Utterly absorbing in its powerfully detailed horror and inspiring redemption—a must-read in Holocaust studies.
This chillingly meticulous chronicle of a dozen escapees from a Nazi extermination camp underscores the mechanics of heroism and the fallibility of memory.
Journalist Heath, a National Magazine Award winner, ably narrates the disturbing story of the camp at Ponar, Lithuania (“never a work camp”), where 70,000 Jews were rounded up, shot, and dumped in pits, beginning in July 1941, only to be disinterred and burned to hide the evidence. Throughout, the author expertly highlights the grisly contradictions and trauma of the Holocaust. Although what happened at Ponar had been documented by the end of World War II, the story was relegated to a footnote for the next 30 years. The author masterfully resurrects the events, tracing accounts of the 12 men who miraculously escaped through a tunnel they dug at the killing pits on the night of April 15, 1944. As Heath recounts, they had been among 80 Jewish prisoners who were sent to the pit site to perform the grisly duties of digging up the decomposed corpses and burning them on towering pyres—so that, in the “magical thinking” of the Nazis, no trace of the crimes would be left as the Soviet troops advanced. However, not only did the 12 men escape and tell their stories—many not believed, though one testified at Nuremberg—but some of the inhabitants of the forest town also saw what was going on, including a journalist neighbor who documented the activity in a diary that was later found and published in 1999. Heath painstakingly sifts through the conflicting accounts over the decades, analyzing discrepancies, details, and contradictions. Ultimately, he learned, just like the survivors, “of how great the distance could be between speaking out and being heard.”
Utterly absorbing in its powerfully detailed horror and inspiring redemption—a must-read in Holocaust studies.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780805243710
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Schocken
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.
An epistolary memoir of Nelson Mandela’s prison years.
From August 1962 to February 1990, Mandela (1918-2013) was imprisoned by the apartheid state of South Africa. During his more than 27 years in prison, the bulk of which he served on the notorious Robben Island prison off the shores of Cape Town, he wrote thousands of letters to family and friends, lawyers and fellow African National Congress members, prison officials, and members of the government. Heavily censored for both content and length, letters from Robben Island and South Africa’s other political prisons did not always reach their intended targets; when they did, the censorship could make them virtually unintelligible. To assemble this vitally important collection, Venter (A Free Mind: Ahmed Kathrada's Notebook from Robben Island, 2006, etc.), a longtime Johannesburg-based editor and journalist, pored through these letters in various public and private archives across South Africa and beyond as well as Mandela’s own notebooks, in which he transcribed versions of these letters. The result is a necessary, intimate portrait of the great leader. The man who emerges is warm and intelligent and a savvy, persuasive, and strategic thinker. During his life, Mandela was a loving husband and father, a devotee of the ANC’s struggle, and capable of interacting with prominent statesmen and the ANC’s rank and file. He was not above flattery or hard-nosed steeliness toward his captors as suited his needs, and he was always yearning for freedom, not only—or even primarily—for himself, but rather for his people, a goal that is the constant theme of this collection and was the consuming vision of his entire time as a prisoner. Venter adds tremendous value with his annotations and introductions to the work as a whole and to the book’s various sections.
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63149-117-7
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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