Download or read book Blind Jump The Story of Shaike Dan written by Amos Ettinger and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2023-12-26 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaike Dan was one of thirty-two Jews from Palestine who volunteered to parachute behind enemy lines in Romania on behalf of British Intelligence during World War II. Some of them parachuted into Yugoslavia, linked up with partisan forces, and stole across frontiers with the help of local smugglers. Many of these volunteers were caught and some of them never returned. Shaike Dan decided on a “blind jump,” so as not to depend on smugglers. Ever since that first jump, Shaike Dan’s life has been a series of “blind jumps.” Through the friends he made during the war, who over the years became key figures in the security services of Eastern European countries, he had access to the highest levels of those Communist regimes. Thus began his remarkable career of rescuing Jews from behind the Iron Curtain, and shipping weapons clandestinely to the new State of Israel. “This is the story of the amazing exploits of Shaike Dan, who volunteered during World War II to parachute behind enemy lines in Romania on behalf of British Intelligence. His jump had two objectives: (1) to locate the prison camp where 1,400 Allied Air Force crewmen were being held and (2) to try rescuing Jews from Eastern Europe and getting them to Palestine. With the publication of his life’s story, the curtain goes up on the astounding tale of a modern-day Pimpernel.” — Menorah Review “In 1935, youthful Zionist Shaike Dan left his Romanian village for life on a Palestinian kibbutz. Almost a decade later, at British request, he parachuted behind Nazi lines to rescue prisoners and facilitate the mass departure of East European Jews for the Promised Land. Relying primarily on Dan’s own words and recollections, the author then turns to post-war Israel, where his subject’s contacts, chutzpah, and organizational legerdemain became crucial in supplying the emerging nation with both population and weaponry.” — Mark R. Yerburgh, Library Journal

Download or read book The Ransom of the Jews written by Radu Ioanid and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 1948, the 370,000 Jews of Romania who survived the Holocaust became one of the main sources of immigration for the new state of Israel as almost all left their homeland to settle in Palestine and Israel. Romania's decision to allow its Jews to leave was baldly practical: Israel paid for them, and Romania wanted influence in the Middle East. For its part, Israel was rescuing a community threatened by economic and cultural extinction and at the same time strengthening itself with a massive infusion of new immigrants. Radu Ioanid traces the secret history of the longest and most expensive ransom arrangement in recent times, a hidden exchange that lasted until the fall of the Communist regime. Including a wealth of recently declassified documents from the archives of the Romanian secret police, this updated edition follows Israel’s long and expensive ransom arrangement with Communist Romania. Ioanid uncovers the elaborate mechanisms that made it successful for decades, the shadowy figures responsible, and the secret channels of communication and payment. As suspenseful as a Cold-War thriller, his book tells the full, startling story of an unprecedented slave trade.

Download or read book A Village by the Jordan The Story of Degania written by Joseph Baratz and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-05-19 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly readable first-person account “we learn the history of Kibbutz Degania from one of its first members, beginning in 1911, when there were only 12, and through its growth as a community and center of agriculture, its joys and its difficulties. It’s an attractive, interesting read... featuring such major figures as Trumpeldor, Arthur Ruppin, and A. D. Gordon... through the years of the British Mandate, the Second World War, the Jewish Brigade, the War of Independence and after... The author is nostalgic for the past with its ideals, its extraordinary atmosphere, austere customs, poverty and warm collegiality... This is a book that deserves to be read and pondered.” — Dante Lattes, La Rassegna Mensile di Israel “A Village by the Jordan: The Story of Degania tells the story of the first collective village, founded at the beginning of the present century. The authenticity of this account is enhanced by the fact that its author, Joseph Baratz, was one of the founders of the village and has continued to play a major part in its development from a precarious border settlement of twelve young men and women into a prosperous community of over a thousand souls. The story is one of human endurance, hope and despair, toil and struggle, failure and final success. Its pages testify to the determined dedication of its members to create a just and meaningful life for themselves and others. The author tells his story with a spontaneity and simplicity that mark any truly creative experience. Baratz refrains from idealizing and embellishing; he shows throughout a sense of historical perspective and presents events and personalities in their proper light. He never resorts to wishful interpretation; the significance of what he relates becomes evident by dint of the momentum inherent in the story, which thus assumes the additional importance of an authentic historical document... A Village by the Jordan is indeed both enlightening and inspiring.” — Shaoul Hareli, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore

