Camps Books

This memoir is a great and important work. Mishell was one of the few survivors of the Kovno ghetto, and if one wishes to learn about the destruction of Jews on Soviet territory, this is the book to read.

I really liked this book. The sleepover friends is a great series I recommend reading them all. In this book Kate, Lauren, Stephani and Patti go to Spirit Lake for a campout where all sorts of spooky things begin happen.

The stories from this book slowly enter your heart and mind.. and before you know it, you are traveling back to your old childhood, reliving old memories as these young kids have now experienced! The sweet and candid innocence of their words stir your emotions and remind you how gently the Lord works on young hearts, by and through the use of other young hearts! A read you'll remember and refer to time and again! I loved it!

If you're writing a paper on Japanese Internment Camps, this book is really good. It superbly defines the generation gap of Japanese-Americans during the 1940's. In addition, the foreward to this book is well-written and very helpful. This book helps show what happened to the Japanese during World War 2.

The Klausenberger Rebbe: The War Years is part 1 of a two-part inspirational biography of Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, the Klausenberger Rebbe. Rabbi Halberstam was one of millions of Jews who was captured by the Nazis and held in their most notorious concentration camps. Although nothing in Jewish law required him to strictly observe Jewish laws regarding the Sabbath, dietary laws, ritual hand washing and more, Rabbi Halberstam continued to observe every Biblical commandment allowing himself no exceptions despite torture, starvation and the loss of his entire family, in what turned out to be the ultimate defiance of the Nazi persecution. This book, a translation of Lapid HaEish by Aharon Surasky, describes those war years, how the Rebbe refused to be bowed to the will of the Nazis, inspired camp inmates to survive, and then, following liberation, took responsibility for the care and education of displaced children and the spiritual needs of all Jews. The Klausenberger's inspiring tale should be read by old and young alike. Part II of Judah Lifschitz's translation has recently been released (December 2007), and is called "The Klausenberger Rebbe: Rebuilding," which covers the Rebbe's post-war activities in which he built communities, schools and hospitals in the United States and Israel. Hopefully, it, too will be on Amazon.com shortly.

Kolyma, located across, and north of, the Bering Strait, was called the "Soviet Alaska". Gold was found in the surficial layers (for panning) as well as in deep mines. The similarity ends there. Inmates had to work in -50 C with inadequate clothing, food, etc., under conditions of avitominosis, beatings, rapes, endless lice and typhus, machine-gunning of rebels, and shootings of those who couldn't keep up with the arduous 12-16 hour-day labor.

Polish inmates kept alive through faith in the eventual survival of Poland, if not of themselves. (p. 96). "Then there were the Christians. These religious prisoners were the firmest and most unbreakable." (p. 93).

One method of coping was tufta, which recounted the later adage of "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work" under Communism. Examples of tufta (pp. 166-167) included the sawing off of the ends of old logs to make them look freshly-felled, and piling of a few logs on brush to resemble a large, solid, stack of logs. Sometimes, though, it backfired.

There has been a curious western silence about the Gulags. (p. 200). Also, Communist apologists have claimed that Gulag deaths were caused largely by passive negligence, Soviet-system inefficiencies, wartime disruptions and privations, etc. This is nonsense. To illustrate: "The dogs--wolfhounds--were a constant presence in Kolyma...Their rations were extremely good, better than that of the guards let alone the prisoners. Not only the dogs but also the horses enjoyed better conditions than the prisoners." (pp. 102-103).

Unlike most other nationalities, the Poles were nearly all relegated to the hardest labor (p. 96), with a predictable outcome: "In all, of 10,000-12,000 Poles sent to Kolyma in 1940-1941, 583 survived to return under the amnesty, between October 1941 and June 1942." (p. 219). Hardly anyone incarcerated earlier (1937-1938) was still alive in 1941. (p. 217).

Kolyma wasn't the worst. Some have argued that there was no Gulag equivalent to the Nazi death camps--no camps to which admission absolutely guaranteed death. In fact, there were: "...the lead mines of the Chukhotsk peninsula. These were operated without safety measures (at least in 1940-1941) and all prisoners eventually died of lead poisoning. This applied, for example, to 3,000 Poles sent there in August 1940, about whom no action had to be taken when the amnesty for Polish citizens came into force at the end of the following year, since none of them was left alive." (p. 110). Also: "There seem, indeed, to have been camps on the Arctic Islands of Nova Zemlya from which no one returned at all; but of these practically nothing is known, and they were certainly on a smaller scale. In Kolyma, millions died..." (pp. 13-14. The estimate, based largely on records of ship arrivals, is at least 3,000,000 Kolyma deaths in 1938-1953: pp. 227-228).

