Camps Books

Philip Mechanicus uses his journalist's powers of observation to paint a painfully real portrait of life for people who were so soon to be robbed of theirs. I do wish he had written more about himself, his personal torment as he watched his friends deported week after week, but the book is nonetheless an exceptional account. So many voices were lost to history during the Holocaust; Philip Mechanicus brings those voices back to us in his diary. You must read this book, if you have any interest in the Holocaust.

THIS BOOK IS VERY INFORMITIVE,YET SIMPLE.THE PRINCIPALS OF BEING STRONG IN GRACE,HUMBLE,STAYING YOUR MIND ON GOD AND ACCEPTING THAT HE WORKS WITHIN YOU HAS HELPED ME GREATLY IN MY WALK WITH GOD.

I am a newly called camp director who has never been to a girls camp before, I have gotten all three books and now feel like I can do the job. Volume 1 gave me the basics and Volumes 2 and 3 made it easier to know what to do and had many ideas on how to do everything!! Thank you Vickie!

I am a newly called camp director who has never been to a girls camp before, I have gotten all three books and now feel like I can do the job. Volume 1 gave me the basics and Volumes 2 and 3 made it easier to know what to do and had many ideas on how to do everything!! Thank you Vickie!

Youth in European Labor Camps
A Report to the American Youth Commission of the American Council of Education - by Kenneth Holland

As an American Field Service Fellow, Mr. Holland spent 18 months in Europe in 1931-32. He again visited and worked in European camps in the summers of 1933 and 1936. When the educational program was organized in the Civilian Conservation Corps, he was one of the first corps area educational advisers.

This book, tracing the growth and [the then] present status of work camps abroad, should be of real value to all who are concerned with the social, educational, and political significance of the camps in this country. The CCC has naturally been influenced by the prior development of work camps in many European countries.

The author visited, and in some cases worked in, labor camps in the U.S., Germany (both before Hitler and after), Denmark, Sweden, England, Wales, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Holland.

Illustrated with a large number of B&W photographs. First printed July, 1939.

This book is amazing! All you need to know about camping and youth is in this book. It has information on just about every aspect possible for camping with youth, from camping with a youth group to being a part of a summer camp. Not only does Bob share his wealth of knowledge about camping, but also how amazing an oppotunity it is to share Christ in the camping atmosphere. It's got great instruction as well as plenty of ideas and resources you can use. If you are looking for an great resource for camp and youth and how to make it work well, get this book! Cho boy!

I gave this book to my grandson and he loved it!! Kaster's use of enhanched photography catches the readers eye and makes each page a special event. A must have book for any child interested in horses.

If you haven't read this book then you must read it. I have nothing else to say about it than that. The feelings and emotions this book stirred within me are too great to put into words. At the end of the book there is a speech given by Elie Wiesel and there were two phrases that jumped out at me and that's what I will finish with.

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.

Man's inhumanity to man from one who survived it.

As Mr. Wiesel notes in the introduction of his book, words can not--do not--describe what it was like--must have been like--to endure man's inhumanity to man. We in this day and time can't imagine, can't begin to fathom, what Mr. Wiesel's words try to describe.

The Holocaust, combined with the Russian Army's treatment of German women and with Japanese treatment of the Chinese surely must mark one of the darkest, most despicable times of man upon the earth.

Where, in deed, was God?

Yet, because we are still here--the Director did not come on stage and stop the play to use C.S. Lewis' imagery--there is still hope. God has not yet given up on man, but sometimes we wonder--at times like Mr. Wiesel describes--why He hasn't. He must see something, some possibility in man that we don't always see ourselves--and sometimes try very hard to hide and overcome.

Mr. Wiesel's Nobel Prize acceptance, coming as it does, at the end of the book, is one of the most powerful statements ever made about man's responsibility--about our individual responsibility--to stand up for those who need our help and support.

Abraham Lincoln may have said it best in his Gettysburg Address, "...That these dead have not died in vain...."

Mr. Wiesel's work speaks powerfully toward that end.

This novel to me portrays the absolute depravity and madness that humanity can fall into. The beginning superbly portrays the false hope that many people had that this situation would just blow over until it was too late despite the warnings from many people that it was just beginning. The language is so heart-rending and drips with rhetoric and deep meaning that sears the soul. The authors portrayal of his loss of faith and soul is so beautiful and yet so devastating in it's simple clarity that I felt I was there with him losing my mind. The deaths of those around him and the way he explains it makes me feel like their deaths weren't in vain and are left unsullied by his beautiful words. There is only one thing I would wish for this novel and that would be for it to be longer...I was left wanting to hear more about what happened.

