NetGalley ARC | Through the Morgue Door: One Woman’s Story of Survival and Saving Children in German-Occupied Paris

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Through the Morgue Door is the story of Colette Brull-Ulmann and her role in saving over one hundred Jewish children from certain death had the Nazis had their way.

Brull-Ulmann had decided by age fourteen that she wanted to be a pediatrician. In 1941 she was twenty-one and in her second year of studying medicine. She was an intern at the Rothschild Hospital, the only hospital in Paris that allowed Jewish physicians and patients.

By 1942 Brull-Ulmann and her family were forced to register as Jews and her father was arrested and sent to Drancy. This did not stop her from undertaking the mission that would ultimately save so many children, under the guidance of the hospital's social worker, Claire Heyman.

Things had become so dire that by 1943 Brull-Ulmann had fled the hospital. She continued her resistance work however. Working with her father's network, she gathered intelligence and delivered it for De Gaulle's agency until at last France was liberated in 1945.

This memoir is suffocating at times as Brull-Ulmann recounts what it took to survive in Nazi-occupide France. We get the details of how food rations and transportation difficulties made the work of resistance fighters that much harder in a world where they were already constantly in danger. Brull-Ulmann's fear of being caught never leaves the reader, even upon finishing the book.

Brull-Ulmann's voice is clear and frank about what happened in her time at Rothchild. She does not point to herself with the insinuation of, "Look how good I am", but discusses herself as one of several within the hospital doing whatever it took to smuggle as many children out as possible. She and her co-workers helped because it was the right thing to do, there was simply no other option. The author also does not shy away from the not-so-happy endings, the children they could not save. Her sorrow over these children has stayed with her, so many decades later.

While I have read several books about various resistance fighters and activities across Europe, this was the first I learned of the activities at Rothschild. I do wish this had been a larger portion of the book, detailing at least a few of her trips out with the children in her care. I wonder if the memories were simply too overwhelming for the author to give more information. I can imagine she thought of the ones she couldn't save just as often as the ones she was able to get to safety.

While I do wish for more detail, to know more about the children who were spirited away, this is an important memoir. There can never be too many stories of helpers, to prove once again that we can and do care about one another. We can and will do the right thing, when we are in that moment.

Highly recommended.

Book Review | The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII

Rating | ⭐⭐

I HATE being tricked by a gorgeous cover and a subtitle.

The Typewriter and the Guillotine appears to have some of the things I love reading about most - an intrepid journalist who lives life on her own terms, a serial killer, and World War II.

Janet Flanner arrived in Paris in 1922, a journalist for The New Yorker, who would be covering all the best things about Paris, the beauty, the art, the culture. However, she soon sees the signs of what is to come - the rise of extremism and how the economic problems and public discontent fed into it. Flanner completely changes her role and attempts to capture the attention of her readers as to why the new German chancellor is a danger to the world.

In that same time frame, a serial killer was stalking the streets of Paris, himself a child of two Nazis.

Now, here is the issue - the synopsis claims that Flanner "soon becomes enmeshed in the criminal case of a man who embodied all of the darkness she was being forced to confront".

It also says that Flanner covered his case from start to finish and it was this great symbolism for what had passed and what was to come.

Except...not really.

The connection between the journalist and the serial killer is hardly there at all. She attended some of his trial and that was it. I feel like the title and subtitle were incredibly misleading. I expected there to be some greater connection between the two, that somehow she might have been directly impacted by his crimes or they'd crossed paths before he was captured.

There's also far less information about Eugen Weidmann than I expected. This could have something to do with the Nazis destroying evidence once they'd taken control of Paris, as Weidmann was a German and they didn't want his crimes associated with them...as they committed even more and worse crimes.

I started skimming the content strictly about Flanner after a while, only because I did not personally find her story all that compelling. The author could easily have written a biography solely of Flanner without making Weidmann seem like such an enmeshed part of her life in Paris. The story of her life before, during, and after World War II would be more than enough to engage many readers.

I did not enjoy this one, but would recommend it for those who have an interest in strong female journalists, Paris before and on the eve of WWII, and/or The New Yorker.

NetGalley ARC | The Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of the Third Reich's Press Chief

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐

This is a biography of Hitler written by his press chief Otto Dietrich, who served Hitler from 1933 to 1945, while he was in prison after the war. He believed Hitler was what Germany needed to pull them out of the misery following WWI and it was clear despite claiming he was 'disillusioned', that he STILL thought of Hitler as a great man when all was said and done.

Hitler is not one of those people that gets to be other-sided. There is no other side for him. Whatever positives there might have one been about him are throroughly and irrevocably negated by the fact that he ordered the extermination of an entire group of people, a mass genocide of millions. The author clearly admired Hitler still, and barely mentioned anything related to the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children.

The author also references quite often the demonic spirit or demonic personality that Hitler displayed. Absolutely not. There is no one and nothing to blame for the choices Hitler made, except Hitler himself. Referring to it as "demonic" attempts to absolve him of responsibility, gives it this air of something occult-ish or supernatural (something the Nazis loved and were obsessed with), and this can NEVER be allowed to happen for him or the minions who followed his orders. Here there is no way to separate the men and women from their actions and this can't be allowed to happen. They are all guilty. Yet Dietrich hardly mentions the mass murder, or camps, the ghettos and murder squads that came before the gas showers and crematoriums.

Dietrich claims to have just accepted what was told to him and chose to stay on as Hitler's press chief for the entirety of the war. There is no way he didn't know what was happening, or going to happen, as the Final Solution was developed and put into action. Yet his silence on this aspect is deafening. There is zero accountability, which is unsurprising.

After Dietrich was found guilty in 1949 of crimes against humanity, he was sentenced to seven years in prison by the US Military Tribunal. it was determined at Nuremberg that under his direction, the German press was to "enrage Germans against Jews" in order to justify what was happening with the ever-increasing restrictions, and eventual imprisonment and murder. Unfortunately in 1950 Dietrich's sentences was communted ot time served and he was released. He should have died in prison and not with his freedom, as he did in 1952.

The fact that Dietrich chose to have this published only after his death also speaks volumes. Books like this can be dangerous because there can be no white-washing of the crimes committed against the Jewish population of Europe. These men and women were human and evil, and deserved to die for their crimes against humanity. Yet many "escaped" or were released from prison early. Both outcomes are unacceptable and I fully support the continued pursuit of any Nazis still alive today who have yet to answer for their crimes.

