Ukraine Books

In _Behind The Secret Window_ by Nellie Toll, the message that the story has to offer is that life can knock you down sometimes, but most importantly you can't let life keep you down. Nelly is a small girl who is hiding from the Nazis during World War Two. The Nazis take her two siblings, aunt, father, and is really unhappy. Throughout the book she realizes that being unhappy won't help her during this dificult time. Instead she starts believing that one day her loved ones will return. Nelly finally benefits from this by making it through the war alive and finally seeking freedom. This book gives you the best of advice and messages you could ever find for difficult hardhsips and advice.

The story Behind the secret window was a good book.It's about a girl named Nelly Toll who was six years old. Nelly said she could remeber every thing that had happened.She said by the time she was eight that the world war two had destroyed her live. But she said that to ease her pain she wrote in her diary. She said that was better then thinking of her parents dining in the war. My oppion is that this was a great book. Try to read it.

This book is a memory of Nelly Toll's childhood experiences during World War II. She battled so many things none of us could imagine. She lost very much during the war but always had hope.
The main characters in this book are Nelly, her mother, and pani pan Wotjek. (They are Christians willing to hide them).
This book takes place mostly in Poland 1943-1944. She also goes to Hungary. She spends most of these two years living indoors.
It's a very in-depth look at the war. To me it seems almost fictional. It's amazing how much she remembers about how she felt.

This book is about a girl. She is about 7 when the Nazis come and invade her town. Now she is 8 and her dad has left or "disappered". Her maids have been taken away, and the soldiers are takeing her stuff from her so they can give the stuff to other kids in thier country. She is so mortived! It is now her and her mom. They move to her aunt's appartment. And then something happens that you have to read the book to find out. By the end of the book the little girl is left alone with her alful thoughts of the horrible things that the soldiers do to the people that live in her town. So all she can do is paint pictures of what she thinks of all the things that are going on around her. This is a book that every one needs to read.

We were given a World War II book report in English. I chose this book over Anne Frank. The way Nelly Toll told her story, it made you feel as if you were there, hiding in a small room, waiting for the Gestapo to leave, and praying that they don't find you. Even though her family was hunted by the German army, the Nazis, she continued to read, and write, and paint. Though the story has a sweet, and happy ending, sadness does lurk behind it. I highly recommend this book!

This book offers a good review of how military personalities play such a strong role in the outcome of battle. Battle has been and, in my opinion, will continue to be directly impacted by human emotions and decisions. The author does a superb job introducing the mindset behind the decisions made at each level in the chain of command, which lead to the final disastrous outcome for the Light Brigade. I highly recommend this book to military professionals as a study in leadership and the decision making process. DPS

Mark Adkin's THE CHARGE is a relatively recent book (1996) and seeks to explain why the Crimean War blunder was made that led to perhaps the most famous cavalry charge in history, immortalized by Tennyson's poem. Besides standard time-space analysis and you-were-there personal accounts, Mr. Adkin introduces the element of topography and what can be seen from where which influenced decision-making at the moment. This is the sort of historical detective work that should be applauded and I liken it to plotting the location of shell casings found at the Custer battlefield site to infer cavalry troop movements. I used THE CHARGE as a reference to develop a computer game and found it invaluable. It has order of battle for the armies involved and maps that locate units at certain times. I recommend this book for any student of military history interested in finding out why decisions were made as well as an excellent account of the battle.

This is the kind of book that shows how military history should be written. Although the maps and battle sketches are crude they are very effective in making Adkin's case. This is a careful military analysis of the Light Brigade's charge in October 1854, during the Crimean War, with the emphasis on untangling the hows and whys surrounding the mangled orders process that resulted in the charge. The usual culprit, the Cavalry Division commander Lord Lucan, is partly exonerated and receives only mild criticism. The primary culprits in Adkin's view are Lord Raglan and his ADC Captain Nolan. Adkin believes Nolan may have deliberately indicated the incorrect objective. Also interesting is the dissection of the actual charge, such as how many rounds were fired at the brigade and how the casualties were not as spectacular as is often claimed. It is interesting to note how incompetent the British chain of command appears next to the "amateur" generalship displayed seven years later in the American Civil War; even a Mclellan appears preferable to an (...) like Cardigan, the Light Brigade commander. The only omissions in this otherwise fine book: what kind of casualties did the Russian artillery battery suffer? What happened to the Light Brigade survivors in the brutal winter that followed?

Mark Adkin examines the contributions made by each of the "Four Horsemen of Calamity" - Raglan, Lucan, Cardigan and Nolan - to the fatal Charge. Adkin's book contains much that will be familiar to anyone who has read Cecil Woodham Smith's "The Reason Why". However, Adkin deals with the Charge in greater detail and uses line drawings and maps to explain the confusing troop movements that preceded the Charge. My only criticism, having visited the battleground, is that the drawings fail to convey the scale and make Raglan's task seem far simpler than it actually was. Contrary to common belief, the number of fatalities was relatively small. Adkin's use of diagrams showing the arcs of fire from the Russian guns shows why this was so. The return journey should have been far more perilous. Had it not been for the action of the French cavalry (Chasseurs) who attacked the Russians on one flank the fatalities would have been far greater. Perhaps the most contentious issue in the book concerns the part played by Nolan who conveyed the fatal 4th Order from Raglan to Lucan. Adkin challenges the popular view that Nolan made a terrible mistake which he sought to correct by redirecting the Charge, and was only prevented from doing so because he was, ironically, the first casualty. Adkin suggests that Nolan, the cavalry fanatic, believed that cavalry could successfully attack artillery head on. He had after all sketched out such a plan years before. Nolan, according to Adkin, may have known exactly what he was doing and deliberately duped Lucan into ordering the Charge on the wrong guns. His attempt to redirect the cavalry was actually the result of his loss of control over his mount after he had been hit by shell fragments. It is a fascinating hypothesis butleft me unconvinced. I suggest you read the book and make your own mind up.

