Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Crucible of Terror: A Story of Survival Through the Nazi Storm by Max Liebster ISBN: 0-9679366-2-4 Publisher: Grammaton Press, LLC. Pub. Date: September, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Haunting and Inspiring - a poignant holocaust memoir
Comment: Max Liebster was a handsome and spirited young man, a Jew, living in Viernheim Germany during Hitler's rise to power, and the ensuing Nazi takeover. His style of writing is spare but powerful ("As I witnessed the Hitler Youth parades, my blood turned to ice. I beheld the heaving of swastika flags. I saw the edge of the abyss.") He describes the false security, then the confusion, and finally, the despair of the Jewish situation in Nazi Germany.
He himself was imprisoned in Auschwitz (his father's hometown), Sachsenhausen, and Neuengamme. Like all the concentration camp victims, he witnessed atrocities it is painful even to read about. He carried his father's dead body to the mass crematorium, the last tiny dignity he could bestow upon a broken man.
Never bitter, he describes his wonder at the pervasiveness of the virulent anti-Jewish sentiment that swept the nation. During his incarceration and torment, he converted from Judaism to a messianic Christianity, "Bibelforschers," who were prevalent in the concentration camps. Not the doctrine so much as the living examples of faith that he witnessed won him over - he describes the inner tranquility and compassion that attracted him to the group.
His book is valuable on several counts, probably moreso than I can fathom at present. I enjoyed the insights into his traditional Jewish upbringing and belief system - the faith that to him was Judaism. He describes the differences between the devout and the peripheral practicer, the country and the city Jew. I was touched by the faith of his father, even in such bleak and hopeless surroundings, pronouncing a traditional Jewish blessing on his son, just prior to his own death. And I was surprised at the insight the book gave to the tragic plight of even many Nazis - imprisoned by an ideology futureless and dying, from which there seemed no escape but death.
It was enlightening to see the juxtaposition of the strength and yet frailty of the human psyche - an unbroken inner dignity of faith, but yet a latent emotional frailty in the wake of such numbing human cruelty - to the point that a visit to the site of such trauma provoked a heart attack in the author even some half-century after the fact.
Mostly, I think the benefit of this work is the lesson that survival of the spirit is dependent, not upon an abstract or intellectual faith of doctrine or dogma, but upon a human bond of pragmatic love and recognition of the dignity of the human condition, even in the most vile and desperate surroundings - a faith that is lived in the heart, not merely professed with the mouth. This is what saved Max Liebster in the true sense of the word, and I think there is a lesson for all of us in that fact.
I can't imagine anyone reading this important biography and not being moved, but then I can't imagine those who could perpetrate such atrocities - and yet they were everyday people, as Mr. Liebster demonstrates. A study in the dichotomy of the human condition: cruelty and kindness; weakness and strength; desperation and faith, fear and love. Recommended to students of the Holocaust, of the Jewish and the "other" victims, to students of the reaction of the human condition when under test in what truly is a "crucible of terror."
My only complaint is that the book ended too quickly - I wanted more! I almost gave it a 4 instead of a 5, for this reason, but in the end I couldn't think of what else it needed, only that I resented it ending so quickly. Which may, in the final analysis, be more of a positive than a negative - so I'm going with 5 after all. An important and thought-provoking work.
Rating: 5
Summary: Crucible of Terror
Comment: Fascinating first-person account of Mr. Liebster's experience during the Holocaust. I especially appreciate his description of the time period leading up to his imprisonment - his bewilderment at being caught up in events out of his control and his dispassionate view of those Germans caught up in Hitler's programs. He does not demonize the Nazi loyalists that he had contact with, but tries to look pass their afilliations with Nazism and into what caused them to become part of Hitler's system. He highlights very well how many "normal" Germans were swept along by a tidal wave of events out of their control. His descriptions of the time he spent in the camps are very reader accessible - and give you a real sense of what the day to day life was for people in the concentration camps. He also gives great insight as to what it takes for a person to survive such an experience with his spirit intact.
 |
Title: Facing The Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe by Simone Arnold Liebster ISBN: 0967936659 Publisher: Grammaton Press, LLC. Pub. Date: 28 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
 |
Title: Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the by Shawn Francis Peters ISBN: 0700611827 Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi Regime: 1933-1945 by Hans Hesse ISBN: 3861087502 Publisher: Edition Temmen Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: The Other Victims : First-Person Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis by Ina R. Friedman ISBN: 0395745152 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 25 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
 |
Title: Your Body, Your Choice by Shannon Farmer, David Webb ISBN: 981041708X Publisher: Media Masters Pub. Date: 15 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