Despite the complete lack of accountability, I would still recommend this read for those with an interest in WWII and trying to understand how someone like Hitler was able to come to power and keep it for so long. When everyone around you is also evil, it is easy to be seen as 'normal'.

Book Review | Hitler's Last Secretary: A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler

Rating ⭐⭐

Nope. Nope nope nope.

No on can be that naive. Nope.

I don't give a fuck what Hitler ate for dinner. I give a fuck that millions of men, women, and children were murdered on his orders. I don't care if it was naivety or being caught up in the atmosphere of the world at that time or both. Fuck all the way off.

Book Review | The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is a harrowing, beautiful survival story and one I could not put down. I have read more than my fair share of such stories, but they have typically focused on those who survived the death camps, the death marches, all the cruelty Nazi Germany had to offer. That does not mean there was not cruelty in Edith Hahn's life; she was still surrounded by it every single day.

Hahn grew up in Vienna and was forced to live in a ghetto when the Nazis arrived. From there she was sent to a labor camp for many months. Her sisters had escaped the Nazis, but barely. Yet Edith stayed for her mother and her love, Pepi. He insisted it could not really be that bad. Pepi was Jewish, but his mother had him baptized as a Christian. It made no difference in the end, because he was still Jewish and the baptism was not applicable 'retroactively'. He had to hide for most of the war no matter what - as a Jew, he would be deported to a camp; as a gentile, he would be shot on-sight as a deserter from the army. His mother was also awful and hated Edith because she was Jewish and said the most awful things to her all the time, begging her to 'let Pepi go' so he wouldn't be seen with a Jewish person. I am a little disappointed that his mother survived the war, not going to lie.

But I digress.

While Hahn was held in the labor camp in Germany, her mother sent whatever little comforts she could. Hahn remarked that her mother always sent whatever she herself needed - gloves, cakes, etc. While Edith was away, the ghetto was cleared and her mother was sent off to Poland. Hahn always kept the idea in her head and heart that she would find her mother again, and the family would be reunited. It was never to be however, as her mother was murdered within a week of arrival in Poland. Though Hahn does not find this out until after the war has ended. It is absolutely gut-wrenching because logically you know elderly women were not kept alive to work, but you hold out hope nonetheless.

Hahn's survival eventually came to depend on the very monsters who were hunting her people down. After returning from the labor camp, Hahn was supposed to report to a deportation site. She never did, and spent the remaining years of the war under an assumed name of a Christian friend in a plot that would have seen them both tortured and executed on the spot had either been discovered.

Hahn takes the name of her friend in order to get the necessary papers, and lives as Grete Denner. She lived in Munich after she escaped Vienna and eventually meets a man named Werner Vetter. He is a Nazi and pursues her at all costs. He is in the midst of divorcing his wife he later reveals, and in turn Hahn confesses to being Jewish. Despite his inclination to be in the party of mass murderers, Vetter continues to insist they get married. Hahn worries about the identification papers she does not have, those which prove her family's lineage as "pure Aryan", but in the end they are allowed to wed.

Side note: One of my favorite parts of the book occurs when the war is over and Hahn returns to the office where her papers were accepted so she and Vetter could marry. She needed to do so in order to get identification with her real name this time, finally safe from the Nazis. The same officiant is working in the office and he is shocked and angry to find out she lied, that she is actually Jewish. It was a beautiful little snippet.

I can not imagine living in a state of constant, paralyzing fear. Yet Hahn performs in her role so well, never giving in to that fear. She knows what to do in order to survive, and plays the part of the dutiful German wife. For a long time Vetter resisted the idea of having a child, and his terrible temper worried me for Hahn quite a bit, but she eventually becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. Of course he is pissed because he wanted a boy. Hahn speaks of refusing any pain meds during Angela's birth, out of fear of what she might say when under their influence.

As the war rolls on and Germany's defeat becomes a foregone conclusion, Vetter is drafted. He had previously escaped this due to the fact that he was legally blind in one eye. He is captured by the Russians in battle and a prisoner for ages, though Hahn uses every professional and political connection she has to free him. You see, before the Nazis came to Vienna, Hahn was studying to become a judge. She'd completed all her classes and only had to take the final exam. Yet the day she showed up to do so, she was turned away (with glee, I might add). After the war she was able to fulfill her goal and become a judge.

It was through these connections she was finally able to get Vetter home, though it did not last long. He still went on and on about her Jewish blood infecting their daughter, which confused me. If the Germans were so superior, shouldn't their blood have been "stronger"? GTFO of here, you Nazi scum, is all I have to say about that.

Hahn eventually leaves Germany for good when the Stasi is growing, and she is repeatedly asked to spy on her friends and acquaintances. Under the guise of visiting her sister in England, Hahn escapes for good. The heartbreaking turn of events means she will never practice law, never sit as a judge again. But she survives, as does her daughter.

Hahn was urged by her daughter to tell her story, and for that I am grateful. here we have a complete record of how one woman was able to do the unthinkable - live opening among the very people who hated her and would have wanted her dead had they known her true identity. I worried throughout the book whenever Vetter was angry, that he would turn her in, but that never happened. They divorced eventually when he went back to his first wife. That didn't last long however, and soon he was divorced again. He'd marry four more times before passing away in 2002.

Hahn kept every single piece of paper she was issued over her years in hiding, and when her daughter discovered these, she convinced her mother to give the photos and documents to the world. They are now part of the permanent collection at the Holocaust Museum in DC.

As memoirs from this period often do, this felt like much more of a conversation between Hahn and myself. I was there only to listen to her incredible tale of survival, to be in awe of a courageous woman who kept going, day after day, never knowing if that dreaded knock at the door in the middle of the night would come.

My only slight issue is the title - it is a bit misleading. Vetter worked for most of the war as a supervisor in a paint factory. He was only sent to fight near the end of the war, something he had avoided previously due to his blindness in one eye. But truly, it doesn't even matter all that much, because Hahn's story is so remarkable. She survived.

Highly recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Castles of England

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐1/2

I love a good ghost story, but that is not what I was expecting here so it kind of threw me off. I was expecting a book about the history of castles in England, from their beginnings up to present day. We get that here, but we also gets tons of stories of mysteries - unsolved murders, deaths of prisoners, executions, and so on.

I was anticipating much more in regards to physical histories and family histories, and there really was so much more that was paranormal. You might think it is weird that I am so hung up on that part, but it's just not what I was looking for from this book, so I think that's why I was honestly kind of annoyed.