I liked this book but its sad. I got this book because I like history and wanted to know more about what happened in WWII.

I've never read such a short book with such a huge impact. When I read this as part of a college class, we learned that it was originally some 600 pages long. Then the author decided to cut it down to the absolute bare bones - and it worked brilliantly.

Too much writing could cushion the devastation - getting bogged down in details could allow a reader to become jaded. However, such stark minimalism forces a reader to think about what is being said. And significantly, Wiesel doesn't describe every horror. He leads us to the brink, and lets the reader imagine the next step. Rather like watching a horror movie and seeing a character walk into the dark without seeing what happens to them. Just as many Jewish families had to do during this time, when loved ones were taken away never to return. The intentionally large gaps between some of the paragraphs faithfully evoke the silence the author needs to convey so a reader must contemplate what has passed.

Much like "The Color Purple" evoked the reality of blacks in that time with the deceptively simple diary of one young black woman, "Night" reveals the tangible horror the Jews faced around WWII from the eyes of a Jewish boy. I have seen the film version of The Color Purple, and also Schindler's List. Both are strong films, but they lack the power of this simple narrative. The best book I have ever read about the tragedy of the Holocaust.

As a former resident of California, I was often shocked on how the locals treated the Mexicans. After working all day, some were paid virtually nothing, and some were actually paid nothing. And because they couldn't complain to the government they were just "out of luck." This book addresses that very issue, if only dealing with the white "oakies." The point of this novel makes about migrant workers is just as valid today as it was 80 whatever years ago.
Steinbecks writing is occasionally criticized, but I cannot figure out why. Steinbeck takes a quasi-journalistic approach to his writing, flawlessly fusing fiction and reporting throughout the writing. This is a book that is simultaneously interesting and informative. Its like a newspaper thats also entertaining. The writing is very fluid, and despite the novels length (my edition was over 600 pgs) its actually not a boring, slow read. The characters are well developed and interesting, if in some cases a tad unbelievable.
A great novel. The only people that probably object are middle and upper class conservatives that can't accept that anyone should be able to speak out against those less fortunate than themselves

One of the greatest American novels written. Period. I read it about three years ago and whenever I see this book in stores the feelings and images I had while reading Grapes come flooding back to me. Read this book! You may, like me, be slightly disappointed with the ending, but you will not be disappointed that you took the time to read Grapes of Wrath.

Wonderfully written...powerfully gripping...100% the best of Steinbeck. I have only recently started reading the "classics" and this was the best by far. After finishing "The Grapes of Wrath," "Of Mice and Men" and now reading "East of Eden," I have to say that Steinbeck is arguably the best American lit writer ever published.

I read Grapes of Wrath in my late teens, and just didn't get what all of the fanfare was about. I liked the characters, but I didn't fully appreciate what Steinbeck was trying to do.

Flash forward a few decades -- I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago, and read it in two sittings. I was completely captivated. Not only did the Joads come to life, but their circumstances, their defeats and their successes, resonated with realism. Rather than being relegated to the dusty "classics" shelf, this book is more relevant today. One can easily replace the Joads with immigrant farm workers in our current society, and get a glimpse of exactly how things don't change. Steinbeck nailed human frailty and bigotry, as well as the largess of the human spirit.

Read this book. Even if you walk away thinking, "What a bunch of lefty crud!" it will be worth your while. The story is heart-warming (and sometimes heartrending), and very real.

Lin Bentolila, a dear friend, gave me this book for my birthday 08 and I finally finished it and also saw the DVD movie version. Both gave me a rare view into a time in America that I knew little about. Published in 1939, the Grapes of Wrath is about the brutal and sad time people had to live... shall we say struggle through... and for the lucky some... survive during those days.

I learned that back then people entered into agricultural agreements where they did not own the land but were allowed by the owners to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced, and as times got really bad because of the lack of water, the "dust" storms and the inability to produce, they could no longer afford to pay the agreed share and were therefore, run from their land... even though they had worked it for over 70 years seeing many family generations come and go on the land which they called home...

How incredibly sad... simply horrible... The story centers on a family with the last name of Joads and it is so hopeless at times that I felt the pain and sorrow of these characters daring to hope for a better life.

Desperate times, children left without food and without care because parents earned miserable wages and had to go to find whatever work was available. Labor contracts were not respected, conditions were oppressive, and the spark of an attempt to correct the situation was seen as a crime and punished as such.