Download or read book Every Spy A Prince The Complete History of Israel s Intelligence Community written by Dan Raviv and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-01-15 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the New York Times Best Seller list for 12 weeks (August 12-October 28, 1990) “This is a comprehensive history of Israel’s security establishment. The authors celebrate successes like Eichmann’s capture, but far more interestingly, they do not shy away from examining the security services’ failures... the book is riveting because Israel’s early intelligence feats still resonate in today’s world... the book makes valuable reading for anyone interested in Israel’s world-wide plans to deal with matters affecting its security.” — Wall Street Journal “The authors... obviously found enough talkative sources... to provide them with the remarkable case histories they describe here. Even though some of the Israeli operatives sound boastful, the book is not propaganda or disinformation. While it is filled with many examples of how Mossad pulled off major coups, the authors are at pains to point out that the Israelis sometimes goofed... The authors flesh out stories that once made headlines with fresh material. Not all the Israeli intelligence triumphs involved violence. The Israelis managed to outrun the C.I.A. and all of Western Europe’s spy agencies in getting their hands on a copy of Nikita S. Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956 to a special Communist Party Congress in Moscow that exposed the horrors of the Stalin era... The story of the 1960 capture in Buenos Aires of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal, by Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, is lovingly re-created. A high point of Israeli intelligence came in 1967, during the Six-Day War, when foreknowledge of enemy positions and abilities paved the way for a rapid victory. The astonishing rescue in 1976 by army commandos of hijacked passengers from Entebbe airport in distant Uganda gained added respect for Israel in the Western world. Against the triumphs, the authors balance these failures: Mossad’s misjudgments in Lebanon, Shin Bet’s killings of Arab terrorists in captivity, and the involvement of Israel in the disarray of Irangate. In addition, double agents were used in Britain and caught there; an American, Jonathan Pollard, was encouraged to spy and sell military secrets to Israel, and faulty intelligence resulted in ‘misleading the Government over the future of the occupied territories, just as a Palestinian uprising was beginning.’... [a] highly revealing book.” — New York Times “Everything you wanted to know about Israel’s spies and secret services — but were afraid to discover. This comprehensive history and analysis of the Israeli intelligence community offers many original insights into the secret psyche of the Jewish State... The book presents new information on some of Israel’s greatest intelligence coups and failures.” — Kirkus “Basing their work on interviews with former operatives and on declassified documents, CBS news correspondent Raviv and Israeli journalist Melman here produced a revealing critical history of the rise and decline of Israel’s vaunted security and intelligence arm.“ — Publishers Weekly “[A] detailed history of Israel’s intelligence agencies.“ — Washington Post “Every Spy a Prince is by far the best book ever published on Israel’s intelligence community, filled with new and fascinating information, skillfully and intelligently written and, above all, bold and judicious in its assessments of the triumphs and failures of one of the most remarkable espionage organizations in the world.” — San Francisco Chronicle “A highly readable, well-organized portrait of the main Israeli intelligence services .. . . Every Spy a Prince is a valuable, balanced addition to the mushrooming literature about the world’s second oldest profession.” — Newsday