The origin of the castle, or castellum in Latin, is so deeply imbedded in the history of England. You can't discuss the country's history without an in-depth focus on these structures. Castles are part of the landscape, and have been for 1,000 years. To not see one is far more strange.

Luckily there are so many to choose from, and whether you prefer crumbling ruins or castles that transport you back to the middle ages into a still-functioning relic of the period, everyone will find some castles of interest here.

Even this review is hard to write and I am struggling with it. The book just wasn't what I expected, and had such a heavy focus on the myths and legends, usually paranormal. I wanted to know more about architecture, builders, etc. I would have also loved more photographs.

NetGalley ARC | Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐

I probably would have given this four stars, or at least three and a half, if I would not have had to read about the journey of the mother of the worst president in the history of the United States.

Aside from that drivel, this was a book packed with tons of interesting anecdotes and gossip and I feel the author did a fantastic job portraying life at sea for these women and how their work evolved over time.

I enjoy this period of travel. I love that the author focuses specifically on women and how they made a living on the massive liners that once ran regularly between the US and Europe.

I appreciate that she focused on a a wide variety of women, from all walks of life. We read of celebrities, artists, and the wealthy travelling for pleasure, migrants and refugees seeking safety and a new life, as well as the women who worked for the great shipping companies, sending their wages back home to help care for parents and siblings.

I found women on the crew to be of the most interest to me. I admire these women who worked these long, hard hours at sea to provide for their families. Violet Jessop is mentioned here and I absolutely recommend her autobiography, which I wrote about HERE. Not only did Violet survive the sinking of Titanic, but not long after she survived the sinking of the Britannic (Titanic's sister ship) as well. Her book is a wonderful look into her life, in which the famous and not-so-famous shipwrecks play but a small part. She had even been aboard the Olympic in 1911 when it collided with the HMS Hawke.

There were times when the narrative was very slow and felt like a slog. This could be a personal thing, as we learn plenty about those who travelled by liner because they had the money to do so, sailing back and forth between the Old World and the New. Still, it did take me a bit to finish this one and some passages and stories were not nearly as interesting as others.

There were times when the book became a bit repetitive as well, especially when stories were similar. Not always, but enough to be noticeable.

I never really thought about until this book, just how critical this work was for women who sought independence and a way to support themselves. To say that it changed countless lives would not be an overstatement. Slowly but surely, as women began travelling more, the need for stewardesses arose to help tend to them aboard the ships. That role of stewardess even evolved over time as some women were able to become conductresses and coordinate activities for the passengers. And then as two world wars came, women were able to stay aboard as nurses and continue to make a life for themselves.

Overall I appreciate the author's work and the research that went into the book. She's given a voice to many women who otherwise might remain unknown to us today.

NetGalley ARC | The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Absolute must-read, right off the bat. I could not put this one down.

The Nine is a book about doing what is right, no matter the cost; about resilience and survival and the bonds of friendship. I would like to think we could all be this brave, but I also hope we never have to find out.

Here the author tells the story of her great aunt Helene's life during World War II and her fellow resistance fighters who would escape the clutches of the Nazis and make an incredibly painful and miraculous journey across Germany and finally return home to Paris.

Prior to their individual captures by the Gestapo, the women did not know one another. All were Resistance fighters who did what needed to be done, because they knew what was happening to the Jewish people was not right. These women did it all - hiding Jewish children, smuggling weapons, sheltering Ally agents who parachuted in behind enemy lines, and more. Anything and everything they could do to fight the Nazis, they did. As they were rounded up and interrogated, tortured, nearly killed, still they did not do anything to endanger the lives of fellow fighters.

After the Gestapo was through with them, the women were sent to various prisons in France where they began to find one another and forge friendships that would ensure their survival - even when things were at their bleakest. The women came to know one another in prison, or in transit from one to another,  then in RavensbrÜck, and finally in Leipzig (a sub-camp of Buchenwald). As the war came to an end and the Nazis were determined to hide their crimes, they marched their prisoners farther into German territory. It would be during that death march that Helene and her friends made their escape.

I could not put this book down. I was captivated from start to finish by this incredible story and the beauty of powerful friendships that came from horrifying events. To not only survive themselves, but to hold one another up at various points when one or another was ready to give up, is astounding. These young women, ranging in ages from 20-29, were determined to make it home and did so due to quick-thinking, courage bordering on insanity at times, and a bit of luck. 

Oh, and it was on foot the entire time.

The author does not shy away from accounts of the torture the women were subjected to and I admit to skimming those parts. However, I don't feel they were gratuitous - I am just a baby with a weak stomach/gag reflex. Yet even within these scenes, the author is careful, treating the subjects with the utmost respect. I think this is important. The farther we get away from The Holocaust, the easier it is for many to put away the images of the horrors that were inflicted on so many.

An aspect of the story from after the war that sparked my interest relates to the idea of the trauma that afflicted the next generation - the children of those who survived. So many survivors remained silent about what they had seen and heard. The author discusses transmission studies done in the 70s on these second-generation survivors and how intergenerational trauma came to be, and how it impacted the children of survivors.. I will definitely be seeking out more information on that topic.

Books like this are so important. There are so many women who took huge risks to do what they knew was right, and we will never know all of their names and faces. While I would love to know more details about their work, that is already all but lost to history. Women especially need to be recognized for all that they did to impact the outcome of the war.

Upon returning to their homes, the women find that France has already moved on. By the time they do make it back across the front, Paris has been liberated for nearly a year. These women become the reminder of something terrible that everyone else would rather forget.

Helene

Zaza

Nicole

Lon

Guigui

Zinka

Josee

Jacky

Mena

We will never forget you.

Highly, highly recommended.

Publisher Gift (via NetGalley) | Prisoners of War: What Monuments to World War II Tell Us about Our History and Ourselves

 

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (In this case, the publisher contacted me by email, and directed me to NetGalley if I was interested.)

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The importance of this book cannot be overstated. it is a timely look at our relationship with statues dedicated to history. One only has to look at the arguments made against removing confederate statues from public spaces to see the relevance. (Side note: pull all that bullshit down and stick it in a museum, with context, where it belongs. There are no heroes of the confederacy and not a single one of those men should be honored for their actions. They fought to keep slaves and no amount of supposed 'good' they ever did can make up for that fact. Fuck THAT bullshit narrative.)

Anyway.