I don't think that I could really add much to the previous excellent reviews on this interesting account of the Charge of the Light Brigade. The author, Mark Adkin, has produced an excellent account of the Charge of the Light Brigade, which occurred on the 25th of October 1854 during the siege of Sebastopol. Utilising his in-depth research to provide answers to how, why and who, the narrative takes you along with the cavalrymen on their charge into the Russian gun positions. The book has a number of detailed drawings, maps, and photographs to assist you on this reckless advance into the mouth of the guns. The book is very readable and I think that the author attempts to answer the question `who' was to blame quite fairly and without malice. Overall a very good read for the student of military history or for anyone who just enjoys a good story.

A tip for readers of this book, a new release might be of interest: `CRIMEA: The Great Crimean War 1854-1856' by Trevor Royle.

The book attempts to describe the battle of Kharkov by using both Soviet and Germans sources. Particularly interesting is the use of a hitherto-classified Soviet study of the battle, written a few years after the war. Both what the study says and what it ommits are very revealing. This book is a masterpiece in its genre and recommended to anyone with an interest in the Eastern Front, but I confess I would like both a more thorough OB, like the one in "Operation Mars", his other book, and better maps.

This is an excellent work. It's probably the best book I've read devoted to a single battle. The analysis is almost entirely from the Russian perspective, but the other side can be gleaned from other sources. The author gained access to recently available Soviet documentation to tell the Russian side of the confrontation. This is not to say the German side is ignored, however. There is very extensive use of quotations from the Soviet General Staff Study of the battle, yet the author counters any bias. The book covers everything you'd want in an analysis: terrain, force structure, order of battle, tactical and strategic decision making, etc. The maps are better and more numerous than in those in most works of this type. The only real problem I have with it is that the author doesn't really explain why the Russian 9th Army attacked at Maiaki. This was on the southeastern end of the Barvenkovo bridgehead. It was against this southern flank that the Germans launched their counterattack that doomed the Russian offensive and the Maiaki attack weakened the Russian forces on this flank. Except to say the attack was conducted and it was a bad idea, the book fails to explain what led the Russian commander to conduct it in the first place. Nevertheless, this is a very minor complaint with what is a very excellent book.

This book is for the serious student of military history only. If you want a very detailed study of the battle of Kharkov, told mainly from the Soviet side, complete with orders of battle and a day-by-day retelling of the battle from the divisional level then this book is for you.

I very much enjoyed Glantz's "Clash of Titans," which is probably the best single volume history of the war in the East, and I was hoping this book would contain more of Glantz's excellent analytical scholarship only more sharply focused on a single battle. "Kharkov 1942" is definetly analytical; but the majority of the book is not original scholarship. It's mostly Glantz's translation of a Soviet study of the battle which explains its very dry style. Glantz fleshes out some details, and mentions some parts of the battle that were ignored for political reasons. Glantz really does not provide much of his own analysis on the battle. Where he does provide analysis is on the Soviet study itself. "Kharkov 1942" is as much of a study of how lost battles of "The Great Patriotic War" were viewed within the Soviet political system as it is a study of the battle itself.

Simply put, Col. Glantz is THE leading authority on the Eastern Front. I simply could not put this book down when I got it last year, and I find myself periodically returning to it, gleaning new information. Highly recommended.

An excellent book which gives an insight into how the Red Army's strategic thinking evolved after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. For the first time we do not only get the German side of the picture but the Russian one. Moreover, this episode is usually only dealt with very briefly in most histories. This book offers a wealth of detail on this almost neglected period which is usually only described as a footnote in books on Fall Blau. I especially liked the fact that we first read the Soviet official report which is then followed by a critical comment. The only criticism I have concerns the maps. One: I hate computer generated maps of this kind, two: I would have added arrows indicating directions of attack and lines reached (I have added them in my copy in red).

As in all his works, Elie Wiesel shares with his readers in "The Trial of God" the simultaneous pain and hope that he feels when he thinks about the role that God has played in his life. This play--and it's exactly that, a play--is full of banter between the characters, humor, and even sexual innuendo, but it also addresses a very serious issue... one man's conflict with the God that he feels has betrayed him. I am a Christian, but I still truly enjoyed reading this and thinking about my personal relationship with this same God. I would encourage anyone to read this - it's a great purchase!

As with all of Elie Wiesel's work, the central premise is to explore the question of Jews and their suffering throughout history. "The Trial of God" is an interesting departure from his better-known works, in that it is a drama, a play staged during the Jewish holiday of Purim. Based on events that Wiesel witnessed while in Auschwitz, "The Trial of God" accuses the Creator of the Universe of being guilty of neglect to his chosen people. And even though the trial takes place in the seventeenth century, the modern world is very much alive in the facts and accusations.

The trial takes place in 1649, in a Ukrainian village that has been decimated by a pogrom; only two Jews remain, Berish the innkeeper, and his silenced daughter Hanna. Three traveling minstrels arrive and upset Berish. They want to stage a Purim play for all the Jews in the village, without knowing about the devastation of the recent raids. Berish allows them to enact a play as long as he can choose the subject matter; he wishes for a trial to condemn God over what has happened to the Jews and he will serve as prosecutor. The minstrels accept, but can find no one to play the defense attorney for God, until a stranger (who seems to be known by all) arrives to defend God and his actions (or inaction).

