Sons and Soldiers

Author: Bruce Henderson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062419110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller The definitive story of the Ritchie Boys, as featured on CBS's 60 Minutes "An irresistible history of the WWII Jewish refugees who returned to Europe to fight the Nazis.” —Newsday They were young Jewish boys who escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe and resettled in America. After the United States entered the war, they returned to fight for their adopted homeland and for the families they had left behind. Their stories tell the tale of one of the U.S. Army’s greatest secret weapons. Sons and Soldiers begins during the menacing rise of Hitler’s Nazi party, as Jewish families were trying desperately to get out of Europe. Bestselling author Bruce Henderson captures the heartbreaking stories of parents choosing to send their young sons away to uncertain futures in America, perhaps never to see them again. As these boys became young men, they were determined to join the fight in Europe. Henderson describes how they were recruited into the U.S. Army and how their unique mastery of the German language and psychology was put to use to interrogate German prisoners of war. These young men—known as the Ritchie Boys, after the Maryland camp where they trained—knew what the Nazis would do to them if they were captured. Yet they leapt at the opportunity to be sent in small, elite teams to join every major combat unit in Europe, where they collected key tactical intelligence on enemy strength, troop and armored movements, and defensive positions that saved American lives and helped win the war. A postwar army report found that nearly 60 percent of the credible intelligence gathered in Europe came from the Ritchie Boys. Sons and Soldiers draws on original interviews and extensive archival research to vividly re-create the stories of six of these men, tracing their journeys from childhood through their escapes from Europe, their feats and sacrifices during the war, and finally their desperate attempts to find their missing loved ones. Sons and Soldiers is an epic story of heroism, courage, and patriotism that will not soon be forgotten.

A Ritchie Boy

Author: Linda Kass
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1631527401
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
From the author of Tasa’s Song, an extraordinary narrative about one young immigrant’s triumph in America, inspired by true events. 1938. Eli Stoff and his parents, Austrian Jews, escape to America just after Germany takes over their homeland. Within five years, Eli enlists in the US Army and, thanks to his understanding of the German language and culture, joins thousands of others like him who become known as Ritchie boys, young men who work undercover in Intelligence on the European front to help the Allies win World War II. In A Ritchie Boy, different characters tell interrelated stories that, together, form a cohesive narrative about the circumstances and people Eli encounters from Vienna to New York, from Ohio to Maryland to war-torn Europe, before he returns to the heartland of his new country to set down his roots. Set during the dawn of World War II and the disruptive decade to follow, A Ritchie Boy is the poignant, compelling tale of one young immigrant's triumph over adversity as he journeys from Europe to America, and from boyhood to manhood.

Invisible Ink

Author: Guy Stern
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814347606
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Invisible Ink is the story of Guy Stern’s remarkable life. This is not a Holocaust memoir; however, Stern makes it clear that the horrors of the Holocaust and his remarkable escape from Nazi Germany created the central driving force for the rest of his life. Stern gives much credit to his father’s profound cautionary words, "You have to be like invisible ink. You will leave traces of your existence when, in better times, we can emerge again and show ourselves as the individuals we are." Stern carried these words and their psychological impact for much of his life, shaping himself around them, until his emergence as someone who would be visible to thousands over the years. This book is divided into thirteen chapters, each marking a pivotal moment in Stern’s life. His story begins with Stern’s parents—"the two met, or else this chronicle would not have seen the light of day (nor me, for that matter)." Then, in 1933, the Nazis come to power, ushering in a fiery and destructive timeline that Stern recollects by exact dates and calls "the end of [his] childhood and adolescence." Through a series of fortunate occurrences, Stern immigrated to the United States at the tender age of fifteen. While attending St. Louis University, Stern was drafted into the U.S. Army and soon found himself selected, along with other German-speaking immigrants, for a special military intelligence unit that would come to be known as the Ritchie Boys (named so because their training took place at Ft. Ritchie, MD). Their primary job was to interrogate Nazi prisoners, often on the front lines. Although his family did not survive the war (the details of which the reader is spared), Stern did. He has gone on to have a long and illustrious career as a scholar, author, husband and father, mentor, decorated veteran, and friend. Invisible Ink is a story that will have a lasting impact. If one can name a singular characteristic that gives Stern strength time after time, it is his resolute determination to persevere. To that end Stern’s memoir provides hope, strength, and graciousness in times of uncertainty.

Racing Against History

Author: Rick Richman
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594039755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
Racing Against History is the stunning story of three powerful personalities who sought in 1940 to turn the tide of history. David Ben-Gurion, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and Chaim Weizmann—the leaders of the left, right, and center of Zionism—undertook separate missions that year to America, then frozen in isolationism, to seek support for a Jewish army to fight Hitler. Their efforts were at once heroic and tragic. The book presents a portrait of three historic figures and the American Jewish community—at the beginning of the most consequential decade in modern Jewish history—and a cautionary tale about divisions within the Jewish community at a time of American isolationism. Based on previously unpublished materials, the book sheds new light on Zionism in America and the history of World War II, and it aims to stimulate discussion about the evolving relationship between Israel and American Jews, as the Jewish State approaches its 70th anniversary under the continuing threat of annihilation. A book for general readers, history buffs and academics alike, it includes 75 pages of End Notes that enable readers to pursue the stunning story in further depth.