Addressing this issue of accepting statues at face-value of being accurate representations of a moment in time in our history of war is done quite well within these pages. The author not only looks at how these monuments are written about, talked about, and viewed in the US, but looks at various monuments to the very same war and how they are viewed in countries around the world. In total he discusses 25 different monuments, from the US, to Italy, to Jerusalem, China, and many in between.

The photographs are stunning and for once I was glad to have received the file for my laptop only instead of my Kindle. Even though I hate sitting at my laptop to read, the photos alone were nearly enough to make it worth it. This truly is a book to have a physical copy of to peruse at your leisure. I don't feel it is a book meant to be read quickly or in just a couple of sittings. It will definitely give anyone pause who has visited these sites, and perhaps grapple with how one originally interpreted the monument, compared to its original and intended purpose.

One of the biggest take-aways from this book is the vast difference in how World War II is memorialized. Here in the US, our statues are to honor the heroes and our triumph over true and despicable evil. Yet around the world, monuments are most often dedicated to the victims - such as Italy's Shrine to the Fallen or The A Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. I think this again confirms the fact that the US often equates winning and patriotism - though it must also be remembered that aside from Pearl Harbor, World War II was not fought here. The monuments to the victims and the fallen are most often literally on the site of the atrocities they represent.

Lowe provides much context for the various events being commemorated by each statue. The research is thorough and he writes in an engaging way. He certainly gives the reader a lot to think about - both regarding those he is writing about, and the specific issue in the US regarding confederate monuments still standing.

When we come upon these monuments, either because we've specifically taken a trip to see them or we stumble upon them by accident, we must not stop asking ourselves to look beyond the scenery as it being another pretty picture for photo ops. We have to consider the original intended purpose of the statue, what aspect of history is being told, and whether or not it is actually accurate in its depiction.

Highly recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Hermine: An Empress in Exile

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐

The publisher emailed me asking if I would like an ARC and I decided to take a chance on it, as I know surprisingly little about Kaiser Wilhelm II and his family and even less about his second wife, Hermine. I think it is quite possible to still want to know more about a subject without liking them very much and I feel like that is the case here. I never knew the Kaiser even had a second wife, and what we are given in this shorter biography certainly gives us glimpses of an incredibly turbulent life before she became the 'Empress' as he insisted she be called. Unfortunately the early years of her life and her first marriage were not the focus, so there is not as much information there. On the other hand, it could be that the author disclosed all she could, because that is all the information available. I do not know for certain because, as I said before, Hermine is completely new to me.

The Kaiser's children from his first marriage were extremely wary about Hermine and her brood of children from her first marriage and it is easy to see why. Ambition is something Hermine had in spades and to many it looked like her end-game was all about how high she could climb on the social ladder. Being referred to as Empress certainly high up there, but she wanted more. Hermine wanted Wilhelm restored to the throne and for the monarchy to rule again. She tried her very best to cozy up to Hitler in order to make it happen.

It is disturbing that not only did she seek his company for this end, but she seems to have genuinely admired him. This is enough to make anyone who is not a terrible person shudder, and it is one of the things that does make Hermine incredibly unlikable. She an hardly be blamed for wanting to improve her husband's standing, to see his family restored to the throne, but it was never going to happen. Everyone else seemed to realize that except her.

As expected, the aging monarch remained in exile and Hermine stayed with him in the Netherlands for their twenty year marriage. While the Kaiser could not travel far, Hermine could and she made several trips to Germany in that time. When Wilhelm died in 1941, Hermine had no choice but to return to her first husband's lands. The war raged on and after it came to an end, Hermine was arrested. She was placed under the watchful eye of the Red Army, and she died mysteriously, supposedly of a heart attack, at the age of 59.

Hermine had an incredibly interesting life, though she did herself no favors with her attitudes and behaviors, which made people question her motives. Though to be fair, I think the Kaiser's children would have acted the same way toward any new wife of their father and that it was not all specifically about Hermine.

Recommended for those with an interest in Germany's history.

Book Review | My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Preface: I have probably watched Schindler's List more times than most people, and it's not because I just loved it so much, I watched it for fun over and over again. No, the actual reason is because when I was a senior in high school, I was taking a class called 21st Century Writing. We have four major papers to complete over the trimester and for one paper, we were supposed to select a movie from AFI's Top 100 and analyze the various components of the film - lighting, sound, color, etc. I am the giant moron who chose Schindler's List, then proceeded to have to watch it repeatedly as I took notes, wrote, revised, rewrote, etc. I have not watched it since. I can't. Ten+ times was enough and I may well only watch it once more in my lifetime - with Eleanor when she is old enough.

If you are unfamiliar with Schindler's List (and really, this should be no one), it tells the story of a German businessman who ended up saving approximately 1,200 Jews from certain death. He does this by employing workers from Krakow's Ghetto, keeping them safe and healthy and fed. To be fair, his intent was not so noble in the beginning. A businessman to the core and a member of the Nazi party because it benefited him businesswise, he wanted cheap labor to keep his factories running, thereby growing more and more wealthy each day. However, he came to be protective of 'his Jews' and fought to keep them together, bribing whoever he had to in order to keep those destined for the camps safe within his factory. The scene near the end when he must leave because the camps are being liberated, and he in tears, sobbing as it comes to him that perhaps there was more he could have done, more he could have saved, even one more. If you doubt that Liam Neesen is one of the top five greatest actors of all time, then watching that scene alone will change your mind.

Rena Finder was born in Krakow and at age eleven the Nazis arrived in full force. She and her family, along with every Jew in the city, were moved to the Ghetto. From there they are sent to Plaszow, outside of Krakow and Rena and her mother begin working in a factory owned by Schindler. Plaszow is eventually closed and Rena, her mother, and hundreds of Schindler's other employees are sent to Auschwitz. Schindler is determined to save them, so he completely up and moves his factory. He has it reassembled near Auschwitz and was able to get his workers back. They survived the Holocaust because of his actions.

It was truly a thing of horrific beauty to get a story of the Holocaust from a child who survived it. Even younger than Anne Frank, and living through the trauma of life in the Ghetto, then the camps. To have the reprieve, then it all taken away with the mix-up that sent them to Auschwitz, that feeling of lose and despair. But then to be found once more, to be saved. She recalls these events in great detail, with a kind of clarity only a child can express. When that moment of liberation finally comes, it is almost hard to believe. After the years of uncertainty, not knowing if they would again be shipped off from the safety of Schindler's factory, to finally knowing they were free once more.