Much of the course of the play is devoted to setting up the trial (which doesn't begin until Act Three). Until that time, the reader learns much about the history of Berish and what he witnessed, as well as what makes him so angry towards God. When the stranger arrives to defend God, he does not allow Berish to use the dead as proof or witnesses for one must only think of the living. Tension mounts throughout the course of the play, thanks to news that a mob is gathering once again to kill the remaining Jews. Finally the trial must be abandoned in order for the men to defend themselves, and the play ends, questions unanswered, no verdict given.

The ending may seem like a disappointment to some readers, but it is the only one that is realistic. As Mendel (the minstrel who acts as head judge) puts it, "The verdict will be announced by someone else, at a later stage. For the trial will continue - without us." For how can humanity cast judgment upon God, upon themselves, when they don't have all the answers? As Wiesel once said, "I do not have any answers, but I have some very good questions." The most important thing is that questions are raised, even when the may go unanswered. It is not for us to explain away and answer the desperate plight of the Jewish people, but it is for us to ask and question and to make sure that what has happened is never forgotten.

This is a disturbing book that tells a disturbing story. Since other reviewers have done a great job providing a synopsis of the book I will go right to the matter of what I think of it. In many ways I was dissapointed. I would have much rather that Wiesel wrote about the trial that he witnessed in Auschwitz rather than placing it in a Ukrainian villege. However, I think he tried and for some reason could not do it. My personal opinion is that the original trial was too painful. So, the play seems to have been inspired by actual events but goes off in another direction entirely. Or does it? I have trouble deciding.

There are many layers to this play - just like the four levels introduced by Bachya ben Asher for the interpretation of scripture: peshat, or "plain meaning"; derash, or "rabbinic aggadah"; derekh hassekhel, or "philosophical"; and sod, or "kabbalistic." The discerning, or knowledgable, reader will find all those levels present in this work. Wiesel is never an easy writer to read or to understand, and this play is no different.

While interred in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel witnessed a trial. While such things are not unusual, this trial was. It was unusual because of the defendant: God. God was tried for violating the covenant by turning his back in silence on the Jewish people in their greatest hour of need. God was tried in absentia, without anyone present being willing to take on the role of God's defense attorney. God was declared guilty, after which the "court" prayed. Contradiction? Perhaps. But this incident, which served as the inspiration for *The Trial of God*, is part of the long Jewish tradition of arguing with God. While Job is God's most famous interlocuter, we cannot forget the dispute the founder of the Jewish people, Abraham, had with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The trial of God is really a trial of faith; this is why the "court" prayed. They are torn between their devotion to God and their complete disappointment in God's silence. This struggle of faith is the story of *The Trial of God*, in which it is the least faithful of all, Satan, that comes to God's defense. Wiesel is fond of retelling a story about two Holocaust survivors, one a rabbi, who meet after liberation. The survivor asks the rabbi how, after all that has happened, he can continue to believe in God. The rabbi retorts by asking how, after all that has happened, can the other *not* believe in God. Wiesel has often echoed this paradox in his own sentiments. This is the paradox which *the Trial of God* presents us; it is a story of doubting trust and trusting doubt which, as Wiesel suggests, might be reconcilable only in protest. Perhaps *The Trial of God* is Wiesel's act of faith; perhaps it is an act of condemnation. I suspect that for Wiesel it is both. Anyone who pays careful attention to this work will be highly rewarded by it, not because of the answers it gives (for it gives none), but (in good Wieselian style) for the questions it raises.

The vast majority of the book has no relation to the title. There are great passages, but they are largely buried under dozens of pages of yammering prelude, silly bickering, and attempts at drunken humor. James Morrow's Blameless in Abaddon covers the same theme with much greater depth and breadth.

This book begins in 1993, when the author travels to Poland and to her parents' hometown of Huszt, Hungary (now Khust, Ukraine), together with her mother and stepfather, to rediscover her family's past and how it has shaped them and continues to influence them. Originally just Ms. Salamon was going to go to Poland, where Steven Spielberg was filming 'Schindler's List,' but her mother insisted she come along too, and that her stepfather, who had been a partisan, would come too. During their visit to Auschwitz and Huszt, Ms. Salamon began discovering a lot of things about her parents' past that she hadn't known before, or hadn't known about in such detail.

Her parents were from Carpathian Rus, a region that had changed hands numerous times between Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, and Czechoslovakia over the years. They had always thought of themselves as cultured Czechs and therefore superior to the shtetl Jews in places like Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine. The area they lived in, however, was eventually annexed to Hungary during the course of the war, and they found themselves suffering the same fate as Hungarian Jewry when the Nazis invaded in March of 1944 and herded them all into ghettoes. Ms. Salamon's mother Szimi (Lilly), twenty-one at the time of deportation, managed to survive through her friendship with two sisters and an amazing belief that this wasn't really so bad, that she was going to get through it and was never in any real danger in spite of what a deadly dangerous place she was in. Her father Sanyi (Alexander), who was significantly older than her mother (about thirteen and a half years), lost his first wife and child in one of the deportations, but survived first with the partisans and then in Dachau, due to his privileged position as a respected talented doctor. After the war they reconnected and began a new life together, together with their surviving friends and relatives, first in Prague, then in New York, where some of their relatives had been living for a long time, and finally in the small town of Seaman, Ohio. Through this journey through her family's past, Ms. Salamon discovered how a lot of these events had significantly shaped their lives as she grew up, without even realising it. And unlike some books about the Shoah, this one has a much longer timeframe; it covers their lives before, during, and after the war, not just shortly before the war, during the war, and for a short period afterwards. It takes the journey into 1971, when her father died.

