Helga's Diary: A Young Girl's Account of Life in a Concentration Camp

Author: Helga Weiss
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393089746
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
A New York Times Bestseller "A sacred reminder of what so many millions suffered, and only a few survived." —Adam Kirsch, New Republic In 1939, Helga Weiss was a young Jewish schoolgirl in Prague. As she endured the first waves of the Nazi invasion, she began to document her experiences in a diary. During her internment at the concentration camp of Terezín, Helga’s uncle hid her diary in a brick wall. Of the 15,000 children brought to Terezín and deported to Auschwitz, there were only one hundred survivors. Helga was one of them. Miraculously, she was able to recover her diary from its hiding place after the war. These pages reveal Helga’s powerful story through her own words and illustrations. Includes a special interview with Helga by translator Neil Bermel.

White House Diary

Author: Jimmy Carter
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429990651
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 589

Book Description
The edited, annotated New York Times bestselling diary of President Jimmy Carter--filled with insights into his presidency, his relationships with friends and foes, and his lasting impact on issues that still preoccupy America and the world. Each day during his presidency, Jimmy Carter made several entries in a private diary, recording his thoughts, impressions, delights, and frustrations. He offered unvarnished assessments of cabinet members, congressmen, and foreign leaders; he narrated the progress of secret negotiations such as those that led to the Camp David Accords. When his four-year term came to an end in early 1981, the diary amounted to more than five thousand pages. But this extraordinary document has never been made public--until now. By carefully selecting the most illuminating and relevant entries, Carter has provided us with an astonishingly intimate view of his presidency. Day by day, we see his forceful advocacy for nuclear containment, sustainable energy, human rights, and peace in the Middle East. We witness his interactions with such complex personalities as Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Joe Biden, Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Begin. We get the inside story of his so-called "malaise speech," his bruising battle for the 1980 Democratic nomination, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Remarkably, we also get Carter's retrospective comments on these topics and more: thirty years after the fact, he has annotated the diary with his candid reflections on the people and events that shaped his presidency, and on the many lessons learned. Carter is now widely seen as one of the truly wise men of our time. Offering an unprecedented look at both the man and his tenure, White House Diary is a fascinating book that stands as a unique contribution to the history of the American presidency.

The Grand Surprise

Author: Leo Lerman
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307495744
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 730

Book Description
A remarkable life and a remarkable voice emerge from the journals, letters, and memoirs of Leo Lerman: writer, critic, editor at Condé Nast, and man about town at the center of New York’s artistic and social circles from the 1940s until his death in 1994. Lerman’s contributions to the world of the arts were large and varied: he wrote on theater, dance, music, art, books, and movies for publications as diverse as Mademoiselle and The New York Times. He was features editor at Vogue and editor in chief of Vanity Fair. He launched careers and trends, exposing the American public to new talents, fashions, and ideas. He was a legendary party host as well, counting Marlene Dietrich, Maria Callas, and Truman Capote among his intimates, and celebrities like Cary Grant, Jackie Onassis, Isak Dinesen, and Margot Fonteyn as part of his larger circle. But his personal accounts and correspondence reveal him also as having an unusually rich and complex private life, mourning the cultivated émigré world of 1930s and 1940s New York City, reflecting on being Jewish and an openly homosexual man, and intimately evoking his two most important lifelong relationships. From a man whose literary icon was Marcel Proust comes an unparalleled social and emotional history. With eloquence, insight, and wit, he filled his journals and letters with acute assessments, gossip, and priceless anecdotes while inimitably recording both our larger cultural history and his own moving private story.

A Boy in Terezín

Author: Pavel Weiner
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810127792
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
Written by a Czech Jewish boy, A Boy in Terezín covers a year of Pavel Weiner's life in the Theresienstadt transit camp in the Czech town of Terezín from April 1944 until liberation in April 1945. The Germans claimed that Theresienstadt was "the town the Führer gave the Jews," and they temporarily transformed it into a Potemkin village for an International Red Cross visit in June 1944, the only Nazi camp opened to outsiders. But the Germans lied. Theresienstadt was a holding pen for Jews to be shipped east to annihilation camps. While famous and infamous figures and historical events flit across the pages, they form the background for Pavel's life. Assigned to the now-famous Czech boys' home, L417, Pavel served as editor of the magazine Ne?ar. Relationships, sports, the quest for food, and a determination to continue their education dominate the boys' lives. Pavel's father and brother were deported in September 1944; he turned thirteen (the age for his bar mitzvah) in November of that year, and he grew in his ability to express his observations and reflect on them. A Boy in Terezín registers the young boy's insights, hopes, and fears and recounts a passage into maturity during the most horrifying of times.

Anne Frank

Author: Francine Prose
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061959162
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
“Prose’s book is a stunning achievement. . . . Now Anne Frank stands before us. . . a figure who will live not only in history but also in the literature she aspired to create.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune In June, 1942, Anne Frank received a diary for her thirteenth birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic. For two years, she described life in hiding in vivid, unforgettable detail and grappled with the unfolding events of World War II. Before the attic was raided in August, 1944, Anne Frank furiously revised and edited her work, crafting a piece of literature that she hoped would be read by the public after the war. And read it has been. In Anne Frank, bestselling author Francine Prose deftly parses the artistry, ambition, and enduring influence of Anne Frank’s beloved classic, The Diary of a Young Girl. She investigates the diary’s unique afterlife: the obstacles and criticism Otto Frank faced in publishing his daughter’s words; the controversy surrounding the diary’s Broadway and film adaptations, and the social mores of the 1950s that reduced it to a tale of adolescent angst and love; the conspiracy theories that have cried fraud, and the scientific analysis that proved them wrong. Finally, having assigned the book to her own students, Prose considers the rewards and challenges of teaching one of the world’s most read, and banned, books. How has the life and death of one girl become emblematic of the lives and deaths of so many, and why do her words continue to inspire? Approved by both the Anne Frank House Foundation in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank-Fonds in Basel, run by the Frank family, Anne Frank unravels the fascinating story of a memoir that has become one of the most compelling, intimate, and important documents of modern history.