Immigrant Soldier

Author: Kathryn Lang-Slattery
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780990674238
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
Part coming of age story, part immigrant tale, part World War II adventure, Immigrant Soldier, The Story of a Ritchie Boy follows Herman as he evolves from a frightened and frustrated teenager, looking for a place to belong, into a confident U.S. Army Intelligence officer who struggles with the conflicting emotions of hate and forgiveness.

Prisoner B-3087

Author: Alan Gratz
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545520711
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Book Description
From Alan Gratz, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Refugee, comes this wrenching novel about one boy's struggle to survive ten concentration camps during the Holocaust. Based on the inspiring true life story of Jack Gruener. 10 concentration camps. 10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly. It's something no one could imagine surviving. But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face. As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner -- his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087. He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could have never imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror. He just barely escapes death, only to confront it again seconds later. Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will -- and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside? Based on an astonishing true story.

The Enemy I Knew

Author: Steven Karras
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA
ISBN: 1616732490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis—then returned to fight them as Allied soldiers—share their experiences: “Heroic, poignant [and] compelling.” —The Daily News Even Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel struggled with the question: Why didn’t the Jews fight back? But he finally concluded that the real question was how so many of them did. As he put it, “Tormented, beaten, starved, where did they find the strength—spiritual and physical—to resist?” In fact, over 10,000 German Jews fought in the Allied armies of World War II. This book honors those European-born combat veterans—refugees from the Nazi regime in Germany and Austria who faced their persecutors by joining the Allied forces in a fight against the country of their birth. These twenty-seven interviews take us into the unique and harrowing experiences of brave men—and one brave woman—whose service restored a sense of dignity and allowed them to rise above their former victimization. All burned with anger at the Germans who’d subjected them, often as young children, to cruelty in everyday life in their hometowns, and to ridicule in the national media. As soldiers who knew the language and psychology of the enemy better than any of their comrades, they struck back with newfound pride against the rampant injustice that had annihilated their families, destroyed their prospects, and subjected many of them to the worst forms of physical abuse, both random and terrifying. In The Enemy I Knew they tell their stories—and the world is richer for their heroic acts, and for their testimony. “It is rare to come across a book about a forgotten story from World War II, but Steve Karras has found one of the most compelling, little-known accounts from the war and he tells it brilliantly. Harrowing, breathtaking in parts, and completely absorbing.” —Andrew Carroll, New York Times–bestselling editor of War Letters “Few stories can rival the ones told in The Enemy I Knew.” —Library Journal (starred review)

Boy Erased

Author: Garrard Conley
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698155556
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
The New York Times bestselling memoir about identity, love and understanding. Now a major motion picture starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges, directed by Joel Edgerton. "Every sentence of the story will stir your soul" (O Magazine). The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to “cure” him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life. Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness. By confronting his buried past and the burden of a life lived in shadow, Garrard traces the complex relationships among family, faith, and community. At times heart-breaking, at times triumphant, this memoir is a testament to love that survives despite all odds.

X Troop

Author: Leah Garrett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358177421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Book Description
WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE MONTH "This is the incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now." —Wall Street Journal “Brilliantly researched, utterly gripping history: the first full account of a remarkable group of Jewish refugees—a top-secret band of brothers—who waged war on Hitler.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The Longest Winter and The Liberator The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis. “Garrett’s detective work is stunning, and her storytelling is masterful. This is an original account of Jewish rescue, resistance, and revenge.”—Wendy Lower, author of The Ravine and National Book Award finalist Hitler’s Furies

Intelligence: All That Matters

Author: Stuart Ritchie
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 144479180X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
There is a strange disconnect between the scientific consensus and the public mind on intelligence testing. Just mention IQ testing in polite company, and you'll sternly be informed that IQ tests don't measure anything "real", and only reflect how good you are at doing IQ tests; that they ignore important traits like "emotional intelligence" and "multiple intelligences"; and that those who are interested in IQ testing must be elitists, or maybe something more sinister. Yet the scientific evidence is clear: IQ tests are extraordinarily useful. IQ scores are related to a huge variety of important life outcomes like educational success, income, and even life expectancy, and biological studies have shown they are genetically influenced and linked to measures of the brain. Studies of intelligence and IQ are regularly published in the world's top scientific journals. This book will offer an entertaining introduction to the state of the art in intelligence and IQ, and will show how we have arrived at what we know from a century's research. It will engage head-on with many of the criticisms of IQ testing by describing the latest high-quality scientific research, but will not be a simple point-by-point rebuttal: it will make a positive case for IQ research, focusing on the potential benefits for society that a better understanding of intelligence can bring.