This is a must for any upper elementary/lower middle school classroom library, and especially important for teaching on the subject of the Holocaust. It would also make a great small-group book for study. Highly recommended.

Publisher Gift via NetGalley | The Fighting Bunch: The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. In this instance, the publisher contacted me by email to ask if I would be interested in reading the book.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As someone who takes great pride in their reading abilities, I nearly missed out on this fantastic book because I DIDN'T FULLY READ THE SUBTITLE.

I know, right?

When I receive the email from St Martin's Press inviting me to read the book, I saw 'The Battle of Athens' and my mind immediately went to Greece. I assumed it would have something to do with Greece's civil war that erupted in 1946, and that was not something I had much interest in. The book cover showed up rather small in the email as well, so I could not clearly see the cover.

THANK GOODNESS I CHECKED GOODREADS BEFORE DECIDING YAY OR NAY.

Turns out, this book is fucking brilliant and I am so glad I did not pass up the chance to read it.

DeRose has crafted a masterpiece that details little-known events in Athens, Tennessee. To say that local government officials in McGinn County were corrupt would be putting it mildly. The political machine hard at work in Tennessee did everything possible to ensure that their candidates remained in power. Voter intimidation was a constant, ballot box stuffing was the norm, and anyone who spoke out against it regretted their decision pretty quickly.

One can see then why returning WWII veterans might take offense to this chicanery and blatant law-breaking. These men fought in the worst of conditions all over Europe and the Pacific, only to return home to find their own local governments were not abiding by the very rules and laws set down by our founders. They could not abide this.

The non-partisan GI all-veteran ticket would make sure that Election Day, 1946 (August 1st) would be the dawning of a new era in politics in McGinn County. Naturally those in power had no intention of giving up their voter-intimidating, voter fraud-committing ways without a fight.

A fight is certainly what they got, as the literal battle waged long into the night, carrying over into the early hours of August 2nd before finally wearing itself out.

What occurred prior to that ending is one of the craziest stories I have ever read, and I am so glad that DeRose has brought these heroes into the light where they belong. Once I began reading, I could not put the book down.

As Election Day wore on, the GIs realized that they were not going to get a fair vote, no matter how much they lobbied for things to be done the right way. Polling places were randomly closed, ballot boxes were hidden from view when the counting began, and the all-veteran ticket found themselves and their supporters under assault in some instances. They were arrested, voter intimidation went on like crazy, and a few voters were shot. A small band of veterans decided to take matters into their own hands. Called the Fighting Bunch, this group took up arms and headed to the heart of the ballot-counting, to the town's jail. They demanded a fair and honest count and were immediately rebuffed. The Sheriff and his deputies refused. The battle was on.

It is a miracle that despite the battle waging on for hours as gunfire ricocheted off buildings downtown, not a single person was killed when things finally came to an end. Instead of gloating about their victory, the GIs and the Fighting Bunch in particular realized they might be in some major trouble. After all, they had just lead an armed rebellion that put dozens of people in danger. Criminal charges were possible, and would not have been a surprise. So, instead of glad-handing and celebrating in the streets, the young war-weary men quickly blended back into the crowds of citizens and the incident was rarely spoke of again. In fact, many children didn't even know their fathers had taken part in the event that they had heard whispers and bits and pieces of their entire lives. The veterans had accomplished their goal - a free and fair election. They could return their town and county to respectability again.

Had DeRose not undertaken this project when he did, the truth of that night might really have been lost forever. He conducted extensive interviews with those related to the men who fought just as valiantly for their town as they had their country in the years before. Few witnesses are left, making this book all the more crucial. Many artifacts also helped paint the picture, including radio broadcasts from that evening, previously recorded interviews, journals, letters, and more. It seems that for once, the second amendment did exactly as it was intended - saved democracy in this section of the country.

To be clear, those opposed to the corrupt government of Athens and McGinn County, lead by Boss Crump out of Memphis and Sheriff Paul Cantrell right there in town, tried to call attention to what had been happening for years. Cantrell and his deputies (some of whom were known murderers/criminals, deputized at certain times to 'help out') made sure that their party would always come out on top. Elections were rigged so their candidates won by large margins often - a feat almost unimaginable seeing as how there often ended up being far more votes cast for one of their men than there were eligible voters. They randomly closed polling places with no warning, harassed those who did not vote the way they wanted, threatened voters who asked (as was their right) to witness the vote-counting, and were not above assault and even murder. The corruption extended far beyond election day however, as the elected officials made sure to line their own pockets, as well as the pockets of the men above them that they owed their positions to. the sheriff and deputies often made false arrests and charged the supposed offenders exorbitant sums of money. They also targeted tourists and those passing through. Word got around rather quickly that it would be best to by-pass Athens altogether whenever possible, and in general to just stay out of McGinn County.

This is a fascinatingly comprehensive look at the lives of those involved and the events leading up to that fateful day where a group of residents decided that enough was enough. They would not live in fear, and they would make sure that every vote was counted as it was cast. This is a story of courage, grit, and determination. These men had spent significant portions of their young lives fighting in a war on the other side of the world, only to come home and find there was more fighting to be done.

DeRose is thorough in his research, including scores of footnotes (we all know I LOVE footnotes) and plenty of sources for further perusal. He truly brought this story to life and this is as timely as ever here on the eve of what I believe will be one of the ugliest elections in our nation's history.

I already have two people I will be giving this book to for Christmas. I can not recommend it highly enough. This is a must-read.

NetGalley ARC | The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book is a must-read for everyone, which I know is a tall and impossible order, but I stand by my statement.

I almost did not read this one at all. My family is very German. My last name is basically the US equivalent of 'Smith' or 'Johnson', though we dropped the umlauts quickly. As a result of this ancestry, I have long been a receptacle for any and all WWII and Holocaust knowledge I could get my hands on. Most of our family left Germany in the early 1900s, but some stayed behind. I wanted so desperately to know their experiences, and to understand on a broader scale how such horrific crimes against humanity could happen. Every project in school that could possibly relate to the Holocaust or WWII, that was my topic.

But then I became a mother in 2013 and could no longer stomach reading of these terrible atrocities, especially when children were involved. I would sob uncontrollably and not be able to finish the book.

I approached this one with some trepidation; seven years on and I still struggle reading anything having to do with crimes against children, but I am so, so glad that I read this book and I can not stop recommending it to others.