Download or read book The Agency The Rise and Decline of the CIA Book One written by John Ranelagh and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-08-08 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2000 the Washington Post listed The Agency as one of the ten best books on Intelligence in the twentieth century, calling it “An encyclopedic and fair-minded overview of the agency into the 1980s.” A history of the CIA from its intrepid early days to becoming a mature bureaucracy riddled with scandal and scrutiny. During World War II “Wild Bill” Donovan started the Office of Special Services (OSS) and gave the CIA its original image: dashing, Ivy League, and Eastern Establishment. Successive CIA Directors covered in the book were Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby and William Casey. “The Agency is the first comprehensive history of the CIA, a book designed, in its author’s words, to get away from ‘contemporary demonology’ and to place the CIA firmly within the context of its time... a dazzling, panoramic overview of the CIA’s history. [Ranelagh] mixes keen insights into the organization and the people who ran it with superb accounts of specific crises and operations. This brilliant book is so rich both in detail and generalization that even a reader unfamiliar with the history of the CIA will find it hard to put down... the book pursues many... themes, such as organizational changes within the agency and shifts in its sense of mission, its relationship with presidents and their advisers and other intelligence agencies, the history of specific projects and operations, and the general mood within both the CIA and the government and nation at large. The result is a complex tapestry, full of new information and fresh generalizations.” — Reviews in American History “A massive history of the CIA... Ranelagh... has a good feel for the murky world of intelligence, and has constructed quite a readable work... [he] conducted scores of interviews with insiders and studied more than 7,000 pages of classified and formerly classified documents... Great reading and a valuable reference for students of government bureaucracy and intelligence work.” — Kirkus “Ranelagh... provides here a major overview of the Central Intelligence Agency from its founding in 1947 to [1987]. Based largely on hundreds of interviews, the book examines the personality and policies of each director in the context of the times.” — Publishers Weekly “[A] comprehensive examination of the CIA... Unlike most books on the nearly 40-year-old spy organization, The Agency is not a diary of old war stories or a flashy expose; it is a thoughtful analysis of the CIA from gestation to middle age... An important difference between The Agency and many other scholarly treatments of intelligence gathering is the extensive use of quotes from both on-the-record and unattributed sources, as well as documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.” — The New York Times “A thoughtful analysis of the CIA from its beginnings, arguing that dependence on technology has crippled American intelligence.” — The New York Times “Mr. Ranelagh, a British television producer, has written the best comprehensive history of the CIA. He is in control of the massive secondary literature, has used the Freedom of Information Act effectively, interviewed widely, and mined congressional sources. The tone is critical but detached, devoid of both the muckraking passion of the left and the self-congratulatory approach of the old-boy network. A fine book.” — Foreign Affairs “The Agency is without a doubt the finest, best-documented, and most entertainingly written study of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of which I know. It traces the agency from its first gleam in the eye of Wild Bill Donavan through the first term of William Casey on behalf of President Reagan... a genuine literary and stylistic accomplishment.” — Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Download or read book A History of the Israeli Army 1874 to the Present written by Ze'ev Schiff and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-05-23 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “It is virtually impossible to understand Israel or the Middle East without understanding Israel’s military history and its security needs. There are many books that attempt to provide such a history, but Ze’ev Schiff’s concise History of the Israeli Army is unquestionably the most successful... he writes with great objectivity and probes issues that most Israeli military writers prefer to dodge... Mr. Schiff’s ability to come to grips with the fact that both Israel and the Arab states bordering it used tactics the other side regards as terrorism, and continue to use them, is matched by his skill in summarizing the causes, course and outcome of the large-scale Arab-Israeli conflicts in 1956, 1967 and 1973 and the war of attrition in 1969-70. Mr. Schiff provides an excellent summary of the political and military forces that shaped Israel’s behavior in each war. He neither justifies nor excuses Israel’s behavior, and he does not justify or excuse Israel’s motives and goals — he is content to explain them. He also explains the factors that shaped Arab behavior and gives the causes of Arab defeats without editorializing... Mr. Schiff avoids technical issues, tactics and the details of battles; he focuses on the main flow of events. He provides a short history of the major events shaping Israel’s military forces and strategy before and during each war. His descriptions of military events flow naturally out of his accounts of political motives and strategy. His chapter on doctrine ties together the histories of the different conflicts, and it should be read by anyone who feels Israel somehow has caused most of its wars... His chapter on the 1982 war in Lebanon is the most incisive reporting yet done on that event, a model of how good defense reporting can be when it looks beyond the day-to-day flow of events and searches out the underlying pattern of military conflict and its causes. Mr. Schiff presents the war as one in which Mr. Sharon, then Israel’s Minister of Defense, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory... Mr. Schiff’s treatment of Mr. Sharon and the P.L.O.’s high command is devastating; it adds up to one of the best arguments against violence as a solution to the problems of the Middle East ever written... In short, Mr. Schiff has written a history that any historian or political or military analyst must envy.” — The New York Times “[A] story concisely and clearly told. Schiff’s ability to deal with Israeli military matters accurately and analytically... is in evidence as usual... This is a good introduction to the subject and well written.” — Middle East Journal “[I]f one does not have a basic book on the Israeli Army, this is one of the best.” — Military Affairs

Download or read book Arrows in the Dark Volumes 1 and 2 written by Tuvia Friling and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2005-07-25 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arrows in the Dark recounts and analyzes the many efforts of aid and rescue made by the Jewish community of Palestine—the Yishuv—to provide assistance to European Jews facing annihilation by the Nazis. Tuvia Friling provides a detailed account of the activities carried out at the behest of David Ben-Gurion and the Yishuv leadership, from daring attempts to extract Jews from Nazi-occupied territory, to proposals for direct negotiations with the Nazis. Through its rich array of detail and primary documentation, this book shows the wide scope and complexity of Yishuv activity at this time, refuting the idea that Ben-Gurion and the Yishuv ignored the plight of European Jews during the Holocaust.

