arts&life

books

THE HOLOCAUST

• In 1944 Diary (Farrar, Straus and
Giroux), maintained by Hans Keilson,
readers learn about a man in hiding
from the Nazis and living in a Dutch city.
The diary was discovered in 2011, after
Keilson died at the age of 101, and tells
about this author who wrote two novels,
Comedy in a Minor Key and The Death of
an Adversary. The diary is a document
of survival as well as moral and artistic
struggles.
• Alexander Rucki, the son of a
Holocaust survivor, uses a narrative
approach in this slim volume to tell
how his mother established a new
life in Australia. In A Story of Hope: A
Holocaust Story (Balboa Press), he also
profiles the life of L.L. Zamenof, who
suffered the loss of three children to
the Nazis and went on to promote the
development of Esperanto as a unifying
language.
• Dan Stone, professor of modern
history at Royal Holloway, University
of London, presents A Short History:
Concentration Camps (Oxford
University Press). Also the director of
the Holocaust Research Centre at the
university, he delves into the brutality
that has existed beyond the Holocaust
and started in the 20th century. Beyond
exploring the impact of the people who
suffered directly, the book delves into
lasting effects on consciousness and
identity.
• From Things Lost: Forgotten Letters
and the Legacy of the Holocaust
(Wayne State University Press) by Shirli
Gilbert tells about Rudolf Schwab, who
fled Germany at 1933 at the insistence
of a close friend who later joined the
Nazis. In South Africa and many years
later, Schwab resumes the relationship
through correspondence and unravels
an unlikely friendship.
• Hell’s Traces: One Murder, Two
Families, Thirty-Five Holocaust
Memorials (FSG) was written by Victor
Ripp more than seven decades after
his family’s migration to America from
Nazi-occupied Paris when he was only
an infant. At the same time Ripp’s family
left, his father’s side remained behind in
Europe, including his 3-year-old cousin
Alexandre, who was killed in Auschwitz
just two months later. In the book, Ripp
recounts a recent journey to visit more
than 30 of Europe’s Holocaust memori-
als in an effort to better understand
Alexandre’s — and his family’s — story.
• Laurence Rees, the writer and pro-
ducer of the BBC/PBS series World War
II: Behind Closed Doors, spent 25 years
meeting survivors and perpetrators of
the Third Reich and the Holocaust. The
Holocaust: A New History (PublicAffairs)
is his readable and compelling story of
how and why the Holocaust happened.

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June 29 • 2017

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MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

• Although he had only published
a single volume of poetry, Hayim
Nahman Bialik was considered the
National Hebrew Poet by the time he
was 28. In Hayim Nahman Bialik:
Poet of Hebrew (Yale University Press),
Avner Holtzman tells how the poet’s
deeply personal writings established a
profound link between the secular and
the traditional that would become par-
amount to a national Jewish identity in
the 20th century.
• Sheryl Sandberg, chief operat-
ing officer at Facebook, explains how
she adjusted to the death of her hus-
band in Option B: Facing Adversity,
Building Resilience, and Finding Joy
(Knopf ). Her cowriter, Adam Grant, a
Wharton psychology professor from
Michigan, offers research into finding
inner strength and enhances the per-
sonal revelations.
• Born in the Land of Israel around
the year 50 C.E., Rabbi Akiva is con-
sidered the greatest rabbi of his time
and one of the most important influ-
ences on Judaism as we know it today.
In Rabbi Akiva: Sage of the Talmud
(Yale University Press), award-winning
author Barry Holtz tells Rabbi Akiva’s
story of being raised in poverty,
unschooled in religious tradition and
learning the Torah as an adult.
• George Prochnik retraces the life
of Kabbalist scholar and self-described
“religious anarchist” Gershom Scholem
in Stranger in a Strange Land:
Searching for Gershom Scholem and
Jerusalem (Other Press). The journey
moves from Berlin to Israel and from
socialism to Zionism and has the
author exploring his own path. The
book raises questions about spiritual-
ity, exile and Israel.
• Emmy Award-winner Andy Cohen,
executive producer of the Real
Housewives franchise, has written two
New York Times bestsellers. His new
book, Superficial: More Adventures
from the Andy Cohen Diaries (Henry
Holt), picks up where The Andy Cohen
Diaries left off — featuring the bon

vivant days and nights of Cohen’s
bold-faced world of parties, behind-
the-scenes TV drama, gossip sessions,
celebrity encounters (and affronts)
plus a fair dose of touching introspec-
tion.
• The women who played cards
with Betsy Lerner’s mother were part
of her growing-up years. She didn’t
really know them well until she started
playing bridge herself. In The Bridge
Ladies: A Memoir (Harper Perennial),
the author tells about gaining insights
into others and cross-generational
relationships as she gains proficiency
in a game that comes to be a metaphor
for life.
• Russian émigré Irene Nemirovsky
built a brilliant career as a novelist
in 1930s Paris, breaking into a world
dominated by men. In 1942, while
working on her unpublished master-
piece, she was arrested as a “foreign
Jew” and deported to Auschwitz,
where she died, her husband follow-
ing soon after. Their two daughters
survived, though, and have worked
to bring their mother back to life.
In The Nemirovsky Question: The
Life, Death, and Legacy of a Jewish
Writer in 20th-Century France (Yale
University Press), author Susan Rubin
Suleiman discusses her reputation as a
self-hating Jew, her efforts to save her-
self from deportation, her conversion
to Catholicism and her hopes for Suite
Francaise, which her daughters had
published in 2004.
• The life and influence of Israel’s
first native-born prime minister is told
in Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader,
Statesman (Yale University Press).
Author Itamar Rabinovich served as
Israel’s ambassador to Washington
during the 1990s and was one of
Rabin’s closest aides during the Oslo
peace process. He provides new insight
into Rabin’s relationships with Bill
Clinton, King Hussein, Henry Kissinger
and more, illuminating his passions
and plans that shaped his tenure and
that followed his assassination.

