pogrom still seen as an initiating event of the Holocaust After learning about Nazi persecution of his family, Herschel Grynszpan (pronounced Greenspan) bought a small handgun and on November 7, 1938, went to the German embassy and shot the first German diplomat he saw. When the man died two days later, Hitler and Goebbels made the shooting their pretext for the state–sponsored wave of antiSemitic terror known as Kristallnacht, still seen by many as an initiating event of the Holocaust. Overnight, Grynszpan, a bright but naive teenager, was front–page news and a pawn in a global power struggle.

The Cost of Courage

The Cost of Courage PDF Author: Charles Kaiser
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 159051615X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
"The result is a mix of history, biography and memoir which reads like a nerve-racking thriller." —The Guardian (US) This heroic true story of the three youngest children of a bourgeois Catholic family who worked together in the French Resistance is told by an American writer who has known and admired the family for five decades In the autumn of 1943, André Boulloche became de Gaulle’s military delegate in Paris, coordinating all the Resistance movements in the nine northern regions of France only to be betrayed by one of his associates, arrested, wounded by the Gestapo, and taken prisoner. His sisters carried on the fight without him until the end of the war. André survived three concentration camps and later became a prominent French politician who devoted the rest of his life to reconciliation of France and Germany. His parents and oldest brother were arrested and shipped off on the last train from Paris to Germany before the liberation, and died in the camps. Since then, silence has been the Boulloches’s answer to dealing with the unbearable. This is the first time the family has cooperated with an author to recount their extraordinary ordeal.

Rarest Blue

Rarest Blue PDF Author: Baruch Sterman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762790423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
For centuries, dyed fabrics ranked among the most expensive objects of the ancient Mediterranean world, fetching up to 20 times their weight in gold. Huge fortunes were made from and lost to them, and battles were fought over control of the industry. The few who knew the dyes’ complex secrets carefully guarded the valuable knowledge. The Rarest Blue tells the amazing story of tekhelet, or hyacinth blue, the elusive sky-blue dye mentioned 50 times in the Hebrew Bible. The Minoans discovered it; the Phoenicians stole the technique; Cleopatra adored it; and Jews—obeying a Biblical commandment to affix a single thread of the radiant color to the corner of their garments—risked their lives for it. But with the fall of the Roman Empire, the technique was lost to the ages. Then, in the nineteenth century, a marine biologist saw a fisherman smearing his shirt with snail guts, marveling as the yellow stains turned sky blue. But what was the secret? At the same time, a Hasidic master obsessed with reviving the ancient tradition posited that the source wasn’t a snail at all but a squid. Bitter fighting ensued until another rabbi discovered that one of them was wrong—but had an unscrupulous chemist deliberately deceived him? Baruch Sterman brilliantly recounts the complete, amazing story of this sacred dye that changed the color of history.

War of Shadows

War of Shadows PDF Author: Gershom Gorenberg
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610396286
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
In this World War II military history, Rommel's army is a day from Cairo, a week from Tel Aviv, and the SS is ready for action. Espionage brought the Nazis this far, but espionage can stop them—if Washington wakes up to the danger. As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led his Axis army swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Each step was informed by detailed updates on British positions. The Nazis, somehow, had a source for the Allies' greatest secrets. Yet the Axis powers were not the only ones with intelligence. Brilliant Allied cryptographers worked relentlessly at Bletchley Park, breaking down the extraordinarily complex Nazi code Enigma. From decoded German messages, they discovered that the enemy had a wealth of inside information. On the brink of disaster, a fevered and high-stakes search for the source began. War of Shadows is the cinematic story of the race for information in the North African theater of World War II, set against intrigues that spanned the Middle East. Years in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war. It portrays the conflict not as an inevitable clash of heroes and villains but a spiraling series of failures, accidents, and desperate triumphs that decided the fate of the Middle East and quite possibly the outcome of the war.

The Nazi Hunters

The Nazi Hunters PDF Author: Andrew Nagorski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476771871
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
"Describes the small group of men and women who sought out former Nazis all over the world after the Nuremberg trials, refusing to let their crimes be forgotten or allowing them to quietly live inconspicuous, normal lives."--NoveList.

Go Back to where You Came from

Go Back to where You Came from PDF Author: Sasha Polakow-Suransky
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1849049092
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
An indispensable account of the global rise of anti-immigration politics and the ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe's new far right.

God Against the Gods

God Against the Gods PDF Author: Jonathan Kirsch
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440626588
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"Lively… points out that the conflict between the worship of many gods and the worship of one true god never disappeared." —Publishers Weekly "Jonathan Kirsch has written another blockbuster about the Bible and its world." —David Noel Freedman, Editor-in-Chief of the Anchor Bible Project "Kirsch tackles the central issue bedeviling the world today - religious intolerance… A timely book, well-written and researched." —Leonard Shlain, author of The Alphabet and the Goddess and Sex, Time and Power "An intriguing read." —The Jerusalem Report "A timely tale about the importance of religious tolerance in today’s world." —San Francisco Chronicle "Kirsch is a fine storyteller with a flair for rendering ancient tales relevant and appealing." —The Washington Post

Who Will Remember You?

Who Will Remember You? PDF Author: Israel B. Bitton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761872817
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Memory. A word so often said, often thought of, and continuously studied. Yet, we know relatively so little other than how vast and magnificent it is. In Who Will Remember You? A Philosophical History and Theory of Memory and Will, Israel B. Bitton, offers an interdisciplinary perspective that unifies philosophy of memory with history, neuroscience, culture and ethics, yielding novel insights into the elusive phenomena of memory, namely its universality. Bitton posits that the current and typical “misunderstanding of memory” stems from over-specialization in scientific research, a compartmentalization that does not support reaching holistic conclusions which are necessary for fully appreciating the totality of memory phenomena. No longer should memory be thought of as residing only in the brain, for the body is known to have memory too, but neither should it be thought of as exclusively human since it inheres in all matter as a physical and biological fact. Indeed, Bitton extends the philosophical and practical meanings of memory furthest in great detail, employing the latest research in neuroscience to support his case. In this work, Bitton traces the kernels of these ideas from the ancient Egyptians and Israelites all the way through to the modern period in philosophy, science and popular culture, demonstrating that his philosophical formulation has always been and remains accepted de facto by society as can easily be detected in various social trends. Upon offering his holistic account that considers the magnitude of memory phenomena across several disciplines, Bitton presents a novel theory that postulates the primary human drive as categorized by a will to significance, which, because of the universality of memory becomes a will to memorability. By placing the individual at the center of their own memory-reality, they can be empowered to safeguard, enhance, and extend the universal force of memory within and around them. From that vantage point, this book provides its audience with ideas meant to provoke and incite the readers’ own reflections on memory’s meaning and import as well as what it takes to be an ethical “memory agent” in an era of hyper-fake news.