My only complaint about the book is that it does somewhat feel as though it ends in media res. Perhaps there could have been a few more chapters to give more of a feeling of closure, covering such things as how the family dealt with Dr. Salamon's death in the immediate aftermath, how her mother met her stepfather Arthur, and whatever happened to her maternal aunts who had immigrated to Israel before it was too late. But overall it provides a fascinating portrait of one family's bittersweet history and how for many people, the war wasn't really over in 1945.

There is so much in this book...the history of Julie Salamon's parents Szimi and Sanyi Salamon, Jewish Holocaust survivors, it is the story of their lives before the war, what they endured and lost during the war, how they survived and met and ended up creating a nice 'American' family.

Julie Salamon's personal journey includes many interesting anecdotes, a detailed family tree and insight in to her mother's seemingly neurotic ideas about life. Her mother possessed this amazing insanity, where she was able to think the wonderful while enduring the unspeakable.

I thought it was so interesting to hear how Jews who survived the Holocaust would express distain for other surviving Jews because they were Polish or Hungarian or Russian. It seems that this pecking order that we endure and perpetrate against others is sometimes what gets us through our lot in life.

Julie, her mother and step-father take a trip to Poland to visit in Huszt and tour Auschwitz. During their travels her mother tells her many stories of her experience during her imprisonment in the concentration camp, things she never spoke of before. I thought it so insightful to describe the time after liberation as Genesis Day One, a vast re-creation.

I thought this was a very well told and well written history. My only criticism is that I felt this story was unfinished. Of course it's her life and she living so to a certain extent I certainly expected her story to continue after the book was done. But I was left to wonder how did her mother cope with the death of her father. How did she find her second husband Arthur? Did her mother find any peace in going back to Poland and Auschwitz?

Perhaps she will write another book so I can find out!

Julie Salamon is a friend and a person I respect mightily, so I am not exactly objective. Nevertheless, I found her discovery of her family's history--and her trip to the death camps with her mother--remarkable and so compelling that I was unable to put it down. I read the book in 1996 and though I buy, read and donate hundreds of books a year, this one remains in our library. It will be a good resource for our children as they learn of the effects of the Holocaust on us all--and of human ability to overcome horrors. Alyssa A. Lappen

This is the most moving story of Holocaust survivors that I have ever read. While it does a great job describing author's parents' experiences in concentration camps, what makes it unique is its ability to also show how victims of that horror were able to put their lives back together and not be defeated by it. I also was moved by the author's own journey of discovery about her parents and who they were, aside from their identity as Survivors. All of us, I think, would relish the opportunity to really know who their parents are

I have been searching for this book for several years and I have finally found it(I forgot the title so it's been a long search)!I read it years ago and was moved to tears many times. Ms. Salamon describes her mothers history in such a way that you feel like you were right there with her. You can feel her joy and her pain. You get to know her before the war touched her life and all the way through her move to America and the start of her family. This was the only book I have ever read that I could not put down! It's unbelievably good!

If you didn't know it really happened, you would think this was a fictional thriller. Describes how a string of human errors resulted in the largest nuclear catastrophe the world has ever seen.
But the strength of the book is when it describes the government's response and how many heroes stepped up to help protect others. It has great lessons for professionals engaged in consequence management and disaster planning. Surprising to me was the role that the Soviet Union's Chemical Defense Forces played in the survey of contaminated areas and the clean up. The scale of the disaster and the clean up effort almost defies the imagination. Less interesting, at least to me, are the portions of the book which deal with the Soviet Union's search for those individuals to be held accountable and the government's reluctance to release information to the outside world.
Becoming harder to find and this is a pity, for this book is a must read for those engaged in the business of planning and responding to nuclear accidents and incidents.