Download or read book The People on the Beach written by Rosie Whitehouse and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One summer's night in 1946, over 1,000 European Jews waited silently on an Italian beach to board a secret ship. They had survived Auschwitz, hidden and fought in forests and endured death marches--now they were taking on the Royal Navy, running the British blockade of Palestine. From Eastern Europe to Israel via Germany and Italy, Rosie Whitehouse follows in the footsteps of those secret passengers, uncovering their extraordinary stories--some told for the first time. Who were those people on the beach? Where and what had they come from, and how had they survived? Why, after being liberated, did so many Jews still feel unsafe in Europe? How do we--and don't we--remember the Holocaust today? This remarkable, important book digs deep and travels far in search of answers.

Download or read book Remembering Forgetting and City Builders written by Haim Yacobi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remembering, Forgetting and City Builders critically explores how urban spaces are designed, planned and experienced in relation to the politics of collective and personal memory construction. Bringing together case studies from North America, South Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, the book analyzes how contested national, ethnic and cultural sentiments clash in planning and experiencing urban spaces. Going beyond the claim that such situations exist in many parts of the world because communities construct their 'past memories' within their current daily life and future aspirations, the book explores how the very acts of planning and urban design are rooted in the existing structures of hegemonic power. With contributors from the fields of architecture, geography, planning, anthropology and sociology, urban studies and cultural studies, the book provides a rich, interdisciplinary view into the conflicts over memory and belonging which are spatially expressed and mediated through the official planning apparatus.

Download or read book The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics written by Fred A. Lazin and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2005-04-19 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until 1989 most Soviet Jews wanting to immigrate to the United States left on visas for Israel via Vienna. In Vienna, with the assistance of American aid organizations, thousands of Soviet Jews transferred to Rome and applied for refugee entry into the United States. The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics examines the conflict between the Israeli government and the organized American Jewish community over the final destination of Soviet Jewish ZmigrZs between 1967 and 1989. A generation after the Holocaust, a battle surrounded the thousands of Soviet Jewish ZmigrZs fleeing persecution by choosing to resettle in the United States instead of Israel. Exploring the changing ethnic identity and politics of the United States, Fred A. Lazin engages history, ethical dilemma, and diplomacy to uncover the events surrounding this conflict. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of public policy, immigration studies, and Jewish history.

Download or read book The Making of Israel s Army written by Yigal Allon and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-07-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Allon recounts the growth of the Israeli army from its inception in the 1880’s, when Jewish communities in Palestine formed their first small self-defence groups, through the Haganah’s clandestine period in the 1920’s and 30’s and the fighting after 1945 when army and state together achieved legality, to the Sinai Campaign of 1956 and the Six-Day War in June 1967 when the army reached maturity... His precise, economical narrative, interspersed with brief passages of analysis, is supplemented by extensive documentation, which is especially interesting in the way it traces the development of attitudes and doctrine in the Israeli forces. The work is a valuable contribution... It tells us a great deal about the organization, in its various stages, that fought the wars, and helps explain why these assumed the forms that they did, and why they succeeded... a study that is more than a history of a military organization.” — Middle Eastern Studies “Allon has contributed an extended essay concerned with the Israeli Government’s military philosophy, policy, and strategy rather than an administrative and technical history... half the book contains several important reports and policy statements, not easily available in English, describing military actions undertaken between 1941 and 1967. Allon... was an important contributor to the development of the Israeli Defense Forces... a rather breathtaking sweep in which hardly a word is wasted.” — The American Political Science Review “Allon seeks to explain in concise format, the development of Israel’s military doctrines of defense. The author... was former Palmach commander, one of the architects of the IDF, and a commander of various military units and on several battlefronts during Israel’s War of Independence.” — Middle East Journal “The development of Israel’s armed forces and military doctrine in the context of that country’s unique strategic needs... Especially interesting are the criticisms of some of [the Israeli] government’s decisions taken just before and during the Six Day War.” — Foreign Affairs “[A]n account, authoritative in content, modest in tone, of the growth and character of the Israeli army by one of its principal creators and leaders.” — International Affairs “Allon... gives a short historical and technical account of the evolution of an Israeli fighting capability over the past 70 years. The exploits of this army are significant and should be analyzed... No less interesting are the book’s descriptions of individual actions by participants in the first and second of Israel’s wars... The value of the book stems partly from a continuity of perspective on Israel’s strategic problems from 1948 to August, 1969... [a] useful book.” — Military Affairs

Download or read book Nazi Secret Warfare in Occupied Persia Iran written by Adrian O'Sullivan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full-length work to be published about the spectacular failure of the German intelligence services in Persia (Iran) during WWII. Based on archival research it analyzes a compelling history of Nazi planning, operations, personalities, and intrigues, and follows the protagonists from Hitler's rise to power into the postwar era.