The emotions are deep and while the family undergoes many trials and desperate moments, they continue to have pride, human dignity, and the willingness to share whatever little they had. The road trip that takes them from their home in Oklahoma to California is at times exasperating because we suffer right along with these characters. The scenes at a road side diner where they buy bread... only able to pay for a 10 cent loaf is heart rendering and it is with a certain sense of trepidation that we realize that times in America today are again desperate for many. Never learning the great lessons from the past, we seem to repeat history over and over again, and between the housing market fiasco, the home foreclosures and the price of gas, let's hope we do not see Americans brought to another period of depression.

This is a must read and must see, while it is depressive, at times shocking, it poses fundamental questions of humanity. How can we live our lives in peace witnessing those who have so much and yet others not being able to eat? How do we ensure that our social systems protect our people from ever having to endure such harsh living conditions? At what point do we stop being human if we stand by and do nothing to change and bring opportunity and the right to work and earn a living to every person willing to work to make a living?

Very readable historical novel from which a Hollywood Film Production was rendered.
Gripping, realistic. Very human.

This is more of the story about the prison camp and the prisoners themselves, so if you are looking for a super dramatic battle story this is not it. The raid is not an easy or boring one by any means, but it is no huge conflict. That said, it doesnt take away from the story, because while I started the book looking for a big battle, i later found myself interested in the life of the prison camp. Also, the book does tend to slow down to a halt in a few places, but it does not kill the read. Anyway, it truly is worth the read and i give it four good stars, pick it up.

This is a fascinating, extremely well-written (an easy read) book about an interesting subject (though I hear the movie based on the book is not very good). I am giving it 4 1/2 stars rather arbitrarily, because the author does not appear to be a professional historian, does appear to make a few historical errors, and because I like to save 5 stars for professional historians. After all, they make less money than regular authors and have to teach students for a living on top of that!

My father had a friend who he always identified as "that guy survived the Bataan Death March". I was too young to really understand what that was but the way my dad became so reverand about it I knew it must have been bad. I now finally know just how bad it was. In a gripping, harrowing, page turner of a book follow the rescue attempt of American GI's from
Cabanatuan death camp in the Philippines. Unforgettable.

Ghost Soldiers is an excellent account of the liberation of the allied POW's from the Cabanatuan death camp in the Philippines. The book consists of a very large part of primary material, the authors interviews with the former prisoners and in some cases their surviving relatives.

Where most of the healthier POWs had been shipped elsewhere at the time, including to Japan, those remaining in the Cabanatuan camp towards the end of January 1945 were the "sick and the dregs, the sickest and the weakest." As the book also states "They were a special lot, a subset of a subset of bad fortune, an elite of the damned."
General Walter Kruger was General MacArthur's commander of the U.S. Sixth Army. He was tasked by MacArthur to "Go to Manila. Go around them, go through them, but go to Manila." This presented General Kruger with a problem when he received intelligence of a prison camp just over 30 miles away from his forces, that contained the remaining 500 or so allied POW's, mostly survivors from the infamous Bataan death march. The intelligence indicated that the Japanese were likely to execute all prisoners if the allies got too close to Cabanatuan.
Since they could not slow down their advance, the General quickly dispatched an outfit of 121 Rangers of the 6th Ranger Battalion. The rangers were at the time a new and largely unproven elite force of highly trained soldiers, that would work together with the local guerilla to liberate the POWs. The urgency of the mission was immense. Intelligence indicated that they had less than 3 days before the Japanese were likely to start massacring these prisoners due to the proximity of allied forces.

This book describes the events leading up to the surrender of the American forces in the Philippines and the subsequent march that has been referred to as the "Bataan death march". The book's focus switches frequently between the lives of the prisoners in the camp, and the actions of their liberators led by Colonel Henry Mucci. The book culminates with the actual prison break and the harrowing flight back to allied lines with these 513 men, many too weak to walk, with the Japanese in hot pursuit.

The book does a very good job at giving a good insight into the daily lives of the prisoners. It contains sometimes tragic but also comical accounts of how the prisoners were affected by countless infections and severe vitamin deficiency. It shows how the prisoners managed to retain a sort of normalcy in the situation they were in, and how their amazing ingenuity helped make it their "home" for three years.

I found every aspect of this book exciting, whether it was about the history leading up to Bataan march, information about the daily lives of the prisoners, or the actual rescue. It becomes obvious that the rescue could not have been undertaken without the help of the two Philippine guerilla units lead by Eduardo Joson and Juan Pajota. These are given their due credit in this book as well.

I do not hesitate to give the book 5 stars - highly recommended.