The Devil himself was manifested in the hellish heat and fire of the exposed core of reactor number four at the V.I. Lenin PowerStation in Pripyat, outside of Chernobyl, in the USSR. Soundsgrotesque, but intriguing, right? Piers Paul Read's novel, Ablaze, presents the horror "story of the heroes and victims of [the] Chernobyl [nuclear accident]." in a daunting, yet scientifically credible way. In the introduction of the book, Piers Paul Read, presents the information regarding the disaster in Pripyat. Read writes in a straight forward manner that promotes a trust between the reader and author. During his introduction, Read clearly outlines his thesis and how he is going to present information. He tells you from that beginning that he does not know extensively about nuclear physics, reactor construction, or about the operation of a nuclear power plant. His lack of experience paired with the average reader's same lack, makes a perfect match. For the information that the average reader doesn't know, the author provides what could be called a mini-lesson on the basics of nuclear power as well as a bit of nuclear physics. I think that the author does this to promote a feeling of trust between the author and the reader. When reading the introduction where the author spoke of not knowing extensively about the world of nuclear power, I got the impression that the author was learning along with me during the mini-lessons. This instilled a feeling of companionship and trust in me toward the author. I believe that trust is a vital part of the relationship between an author and his/her audience. While the mini-lessons alleviated much of the lacking of background information, the reader still needed to know some of the general history of Russia and the USSR to completely comprehend the work. The knowledge required amassed mostly to the structure of the Soviet government and the structure and the power of "the party" otherwise known as the Communist Party of the country. Although this information is not obscure or arduous to find, it still required some research on the part of this reader. After a brief mini-lesson on nuclear physics, Read went on to explain events leading up to the disaster. He provided a total explanation of the history behind atomic weaponry development and how it led to the development of nuclear reactors in the USSR. Read focused mainly on the RBMK reactor development and the Soviet drive to harness the vast amounts of energy that can be created by a nuclear reactor. While the explanation of this "nuclear race" was quite education, it seemed too name and oriented for me to follow with full cognition. In fact, to this reader, the whole book appeared to be overflowing with names. While it can be understood that names and specific facts are imperative to a non-fiction historical book, they can be overused, as they appear to have been in Ablaze. To this reader, the overuse of names and other facts avert the reader from fully enjoying and understanding the book. After the explanation of the events leading to the disaster, the author moves into a stage where the pace picks up. Events start happening with short intervals, and the words start forming vivid images in the reader's mind. This reader could see the eerie blue and red glow of the reactor as it emitted the deadly radionuclides that killed or harmed so many. The writing explaining the actual explosion and the 20 or so minutes that followed were realistic and action-packed. The pages of these actions, made the daunting journey through the pages of explanations worth it. The writing on the actual accident was like something one could read out of a best-selling novel, or more accurately, could see in the newest blockbuster action movie. Piers Paul Read's writing in this middle phase of the book were superb, but, to this reader, the readability and excitement soon faded. The writing of the immediate aftermath was still interesting, and I wanted to continue to read. But, as the book further progressed, the quality of the writing diminished. While totally untrue and unrealistic, it could be said that this book appears to be written in one day: It starts slowly, like one is writing after just awaking, then, as the writer wakens and becomes more alert, the writing quality and excitement increase. The writing quality and excitement seem to reach their pinnacle at the center of the book. Then, the quality diminishes, getting worst as the day goes on -- as the writer grows weary. The book closes with a triteness that is so indicative of the common history book. It closes like one has slowly drifted off to sleep. It does not close with the BANG that a topic of this proportion and magnitude demands. The book, while not in chaos, could use a better organization system. The Table of Contents was quiet insufficient for a book with as many divisions and sections as Ablaze. Also, the different sections and chapters would be better suited with a textual title as well as the numerical title that each section has. And these titles should be included in the table of contents. For a book that appears to be researched extensively, the author should have paid more attention to the structure and organization of the book. Published in 1993, Ablaze by Piers Paul Read addresses a concern that many American and International citizens share-- nuclear safety. Most Americans live within a comparatively close proximity of a nuclear reactor, weather for electricity creation, or for governmental and military use. The possibility is always there, for an explosion like at Pripyat, or for something worse, a full meltdown or even nuclear war. Piers Paul Read illustrates this point effectively. Although lengthy, the message is clear. Read tells us crystal-clearly, like Jacobo Timerman said, "Everything that happened once can happen again.

This book covers the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melt down that took place back in the early 80's in the USSR. The first third of the book covers what happened to cause the accident - an amazingly small human error for such a major problem. The next third of the book covers the fighting of the fires, evacuation of the town and the closure of that part of the facility. The last third of the book covers the political fallout for the incident.

Overall he details are very interesting and the author has done a very good job in pulling all the facts together. You really can tell that this is a very well researched book. The writing is not bad and the book follows a well-constructed path. My only complaint would be that the last third of the book tends to drag a little due to the in depth coverage of the political aspects, due to it being USSR it is not always the most interesting for an American. All in all, this is a good book that does a great job in describing the accident and the clean up. The one thing you will take away from the book is that it is a wonder that this type of incident has not happened again.

If you enjoy true documentary type history and politics, well written, and especially if you are one of the thousands who enjoyed this author's "Alive" - about the survivors of an airplane crash - then you will devour "Ablaze". Mind you, among the page-turning excitement there is also a lot of breathtaking incompetence and cover-up. You'll remember: the Chernobyl reactor blew up, the Soviets covered up, Europe was contaminated, thousands of Soviet citizens were (and still are) made tragically ill. This book gives a journalistic factual account of the emergency and all its aftermath. The physics is well explained for the non-scientist. Worth ordering!

Well, being born in one of those Central Belarussian towns I would say I agree with 95% of material and it's analized with good skills. I highly recommend this book to anyone with interest in Eastern Europe history and to descendents of Poles, Belarussians and Ukrainians.
It is worth to remember that Commonwealth expirienced Ortodox( Uniates), Catholics, Protestans, Muslims(Tatar) living together in unity and friendship, while in Europe religious cleansings were at the peak.
I was also surprised I didnt found any information about Sluck Fight against Bolsheviks( since it is very important to Belarus history) and general Stanislaw Bulak-Balachowicz, who declaired compliance with first Belarus Government in 1919, not with Poles...and after forcibly evacuating to Polish territories was unarmed by polish "friend" Pilsudski.

In some ways this is a marvellous book, dealing with the life and death of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and with the states which succeeded it. This Republic of nobles and gentry has often been ridiculed for its weaknesses and its inability to resist its more powerful neighbors, but as long as it lasted there was more freedom, religious, political, and social, within its borders than anywhere else in Europe. It was not only the powerful empires of Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary which did it in; it was also destroyed by the growth of nationalism, the idea that a state should be more or less the same as a nation. Snyder shows with devastating irony how artificial nationalist ideologies really are, but also how powerful they can become and how deadly. Certainly the world of Eastern Europe would have been better under the inspiration of the great "Lithuanian" poet Adam Mickiewicz and the last great Polish politician Josef Pilsudski, but this was not to be.