When the English Fall

Author: David Williams
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616208090
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
A riveting and unexpected novel that questions whether a peaceful and non- violent community can survive when civilization falls apart. Again, all are asleep, but I am not. I need sleep, but though I read and I pray, I feel too awake. My mind paces the floor. There are shots now and again, bursts here and there, far away, and I cannot sleep. I think of this man in his hunger, shot like a rabbit raiding a garden. For what, Lord? For stealing corn intended for pigs and cattle, like the hungry prodigal helpless in a strange land. I can hear his voice. When a catastrophic solar storm brings about the collapse of modern civilization, an Amish community is caught up in the devastating aftermath. With their stocked larders and stores of supplies, the Amish are unaffected at first. But as the English (the Amish name for all non-Amish people) in the cities become increasingly desperate, they begin to invade nearby farms, taking whatever they want and unleashing unthinkable violence on the gentle communities. Written as the diary of an Amish farmer named Jacob who tries to protect his family and his way of life, When the English Fall examines the idea of peace in the face of deadly chaos. Should members of a nonviolent society defy their beliefs and take up arms to defend themselves? And if they do, can they survive? David Williams’s debut novel is a thoroughly engrossing look into the closed world of the Amish, as well as a thought-provoking examination of how we live today and what remains if the center cannot hold.

Helga's Secrets Journal

Author: Maisy Medford
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781674722870
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

Book Description
FOR MORE NAMES - PLEASE CLICK ON "Maisy Medford" (Author Name) UNDER THE BOOK TITLE This elegant notebook is perfect for writing poetry, brainstorming, making lists, note taking, prayer and meditation journaling and planning your next book. It makes a perfect gift as journal or diary for flower and floral design enthusiasts. Great for gift giving for special days like mother's day and romantic occasions like Valentine's day or anniversaries. Your relatives, friends or co-workers would love to have this stylish personalized notebook with their name on it. - Dimensions: 6" x 9" (15,24 cm x 22,86 cm) - Interior: 110 black&white lined pages with first page allowing you to write the owner's name. - Binding: Standard secure paperback binding - Cover: Matte paperback cover

Reply to a Letter from Helga

Author: Bergsveinn Birgisson
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
ISBN: 9781612187174
Category : Iceland
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"Bjarni has long held on to a letter from former lover Helga, with whom he shared an illicit, impassioned love. Her letter invited him to leave his wife and his farm and pursue prosperity in the city, where World War II had brought an influx of American marines and opportunities for work. But he chose not to reply. Years later, as he reflects on a long and simple life among the sheep in the Icelandic hillsides, he finally finds himself ready to explain why"--P. [4] of cover.

Peggy Guggenheim

Author: Francine Prose
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300216521
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Book Description
One of twentieth-century America’s most influential patrons of the arts, Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) brought to wide public attention the work of such modern masters as Jackson Pollock and Man Ray. In her time, there was no stronger advocate for the groundbreaking and the avant-garde. Her midtown gallery was the acknowledged center of the postwar New York art scene, and her museum on the Grand Canal in Venice remains one of the world’s great collections of modern art. Yet as renowned as she was for the art and artists she so tirelessly championed, Guggenheim was equally famous for her unconventional personal life, and for her ironic, playful desire to shock. Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a singular reading of Guggenheim’s life that will enthrall enthusiasts of twentieth-century art, as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries, to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs, and Prose delivers a colorful portrait of a defiantly uncompromising woman who maintained a powerful upper hand in a male-dominated world. Prose also explores the ways in which Guggenheim’s image was filtered through the lens of insidious antisemitism.

The Inman Diary

Author: Arthur Crew Inman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674454453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1748

Book Description
Between 1919 and his death by suicide in 1963, Arthur Crew Inman wrote what is surely one of the fullest diaries ever kept by any American. Convinced that his bid for immortality required complete candor, he held nothing back. This abridgment of the original 155 volumes is at once autobiography, social chronicle, and an apologia addressed to unborn readers. Into this fascinating record Inman poured memories of a privileged Atlanta childhood, disastrous prep-school years, a nervous collapse in college followed by a bizarre life of self-diagnosed invalidism. Confined to a darkened room in his Boston apartment, he lived vicariously: through newspaper advertisements he hired "talkers" to tell him the stories of their lives, and he wove their strange histories into the diary. Young women in particular fascinated him. He studied their moods, bought them clothes, fondled them, and counseled them on their love affairs. His marriage in 1923 to Evelyn Yates, the heroine of the diary, survived a series of melodramatic episodes. While reflecting on national politics, waifs and revolutions, Inman speaks directly about his fears, compulsions, fantasies, and nightmares, coaxing the reader into intimacy with him. Despite his shocking self-disclosures he emerges as an oddly impressive figure. This compelling work is many things: a case history of a deeply troubled man; the story of a transplanted and self-conscious southerner; a historical overview of Boston illuminated with striking cityscapes; an odd sort of American social history. But chiefly it is, as Inman himself came to see, a gigantic nonfiction novel, a new literary form. As it moves inexorably toward a powerful denouement, The Inman Diary is an addictive narrative.