The story centers on the Kleinmann family from Vienna and reads like a novel, though it is a true story. Gustav Kleinmann, the family patriarch, and the oldest son Fritz, are arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald. They learn to survive, relying on one another as best they can through terrible conditions. They develop a keen sense of survival, what other choice do they have?

Then the day comes when Gustav finds he is being sent to Auschwitz. They know what this means; everyone knows about Auschwitz. In that moment, Fritz knows he can not let his father go and makes the decision to go too. Fritz insists he must go with his father and the Nazis allow it, which honestly kind of surprised me. You'd think that would have been some kind of red flag, or that they would have refused in order to inflict more cruelty on their prisoners. But I guess to them one death camp is the same as another - no one was ever expected to survive Auschwitz or any of the dozens of camps and sub-camps throughout Germany and Poland.

Despite enduring such terrible treatment and atrocious living conditions, theirs is a story of love, hope, and faith in one another. The youngest child of the Kleinmann family, Kurt, had been sent to the US to escape the war. Gustav and Fritz had no idea what had become of the rest of their family; for all they knew, they were the only two left besides Kurt. They kept one another going even when giving up would have been the easiest and even expected thing to do. We find out that Tini, Gustav's wife and Fritz's mother and Herta, one daughter/sister, did not survive. Edith, the oldest daughter, was able to get to England on a work visa.

Throughout six years of absolute horror and trauma, Gustav and Fritz weather it all. They become invaluable workers in helping construct Buchenwald - Fritz learns quickly on the job, knowing that being a skilled worker at least ensures he be kept around longer than others. Gustav had been an upholsterer before their lives were completely upended and used his skills as well to become valuable to those in charge of the camp.

It is throughout this time that Gustav manages to conceal one of the small comforts that keeps him sane - scraps of paper squirreled away that become his secret journal. Had it ever been discovered, he would have been killed on the spot. Most of what we know comes from that secret journal, as well as interviews with family members - including Kurt,  and thorough research by the author.

This is a truly stunning work of art, and a testament to the love and bond of a father and son. There can never be 'too many' memoirs of this horrific time in our world's history. Each person and experience was unique. All are worthy of being known.

Highly, highly recommended.

Children of Nazis: The Sons and Daughters of Himmler, Göring, Höss, Mengele, and Others - Living with a Father's Monstrous Legacy

Rating: 4 Stars

Aside from being absolute monsters and garbage excuses for human beings, what do Josef Mengele, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Hans Frank, Martin Bormann, and Rudolf Höss have in common?

They were all fathers.

I can not imagine a worse legacy to carry than to be the child of a Nazi. What a burden placed on those who know and accept the truth of what their fathers and mothers did during the war. They are victims, no one asks to be the child of monsters.

More horrific still are those who also know and accept what their parents did, and are proud of it. Those who continue to believe in the Nazi ideals and propaganda. I have zero sympathy for them, and they deserve to have their lives made difficult on a daily basis. I also believe we should never stop until every last Nazi is rounded up, put on trial, and given an appropriate sentence - life in prison. I don't care that these men are old or "unfit for trial" as some judges have deemed. They should be held accountable for their actions and prosecuted for those crimes against humanity.

I really became interested in the subject of these children (now, of course, adults - or even deceased themselves since the war) a couple years ago when I saw a documentary on Netflix. It was an aspect of the war I had not really considered before. My family is super German (Seriously. Our last name is the equivalent of Smith in the US) and so World War II and the Holocaust have always been something I wanted to know everything about, and that interest was sparked early on in my life, as early as middle school. And even so, it was not until just a few years ago that I gave much thought to the fact that these horrible men and women had children, who had children, and that they live among us today. Some denounce everything their parents believed in, and some embrace it without batting an eye.

There were many great things about this book, so many that I actually did not take very many notes because I could not stop reading long enough to do so. As the author seeks answers, it seemed to me to constantly repeat that whatever kind of relationship the child had with his or her father, determined how they felt about him later on. "Nevertheless, Rolf never turned Josef in. The reason he gives: it was impossible for him to betray his father. Unlike Niklas Frank, who detested his father, Rolf's feeling was that he never knew his father well enough to hate him" (75%). I know, right? Surely the fact that Rolf's father was not just any Josef, but THE Josef, as in Josef Mengele, would have been reason enough? This man tortured so many - especially, children, especially twins, and his son can't 'betray' him?

Here we truly get a remarkable look at some of the more intimate parts of the lives of these absolute monsters. Is it not a thought that just makes your skin crawl, when thinking of the men going home at night, kissing their wives, having a family dinner, then reading books by the fire or something else completely ordinary? And that's what really makes this all the more terrifying - good people do nothing, or look the other way entirely, and evil wins.

Though it disgusts me, I do suppose I can at least view from the perspective of those who still idolize their fathers, what kind of trauma this must have been, even though they chose to embrace that trauma instead of denounce it. Most of the children were young, and were raised in perfectly posh surrounds befitting the families of high-ranking Nazi officials. They were raised unaware of what was really going on across Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and scores of other places. Their childhoods were just as innocent and carefree as the offspring of any non-murderous monsters. Yet the moment it became clear that Germany would lose, that the Nazi would lose, that whole little world completed shattered, shattering their lives in the process.

The author does a considerable amount of work to bring this all out into the light, but she does not do so in a malicious or spiteful way. She has clearly done extensive amounts of research, and thus we are privy to so many details of these childhoods spent far from the camps and battlefields. She looks at each child, their relationship with their father or parents, depending on how involved their mothers might have been, and presents the information without bias. She does remarkably well in not allowing any emotion to get the better of her as she examines how eight specific children grew up struggling with the burden, or wearing it as a badge of honor.

Each child has their own section, and not only are we given an incredibly detail portrait of their lives and relationship, but the author gives much text to who exactly their fathers were (and sometimes mothers also), and what their jobs within the party entailed. Sometimes to was difficult to reconcile that two-sides-to-the-coin thing, how some could be seemingly wonderful fathers, but then turn around and be absolute destroyers of human life. Not all of the fathers depicted fit that mold though, some appeared as detached from their children as they were from those who they murdered, or ordered the murders of. It was a very enlightening look at family life within the party.

I suppose I should not have been, but I was truly surprised at how many of the children felt that their fathers had not been judged fairly. More than one - even more than two - were not only proud of their fathers, proud to be children of these former high-ranking officials, but at one time or another were trying to actively promote the work their fathers had begun. Others used the old "just following orders" garbage, which just made me roll my eyes. There were those, however, that fell far to the other end of the spectrum, one going so far as to undergo sterilization, as he feared passing on his genes to the future generation.