Snyder, however, closes his book on what can only be called Polish propaganda, that is the claim that the Poles, of all the East Slavic and Baltic peoples, have learned the lessons of history. Many would dispute this. He attributes far too much to the role of the Poles in preventing hostilities at the end of Soviet rule from degenerating into Yugoslavian civil war. Thus a very fine historical analysis ends on a weak and a false note. But you would have to go far to find a better history of ethnic conflict and accomodation in Eastern Europe. You might have to go to the potboiler novels of Polish history of Henryk Sienkiewicz (the author also of Quo Vadis)but I don't recommend this. They will bore you to death.

Snyder should take his publisher to task for many errors in grammar and punctuation and for mere carelessly. Yale University Press did a good job getting Polish, Ukrainian, and Baltic names spelled correctly (no mean trick) but it seems to have had some problem with simple English.

This is THE book for all those interested in a better understanding of Eastern Europe. It is a model of its kind, unique in scope, shows a mastery of multiple langauge sources, and is a scholarly yet readable account of the history of the largest European country of its day, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealthy of 1569. Prof. Snyder's account is masterly, even-handed, and scrupulously fair with a clear and valuable thesis. It brings the complex strands of a neglected part of Europe into focus and explains while Poland and its Eastern neighbors were able to reach a peaceful accommodation after the downfall of the soviet Union. Tragically, the Balkans did not enjoy the longterm fencebuilding that kept this corner of the world at peace. Snyder's account of the Polish-Ukrainian conflicts during World War II is groundbreaking and fills a vital gap in this story. Not since "God's Playground" has the story been told so well. Wonderful book. Buy it.

There is something very Polish about this book; not merely in the fact that the last third of it is a generous, and somewhat indulgent account of Polish foreign policy since 1989. There is a tendency within Polish culture towards very black humor; one thinks of Gombrowicz, Kosinski, and Polanski. What we have here is a story of nationalist obtuseness and narrow-mindedness. Then, during the Second World War, this nationalism degenerates into murder and mass slaughter. But after 1989, there is a happy ending, at least for Poland. It is as unconvincing as a Hollywood film but no less real than that. Basically Timothy Snyder's book about nationalism in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus deals with a conflict between two rival nationalist conceptions. 1569 saw the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which covered most of what are now those four countries. In offered religious tolerance to all and civil rights to the political nation. The catch was that the "political nation" was the nobility, and the vast majority of people in the Commonwealth were peasants. Over the next two centuries the Commonwealth declined and was partitioned out of existence in the 1790s. As Polish nobles thought about trying to win back their independence, many of them wanted to win back the tolerant, federalist ideas of the old Commonwealth. However in the 19th century a new, more modern idea of nationalism began to take shape. In a more democratic age the nation consisted of the people. Instead of a compromise between various elites, the people, usually defined by language, would form their own nations. First in Poland, then in Lithuania, then slowly in Ukraine and only very partially now in Belarus, would the second idea triumph.

Snyder amusingly shows the many ironies as the nationalists sought to get their way. One is that Poles had the habit of referring to their former country as "Lithuania," a coinage immortalized in the most famous lines of the national poet, Adam Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz himself never imagined a Lithuania separate from Poland, and never set foot in the Polish heartlands of Warsaw or Cracow, yet his poetry was used by both Lithuanian nationalists and Polish chauvinists to justify partition. Another irony is that Lithuanian nationalists wished to retake their "national city" Vilnius and make it their capital, a desire not hampered in the slightest by the fact that less than 2% of Vilnius' residents in 1920 could speak Lithuanian. There are a whole host of prominent politicians from all four countries who, notwithstanding their patriotic protests, are actually from somewhere else or have relatives and wives from one of the other groups. Snyder goes on to discuss the Vilnius question in the twenties and thirties. In the early twenties Poland easily occupied the city, much to the impotent anger of the Lithuanians. However, as a result of the Nazi-Soviet pact the Soviet Union gave Vilnius to Lithuania. One would think that the Lithuanians would spend their last days of independence before the Soviet annexation in 1940 trying to find a way of defending themselves. Instead they spent much of their time quarrelling over Polish theatres and the possible threat from a defeated and dismembered Poland. Nor were they entirely wrong to do so. For decades Lithuanian nationalists had feared Polish culture more than Russian. Oddly enough, Soviet occupation vindicated that judgement. Notwithstanding the fact that the Soviets deported 5% of the Lithuanian population in the forties, the proportion of Vilnius that was Lithuanian increased from 2% to 50% by 1990.

If Polish-Lithuanian relations were strange, relations with Ukraine were kind of sick. By the late thirties a small, quasi-fascist group, known as the OUN had formed. At the time it was much less popular in Polish Ukraine than socialism, moderate agrarianism, or Soviet communism. Not even the Great Famine in Soviet Ukraine had dimmed Russophilia. But then the Germans conquered all of what is now the Ukraine and the OUN saw its chance. After working with the Nazis to slaughter Jews, in 1943 it saw its chance with German weakness to strike out on its own. As part of its anti-German and anti-Soviet/Russian strategy it sought, not to attack the Germans, or the Soviet partisans, so much as to slaughter the Poles living in Volhynia region, a process both evil and insane. The pages describing this are truly stunning, backed up with archival evidence, as the OUN butchered 70,000 Poles. The Poles responded, often with substantial brutality (they killed perhaps 20,000 Ukrainians), with both the Home Army and Polish Communists involved. After the war there was a "transfer" of Polish and Ukrainian populations.