Robert Conquest's book KOLYMA:THE ARCITIC DEATH CAMPS is a well written history of the worst of the Soviet concentration camps. This book is not for the timid or weak minded. Yet Conquest's book is a solid antidote to the fawning nonsense that somehow the Soviet system was a benefit to the Russian people and Soviet citizens. This is a depressing, tragic account of "The Worker's Paradice," and is a shock to those who referred to Joseph Stalin as "Uncle Joe."

Readers should be aware that the Soviet mass murder concentration camps DID NOT originate with Joseph Stalin & co. As soon as the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, Lenin & co. had a record of political murder that was only enhanced by the Stalinoids. Lenin had more political murders than all of the 19th and early 20th century Czars combined. The brutality of the Soviet system was clear by 1919, and the only thing that Stalin did was greatly enhance political murder and terror. In other words, what Lenin started, Stalin greatly enhanced in the Soviet police state.

Conquest began his study of the Kolyma concentration camp by examining the "Gulag Archepelago" of concentration camps beginning in Western Siberia and extending to Kolyma in far Northeastern Siberia. The further east the camps were, the worse they were including Kolyma which was the worst of terrible concentration camp conditions.

The mere transport of prisoners to Kolyma was a terrifying experience. The Soviet police had to send prisoners by ship into the Nothern Pacific Ocean and Artic Ocean. If prisoners protested their terrible conditions on board these ships, they would be sprayed with ocean water in frigid conditions. The lack of food, space, sanitation conditions, etc. insured that many prisoners died en route to a slow death of over work and starvation diets.

Conquest did a good job in explaining the catagories of prisoners. Violent prisoners and those who were predators faired best. Conquest reported that violent offenders could not be executed because the Soviets abolished capital punishment for homicide prisoners. Yet, political dissenters and those who were suspected of not adhering to the party line could be executed (murdered) under Soviet "law." Needless to say the violent criminals ran the camps among prison groups.

Conquest's history of Kolyma is interesting. Prior to 1937, prisoners got adequet food and clothing. The Soviet authorities wanted to exploit the fold reserves in this area, and properly fed and clothed prisoners would obviously be more productive. Howeverin 1937, this policy changed. The Soviet authorities wanted the prisoners to die of famine, exhaustion, and poor conditions. Rations were curtailed. In fact, there were just enough supplies for men and women to barely exist, and the concentration camp guards made sure they themselves were fed and provided before the prisoners were. There is an interesting anecdote whereby in bitter cold weather, inmates would be told to drop the wood in their coats before entering the camps to sleep. The inmates would only discard part of the wood for heating fuel which the guards used. The guards knew full well the inmates did not surrender all the wood they had, and the operation was just a police state formality.

The casuality rates in the Soviet concentration camps were appalingly high. Serious estimates are that possibly over 20 million Soviet citizens died in these camps, and over one-tenth of the Soviet citizens were sent to these camps to be literally worked to death. The death rate at Kolyma was by far the worst. Over 80-90 percent of the inmates died. The Soviets sent over 12,000 Polish prisoners to Kolyma, and only 600 survived. Readers can do the math.

A good companion volume is Robert Conquest's book titled HARVEST OF SORROW. The reviewer who uses the name Prometheus Zossimos wrote an impressive review of this book which readers should examine. For those of The Eastern Establishment who still cling to "leftest" ideologies, these books are a shock, but they are an important lesson when men profess heaven on earth.

While KOLYMA: THE ARCTIC DEATH CAMPS is just the history of one remote Soviet concentration camp, the book is an excellent guide of results of unbridled power and blind submission to authority. During the Yalta Conference in 1945, Stalin boasted that his crushing of the Kulaks between 1928 and 1933 resulted in 17 million deaths. Someone should have had the effrontery to ask what the death rate was at Kolyma.

I just finished reading Lady Legend and I loved it. The main characters in the book Copper and Tucker are great together even though they are totally different. I never read any of Deborah Camp's books before, but after reading this one I'm looking for more.

This is just a quick history of one of Colorado's great old mining towns - also home to the famous cannibal Alfred Packer ("there were only 4 Democrats in this county, and you, you SOB, ate 3 of them" - the Judge). Complete with wonderful old churches, Victorian style homes, fishing, camping, and great restaurants and people, Lake City is a must-see when touring Colorado. It's one of my favorite places on the planet.

If you enjoy camping or boating, this will be one of the most useful books you can own. This is a book about the camping areas available in the U.S. Corp. of Engineers Parks. It is arranged by state and has a statewide map showing the location of lakes for each state. For each lake it then lists campgrounds with amenities available and also gives phone numbers for contacting personnel. For those who are 62 and over and hold a Golden Age passport, camping is half price in these parks. Unfortunately, this book covers only the western states. I am now in search of volume 2 and hope that it is available.