My only real complaint is...I wish this book would have been written sooner. It first came out in 2016 and by then, some of the children were no longer living. Still others have health problems, and all around most seem to just want to be left alone. The author was able to meet one of the children but no, I am not going to spoil that. it certainly made for a more intense experience, when getting the words directly from the descendant. In all the other cases it shows how much research the author truly completed, compiling information from previous interviews, the person's own writing, or even perspectives of others who knew the child. Unfortunately this did not always make for the best way to determine the lasting impact on the child based on the crimes of the father. Projects like these are so important. One day there will not be one single person who has a firsthand account of the atrocities committed in Hitler's reign of terror. Then, I fear, we will be in big trouble. As memories fade, so does the horror. We must never let that happen.

I highly recommend this one, whether you have a lot of knowledge about these men already, or not. It is an interesting perspective to take on a subject that has hundreds and thousands of books already dedicated to it.

A Roll of the Dice: A Memoir of a Hungarian Survivor

Tonight I had the profound honor of hearing a talk by Agnes Schwartz, who survived the horrors of war and the Holocaust as a young Jewish girl in Budapest. Her message was simple and consistent: Never forget. This can never happen again. She spoke of the deniers, and how when the last survivors are gone, it will up to future generations to know and teach those that come after them about this terrible crime against humanity; this way there will be no opportunity for the deniers to gain a foothold.

Many times I was in tears. She spoke of her happy childhood, growing up in a well-to-do family. Her parents owned their own business and Agnes went to school, excelled in academics and earned a place at a college prep gymnasium. She spoke lovingly of her family, her mother and father. Of her grandparents and spending summers with them in the country. And of Julia, her family's housekeeper, who had known Agnes since birth. But when the Nazis marched into Hungary - and Mrs Schwartz was very specific about this word, as Hungary was one of Germany's allies, and in a deep depression at the time - those happy days came to a sudden end. The deportations started in the countryside, and luckily Agnes' parents had moved her grandparents to Budapest at the time, so the family was together. They were moved from their comfortable apartment into a two-bedroom, cramped apartment a few blocks away. Agnes, her parents, and grandparents shared one bedroom, the other occupied by others Jewish people of no relation to Schwartz and her family. Not long after this move, Agnes' grandfather became ill. So ill, he was taken to a "hospital". Her last memory of her grandfather is him lying on a cot, in a long row of cots. Despite trying to find out what happened to him, she does not know if he died of his illness, or was murdered by the Nazis.

When deportations started in the city, men ages 18-45 were taken first. Agnes had to tell her father good bye. A few days later the Nazis came back, this time for the women in that same age range. Agnes recalled with perfect clarity saying good bye to her mother, her mother telling her to be a good girl. She would never see her mother again, as she died at Bergen-Belsen of 'natural causes', likely starvation and typhus. Agnes would not learn this until after the war. So for a time it was Agnes and her grandmother, in a tiny, shared apartment with little food and lots of bed bugs. One day a knock at the door brought a great surprise - her father. He'd escaped en route to Germany and when two Nazi officers were seeking directions to Budapest. Her father was fluent in German and as a result of him assisting the officers, he was not deported. When he learned that his wife had been taken away, he wanted to go after her, but both Agnes and her grandmother begged him to stay. He did.

A final knock at the door opened up an escape for Agnes. Her family's former housekeeper, Julia, was going to take Agnes with her and keep her from deportation. Agnes had blond hair, and so was passed off as Julia's niece from eastern Hungary. Her story was that her parents had sent her to Budapest to stay with her Aunt Julia as the Russians invaded. The plan worked and not a single person ever questioned the story.

I can not imagine living through the things that Agnes Schwartz survived. She ended up losing her grandmother as well as her aunt and uncle, all three having been moved into the ghetto. Even as the war was on its last legs and everyone knew the end was near, the Nazis were determined to kill as many Jews as possible. Agnes learned that her remaining family members had been taken to the Danube River, shot and left to die in the freezing water. She also spoke of how, as ammunition was running short, the Nazis would tie ten people together at a time with wire, shoot one, and they all would fall into the river together killing ten people with one bullet. Schwartz spoke of how whenever she hears someone talk of the 'Blue Danube', she thinks of it as the 'Red Danube', filled with the blood of innocent Jews, murdered for their only crime of being born Jewish. When the bombings of Budapest finally stopped as the Russians liberated the city, Mrs Schwartz recalled those first moments coming up from the basement of Julia's apartment building, having lived in almost total darkness for nearly two months as bombs were dropped day and night and they had little light inside except for candles. She spoke of first going outside, how bright it was and the stench that even now she says has never left her nose, the smell of death with bodies strewn about the streets. 

Easy to see why I was in tears much of the night, no?

After Mrs Schwartz spoke about her experiences surviving the war, her immigration to the US and her life up to this point, she took some questions from the audience, then signed copies of her memoir.

I waited in line with my friends, and when it was my turn, I asked if I could hold her hand. I clasped her hand between my own, and she patted the top of mine. I did not know what else to say, but "Thank you." I told her thank you, for sharing your story, for passing this on to those who have come after you. I must have said thank you five times. We chatted briefly, and she asked my name before signing my book.

This interaction, these experiences with living history, people who have survived these greatly traumatic events, must continue to happen. Hearing a survivor tell their own story is so much more powerful than reading a chapter from a text book. Every day there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors left in the world. We must hear their stories before they are gone, and continue to pass them on.

Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor

I received this ARC for free via NetGalley from Da Capo Press in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I have a slight obsession with reading anything I can get my hands on about Pearl Harbor. I think part of the reason is because I have been there, been out to the USS Arizona, and seen the memorials. It is a humbling experience and one not to be taken lightly. My grandma and I went to Hawaii a few years ago and we incredibly lucky to have two great tour guides from Home of the Brave Tours (one of whom was the owners' son) who took us to Pearl Harbor, Wheeler Airfield and Schofield Barracks, the Punchbowl, Fort Shafter, and a few other sites before the tour concluded at the museum run by the company. Just an aside, the tour was amazing and I highly recommend this tour company. Lots of high-interest sites and very informative - plus the museum had tons of great artifacts; Grandma and I had such a great experience. All photos belong to me and were taken in June, 2010.