However, once 1989 came along Poland followed a policy of supporting the independence of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine and keeping their present borders. Any concerns over national minorities would not get in the way of basic civil relations. The other three countries were not wild about this, but they accepted it as a way of getting close to Europe. Snyder is very informative but I have some cavils. First, the struggle is largely between different ideas of nationality; other conflicts, whether between classes, over political mobilization, and over religion, are not as well treated. Second, Snyder does not really explain why Russian and later Soviet culture had so little impact on the Lithuanians and Ukrainians. One would not know, as Stephen Kotkin reported in 2002, that perhaps a majority of Ukrainians regret independence and certainly show much less enthusiasm for it now. Third, there is something disconcertingly apologetic about the treatment of the Greek Catholic/Ukrainian metropolitan Sheptyts'kyi. He may have sheltered Jews, but he supported using the more "moderate" OUN faction as a potential Ukrainian army by becoming an SS division. His denunciation of slaughter in 1942 came after 17 months of the systematic slaughter of Ukrainian Jewry.

This is a very nice book about a little-known story from WWII. It is just incredible what these Jewish families were able to endure to stay alive by hiding in caves, although none of them were experienced cavers. The story of the modern-day cave experts who rediscovered the story is also well done, and the two tales are woven beautifully to create the book. Modern cave photographs and historical images work combine to help tell the story.

A book that should be read by all Holocaust-denyers. Had the privelage of meeting the authors and one of the family members written about.

Two authors, a cave expert and a photographer, tell this almost unbelievable story of how thirty-eight Jews from a village in the Ukraine survived the Holocaust. They clung tenaciously to life in two different caves for over one year, and somehow managed to come out of the experience physically, mentally, and emotionally intact. We feel admiration and empathy for these determined people who risked everything in order to stay together.
The story of the caves is interwoven with the story of these people's survival. The authors conducted extensive interviews and consulted the memoir, We Fight to Survive, written in 1960 by Esther Stermer, the matriarch of one of the families. This book reads like an adventure story with a suspense-filled plot and fascinating characters. However, this is brutal fact, not artificial fiction. Generous margins, gorgeous photos of the people and places involved, accurate maps and fascinating sidebars make for a handsome book. The only elements lacking are an index and bibliography. One of the survivors, Shulim Stermer, states: "Everyone has it inside of them to survive." Peter Taylor wondered if he would be capable of the same will to fight for his own family's survival. The Secret of Priest's Grotto brings us face to face with this difficult question. Ages 10-14.

I visited the Priest's Grotto in 1990 and found the story local cavers told us fascinating. However it took the amazing detective work of Cris Nicola to uncover the entire story of survival. The book accurately conveys the cave environment and the conditions found there. Cris and Peter are able to put this into language that non caver types can understand. The book had special meaning to me as I am one of few Americans to actually visit the site. To anyone this story is a moving example of a family fighting to survive under horrible conditions. The photo of the present day family on page 61 brought tears to my eyes. I highly reccomend giving this book a read.

Arthur Green's Tormented Master is a pioneer work that definitely needs another work of its stature to counter some of its deeply flawed statements about R. Nachman of Breslov.

Arthur Green presents a theory that R. Nachman preached a high value of doubt in God, to the point that one should ask God to shake his faith. This is an extraordinary understanding of R. Nachman's position. (And if we are going to speculate about psychological reasons for R. Nachman's teachings, I think that it is fair game to ask whether such statements, which so fly in the face or R. Nachman's explicit teachings as to be perverse, and which appear in the works of various academics, represent something in their personal issues with Breslov Hasidism.)

Yes, with all the hagiography flowing from the pens of Breslov Hasidim about their beloved mentor, it is refreshing to read someone analyze him as a human being of complexity with weaknesses as well as strngths. But Arthur Green writes an anti-hagiography that at times veers on the edge of and even topples into the absurd.

For example: when R. Nachman went to the land of Israel, he met a very strange young Arab who alternated extreme friendship with murderous wrath. R. Nachman stated that he feared this Arab's friendship more than his wrath.

From this, Arthur Green deduces that R. Nachman was homosexually attracted to this Arab.

Just as Gershom Scholem's writings on kabbalah have in recent years received majro substantive criticism (see, for instance, Moshe Idel's New Perspectives), so has the time come for many of the conclusions drawn in Tormented Master to be subjected to serious critique.

"Tormented Master" is a very insightful biography of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, an important Hasidic master from the late 18th century, whose stories and teachings are still popular today. The author, Arthur Green, has written a psychological profile of Nachman without which it would be impossible to fully understand Nachman's teachings.

I had read some of Nachman's work prior to picking up "Tormented Master," and had noted that many of his teachings address depressed states of mind and offer spiritual advice on how to overcome despair. It was not surprising, then, to read in Arthur Green's biography that Nachman suffered from protracted periods of serious depression that alternated with states of euphoria. On the one hand he was tortured by self doubt, while on the other hand he believed himself to be the Messiah. His behaviour was often inexplicably erratic, reflecting a personality that was haunted by chronic indecision; yet his conflicted choices (and alternating moods) were based on his interpretation of sacred and mystical texts. One day might find him ecstatic based on a verse from a particular psalm, only to be launched into despair a few days later after reading a commentary with negative implications. While one may interpret these reactions as that of a highly sensitive soul, the evidence Arthur Green has compiled seems to indicate that Nachman may have been manic depressive (even though the author never says this in so many words). At issue is whether Nachman was a victim of psychological processes that may have been largely out of his control and if so, whether his spiritual drive was largely fueled by a search for relief from the torments that he felt. (Separately, one may ask whether he was a tzaddik because of or in spite of the crippling states of mind that he experienced.) Ultimately, it is impossible to know whether he was responsible for creating his own unsettled states of mind or if his agitation resulted from biological tendencies that were aggravated by his environment and ideas.