Download or read book Spies in the Promised Land Isser Harel and the Israeli Secret Service written by Michael Bar-Zohar and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-02-13 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For 15 years the name of Isser Harel, the man in charge of all the intelligence branches of Israel, was top secret in Israel. Even when he resigned from office in March 1963 his name and picture remained undisclosed. Only in 1965, when he was appointed special adviser on intelligence and security to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, were his name and picture revealed. But most of his past feats were still kept secret, even when stories about underground activities, the capture of a spy, or a mission abroad were disclosed. Alan Dulles, head of the CIA, declared at the time, “the Israeli services are the best in the world”. For what operations did the Israeli services deserve such credit? What was their modus operandi? How had they been established and developed? How did they conceive rules of ethics and morality? These questions and many more are answered in this book, which reveals the life story and operations of Isser Harel, whom David Ben-Gurion called “the guardian of Israel’s secrets and honor”.

Download or read book For Jerusalem A Life written by Teddy Kollek and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-01-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The affectionate and enthusiastic memoirs of the Israeli politician, and, since 1965, mayor of Jerusalem.“ — The New York Times Selection of the Best Books of 1978 “Mayor Teddy Kollek’s relation to Jerusalem is not merely that of an elected official to his community; not only that of a Jew the city of his fathers. The connection is intensely symbiotic. Jerusalem without Teddy is as inconceivable as Israel itself would be without Jerusalem. The high‐energy brightness with which he sparkles is the result of this symbiosis... His auburn hair works, heavy and winglike, as he hurries about the city. You see him everywhere. His record is one of construction, reconciliation, improvement. He deals justly, he is enlightened and he does good left and right. Such is the image. Such is, to an extent to be more exactly defined, also the fact. His autobiography, written with the assistance of his capable son, Amos, is called, For Jerusalem: A Life. The title tells it all; life and Jerusalem are for Teddy inseparable.“ — Saul Bellow, The New York Times

Download or read book Lioness written by Francine Klagsbrun and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award/Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year, this is the definitive biography of the iron-willed leader, chain-smoking political operative, and tea-and-cake serving grandmother who became the fourth prime minister of Israel. Born in tsarist Russia in 1898. Golda Meir immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee. where from the earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation. Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life. A series of public service jobs brought her to the attention of David Ben-Gurion, and her political career took off. Fund-raising in America in 1948, secretly meeting in Amman with King Abdullah right before Israel's declaration of independence, mobbed by thousands of Jews in a Moscow synagogue in 1948 as Israel's first representative to the USSR, serving as minister of labor and foreign minister in the 1950s and 1960s, Golda brought fiery oratory, plainspoken appeals, and shrewd-making to the cause to which she had dedicated her life—the welfare and security of the State of Israel and its people. As prime minister, Golda negotiated arms agreements with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and had dozens of clandestine meetings with Jordan's King Hussein in the unsuccessful pursuit of a land-for-peace agreement with Israel's neighbors. But her time in office ended in tragedy, when Israel was caught off guard by Egypt and Syria's surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973. Resigning in the war's aftermath, Golda spent her final years keeping a hand in national affairs and bemusedly enjoying international acclaim. Francine Klagsbrun's superbly researched and masterly recounted story of Israel's founding mother gives us a Golda for the ages.