Arriving at the USS Arizona

At Wheeler

At the Home of the Brave Tours museum

Now I suppose I should get on to the book, eh?

On December 7th, 1941 as the attack was getting underway by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, one of the enduring mysteries of that day was unfolding. An American cargo ship, the Cynthia Olson, was hauling lumber from the Seattle to Honolulu for the Army. Somewhere in between, the ship was fired on by a Japanese sub. After sending off one wireless message about an attack, the radio on board went silent. No one knows for sure what happened to the ship, how long she took to sink, if multiple subs were involved, or the fate of her 35 crew members. While the captain of I-26, the sub who fired on the Cynthia Olsen, has passed away, along with everyone else who was involved (either American or Japanese), we will never know for sure the true story.

"The humble Cynthia Olson - old, slow, and of virtually no military value in the greater scheme of things - was destined to die simply because she was in the wrong place at the very worst of times" (36%).

We can, however, make our best educated guesses based on the information we do have - though unfortunately certain ship logs that might shed light on the mystery have long-since disappeared, reported as destroyed.

Sounds like something we should have learned about in history class right? And we would have, had the full-scale attack on Pearl Harbor not also been happening at roughly the same time. And that is actually part of the mystery. There is kind of a muddle of information that does not make it clear when the warning shot was first fired at the ship. The sub's commander insisted he did not fire the warning shot until 8:00 AM Hawaiian time, when the first wave was to descend on Oahu. However, that may not have been true, and he may have ordered the first shot up to half an hour earlier.

I wavered between three and four stars on this one for a while, and really only because the beginning started off very slow. Truthfully, I even skimmed a lot of that because I wanted to get to the real point of the book. Prior to that though, we are given the entire history of the Cynthia Olson which, while important, made for heavy reading very early on. Given the fact that we really don't have answers, perhaps the back story was included to give some meat to the text, as I honestly do not think there was enough information to really flesh out the story. I think overall this is an important event though. These men deserve to have their stories told, at least as much as we can tell of them, given the information still available. Unfortunately for the men who hailed from the Philippines, with lack of contact information for their next-of-kin or descendants, this story will never really have an ending.

As mentioned above, the beginning of the book, perhaps about 1/4, is devoted to the history of the Cynthia Olson. We learned about her construction, the company that owned her, and the crew who were aboard the ship on December 7th. The problem again is that there was so little known about most of the crew, that they never really seem real. The crew was comprised primarily of Scandinavian-born naturalized US citizens and Filipino merchant marines who retained their citizenship in the Philippines. There was a bit more information known about the captain, Carl Carlson, and his officers, but other than that many times even the ages of the crew were unknown. These men mattered, their story matters, but we never really get to know them and there is no chance of that happening.

So, we are left to focus on what we do know and the story does pick up its pace as the ship and sub cross paths. I-26 is commanded by Minoru Yokota, and we get his background and resume as well. We are told that the Cynthia Olson sent a distress call after being stopped with a warning shot. Japanese accounts then state that Commander Yokota gave the crew time to abandon the vessel, it being an unarmed ship, and both lifeboats were swung away, the davits empty in ensuing photos taken from the sub. Then, after the men were off the ship, the Cynthia Olson was slowly but surely sunk to the bottom of the Pacific. There is not clarity about how long the sinking actually took, and accounts contradict one another. At one point in later interviews, Commander Yokota says it took several hours to sink, yet this would not have been possible when the search vessels arrived to assist the Cynthia Olson crew. Unsurprisingly, they find nothing, no debris, no crew, no bodies, nothing. Other accounts state that a second sub, I-19 (later to actually be identified as I-15), came upon the crew in their lifeboats and gave them some additional provisions. The current and winds would have carried the lifeboats away from the location of the sinking, making any hope of rescue impossible. We are privy to this fact based on the coordinates of the rescue ships and the vast area they covered in their box search.

The final section relates to what the author considers the three essential questions revolving around the mystery of the lost ship. First is a question of timing and whether or not the Cynthia Olson was sunk before shots were ever fired on Pearl Harbor. Secondly, whether news of the attack have been enough of a warning that more was coming. And last, the most important, what happened to the 35 men who woke up to a new day on an uneventful routine sea voyage that would ultimately be their last?

In the end, we will never have concrete answers to these questions, except perhaps question number two. Even if Commander Yokota had ordered his crew to fire that warning shot, it could not have been more than 30-45 minutes before the rest of the force attacked. And really, would he have jeopardized the bigger mission, for surely he would have thought that rescue ships and/or planes would have come to the Cynthia Olson's aid. As for the fate of the crew, the author presents us with four options:

1. There was no warning shot and the ship was sunk with the crew on board, violating international treaties in regards to unarmed ships

2. The crew was able to get off the ship in the life boats, and then were killed by I-26

3. The crew was killed by the second sub, I-15

4. The crew perished in the lifeboats, either from starvation, dehydration, exposure, etc.

The author does point out, logically, that scenario one and two don't make a lot of sense. This primarily rests on the fact that the wireless operator, Sam Ziskind, had time after the sub's appearance to send both the auto alarm and the follow-up message with the ship's coordinates. As such, one would have to wonder what the point would have been for the commander to allow the crew to board the boats, only to kill them in the water. It would have seemed to be a waste of precious time, especially as the rest of the country was finding out what was happening on Oahu.

Further digging into the possibility of scenario #3 indicates that neither I-15 nor I-19 could have come into contact with the Cynthia Olson lifeboats. This is according to records and the author's research into those records.

The final scenario then seems the most likely, though we will never be certain. It is most likely that the men drifted on the open water, exhausting the provision each boat was equipped with, eventually succumbing to the conditions. This is the conclusion the author states can only be the true, logical conclusion to this tragic story. While I do not share his conviction 100%, it does make sense.

Though I mentioned before that there truly was not enough material here to make this a full book, I do have to admire the research the author put into this text. It appears he searched through every archive, spoke to every person he could, to glean any scrap of info possible about the ship, her crew, and her final hours. The Notes section runs from 79% to 92%, noting several contacts around the US, as well as a few other countries. Primary and Secondary Sources then run from 92% to 96%.

Overall, I can recommend it for those who truly have an interest in WWII and Pearl Harbor in particular. For those who may have only a passing interest in the subject, the massive information dump in the beginning may be off-putting. Still, I do see the value in this story being told. It is the least we can do for the crew of the Cynthia Olson.