After reading "Tormented Master," some may be tempted to dismiss Nachman's teachings as merely his process of working out a way of coping with and comprehending the alternating periods of despair and elation that he experienced. In my view, however, there is fundamental spiritual truth in much of his writings, and how he arrived at it is instructive. A good deal of his insights undoubtedly resulted from his psychic suffering and thus he tried (and recorded) every possible spiritual method to rouse himself from his depressive states. His prayers, sayings and tales were preserved because they contain important spiritual insights, and are inspiring and valuable tools for spiritual seekers.

Be prepared to spend some time reading "Tormented Master." It is very well written and exceptionally insightful, however, the subject matter is so complex that I found myself re-reading many sections and marking numerous passages for further review. There are also extensive footnotes that provide a treasure trove of information.

In short, very highly recommended.

This study of the life of the Breslover (Bratzlaver) Rebbe by Rabbi Arthur Green (Reconstructionist) is well-researched and very readable. Although some Breslover Chassidim did not like this academic approach to the life of their master, I found it to be quite good. Sometimes an "outsider" can see perspectives that the disciples have missed, and this is the case with "Tormented Master." It has interesting insights into the life and struggles of Rebbe Nachman, which, in turn, had a big influence on my own decision to become a Breslover. This book is also more accessible to the average non-Hasidic reader than some of the "official" Breslov materials, and can serve as an introduction to Hasidism in general. Rabbi Green (whom I have met in person), has a deep love of the Rebbe's teachings, which shines through in the pages of this book.

This work reveals a deep knowledge and understanding of the work of Rebbe Nahman. It should be of great value to all those who would have an intellectual understanding of the Rebbe. But it does not have the kind of ' inside feeling and devotion' that the Rebbe's close followers write of him with. And it does not r. In other words this work should lead you to the writings of Rabbi Nahman himself where you will enter a new world of feeling in connection with G-d.

As a part of a Jewish community in Western Ukraine I am well aware of the problems the citizens of Ukraine are facing be they Ukrainians, Russians or Jews.

I found this book worth of interest -- unfortunately it has too many minor factual and other mistakes that make it not applicable for the purposes I needed it for.

The entire Ukrainian part should be reworked if the author ever plans to publish it again -- to make Ukrainians less bloodthirsty and a little bit closer to what they are in reality (if they were that bloodthirsty as the author portrays them to be how possibly could Jews have survived living side by side with Ukrainians for one thousand years?)
A consultation with a specialist in Ukrainian history will be a must as well as a thorough fact-checking.
Petliura was never a bandit. As a matter of fact he heavily prosecuted any demonstrations of anti-Semitism in the army he was in charge of. The guy who killed him just ate too much of Soviet propaganda.
Besides, the author who meticulously mentions participation of Ukrainians in the Holocaust fails to mention that among Ukrainians there were a lot of those who risked their lives and lives of their families to rescue Jews.
When talking about Babi Yar, he never mentions that exterminations were held there for 2 years -- and the Jews were killed there during the first week. After that it was prisoners of war, Ukrainian nationalists, Gypsies, gays and lesbians, and a lot of other people.

If he wants to write the story of Jews in Ukraine he has to be better informed.
What would be also nice is consistent spelling of names of the cities -- in compliance with Ukrainian tradition, not with Russian.

Also the author could have better harnessed his anti-Ukrainian stance:
for example, when he is writing about the Jewish memorial in Babi Yar he writes:
[I am giving an exact quote]
p.335
Only in 1991, when the menorah memorial was erected [...] did the Ukrainian government dedicate and recognize the spot as the area where Jews were killed and buried.

Just for reference: Ukraine regained its independence on August 24, 1991.
It was not able to recognize it earlier officially because it did not have its own government.

The last but not the least: the author fails to learn the difference between the Russian and the Soviet. When writing about history of the 20th century it is indeed a major difference.

Approximately 120 years ago the majority of the world's Jews lived in what was called the "Pale of Settlement" in the Russian Empire of the Czar. Most American Jews today trace their ancestry to Russia, the Ukraine, and the surrounding territories and provinces of the old empire. Until Communism fell, the Jews of Russia and Ukraine had been suppressed and denied human and religious rights. With the collapse of the Communists, Judaism has emerged from centuries old persecution and pogrom and the synagogues, monuments, schools and other Jewish historical sites are available and accessible to the western visitor. Ben Frank's A Travel Guide To Jewish Russia & Ukraine is an invaluable, highly recommended travel guide for planning and implementing a trip in search of their family heritage and religious roots throughout Russian and the Ukraine.

This is a response to an earlier review that contained a major, major Big Lie.

Specifically, "daryoush" from Seattle, in the course of commenting upon this book and expressing interest in a book about "recent Jewish history" in Lebanon, West bank and the Gaza strip, says the following:

"I like to better understand the Israeli massacres in the refugee camps."

He/she also goes on to make several other specious statements including usage of the term "concentration camps."

Daryoush's statement is a Big Lie masquerading as a review. I have serious reservations about his/her agenda, but setting that aside for a second, the deaths in the refugee camps (that I assume he refers to, related to the 1982 war in Lebanon) were not "Israeli massacres." They were carried out, by all credible accounts, by Lebanese militiamen arguably under Israel's influence. This is not to excuse the killings, nor even Sharon's alleged negligence or complicity, but even in the worst case terming them "Israeli massacres" is simply inaccurate.

One has to wonder about the mindset of someone who would use such a term.

The need to respond to such garbage is a sad commentary upon the state of discourse on Israel and our times generally.

- Ezra in Minnesota

Not only informative but terrific reading. It will keep you on the edge of your seat. A travel log that's enjoyable to read whether you visit the places or not. Put on your seatbelt because this is a journey well worth taking!