Download or read book Justice Not Vengeance Recollections written by Simon Wiesenthal and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-09-05 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The beloved and reviled ‘Nazi hunter’ pens his life story, and a riveting one it is. Born in Galicia, one of the most war-ravaged territories in the world, he miraculously survived World War II, with more than one hair’s-breadth escape. Since that time he has been occupied mainly with tracking down Nazi war criminals who have gone into hiding and in pushing, through publicity, reluctant German and Austrian officials to bring war criminals to justice... the book consists of mainly... a miscellany of cases and questions that have engaged the 81-year-old Mr. Wiesenthal, who has lived in Vienna since the war, through the course of his unique career. Above all, it contains the story of how, after 12 years of tracking him down, he was able to point his finger at Adolf Eichmann, then living pseudonymously in Argentina, so that the Israelis could kidnap him for trial and eventual execution. But, apart from successes such as this one, Mr. Wiesenthal’s book contains histories of Nazi war criminals whose whereabouts have not yet been discovered or who have remained unattainable in spite of his efforts... this book may best be described as a companion volume, or even as a supplement, to Mr. Wiesenthal’s classic 1967 work, The Murderers Among Us... Mr. Wiesenthal’s recollections do not involve evil men alone. There is a chapter on the late Andrei Sakharov, praising him and describing the author’s efforts on his behalf, and there is one on Raoul Wallenberg, who was arrested by the victorious Soviets in February 1945 after his heroic efforts the previous year had succeeded in saving the lives of tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest. Since then, Mr. Wallenberg’s whereabouts have remained a mystery... In all, this book provides a sense of a formidable presence, of a force larger than life that seems equal to an enormous task it has taken on.” — The New York Times “Simon Wiesenthal, who has devoted his life to hunting down Nazis, believes that ‘guilt cannot be forgiven but only paid for by expiation.’ In his memoirs, which created a furor when they were published in Austria (where he now lives) in 1988, Wiesenthal explores the lack of remorse among former Austrian Nazis in the larger context of that country’s approach to its past. This is not an autobiography in the strict sense — those wishing a fuller account of his life should turn to The Murderers Among Us (1967); rather, Wiesenthal shows here how his own pursuit of war criminals came to be entangled in the net of Austrian politics. Appropriately, Justice Not Vengeance reaches its climax in a narrative of his battles with the late Austrian chancellor, Bruno Kreisky... In these absorbing memoirs, Wiesenthal goes some way toward counting up the cost, to Austria itself, of its ongoing destructive attempt to suppress and to deny its past.” — Commentary Magazine “The Nazi hunter’s life and raison d’être are eloquently encapsulated by this autobiography — and its title. The book opens with a biographical sketch by Peter Lingens, an Austrian journalist who provides background on Wiesenthal’s life up until the sleuth’s second escape from death shortly before liberation... the final testament of a major 20th-century figure, seeking vindication from any image of vindictiveness.” — Kirkus “Renowned Nazi-hunter Wiesenthal recalls his escapes from death in concentration camps where his family perished, and his career tracking down war criminals. The shattering account, as riveting as a spy yarn, concerns his ruthless global pursuit of hundreds of murderers and collaborators, including Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Mengele and the SS officer who arrested Anne Frank.” — Publishers Weekly “This is a fascinating book for more reasons than one... The details of the numerous cases in the book read truly like detective stories.” — International Journal on World Peace

Download or read book When Angels Fooled the World Rescuers of Jews in Wartime Hungary written by Charles Fenyvesi and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-04-14 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is a beautiful book in many ways. Beautiful not only for its writing but also for its portrayal of decent, heroic gentiles during the Holocaust. I defy anyone reading this account of angels under the German occupation not to shed tears by the end of the book — beneficent tears of hope, joy and gratitude. When Angels Fooled the World tells of five individuals: Raoul Wallenberg, a Lutheran pastor, a janitor, a woman who worked in a municipal birth registry, and a journalist who happened to be the author’s uncle by marriage. All dared to go against the prevailing Nazi German policy and saved Jews from deportation and death... a unique blend of passionate engagement and clear, level-headed analysis of the crucial months in 1944 when the Germans and their Hungarian Arrow Cross supporters ruled the land. The book’s lambent prose, as well as its mixture of memoir and broad sweep of Hungarian-Jewish ambience and history, enhance its fascination and appeal.” — Sun Sentinel “This captivating writing by a noted Hungarian-American author and journal editor, himself a Holocaust survivor, focuses on Hungary during the Holocaust period and the outstanding courage of a group of Righteous Gentiles (viewed as “angels” of salvation) including, among others, the well-known Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews with exit passports; a civil servant woman who provided Jews with certificates that they were Christians; and a Lutheran priest who saved Jewish children in a Christian orphanage. The book is based on historical facts, anecdotes, interviews, and the author’s family experiences and tribulations. Family photos and a relevant bibliography enhance this interesting volume.” — Multicultural Review