Confronting the Silence: A Holocaust Survivor’s Search for God

Confronting the Silence: A Holocaust Survivor’s Search for God
Author: Walter Ziffer
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2019-08-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

In this memoir, Walter Ziffer, a Holocaust survivor born in Czechoslovakia in 1927, recounts his boyhood experiences, the Polish and later German invasions of his hometown, the destruction of his synagogue, his Jewish community’s forced move into a ghetto, and his 1942 deportation and ensuing experiences in eight Nazi concentration and slave labor camps. In 1945, Ziffer returned to his hometown, trained as a mechanic and later emigrated to the US where he converted to Christianity, married, graduated from Vanderbilt University with an engineering degree, worked for General Motors before becoming a Christian minister. He taught and preached in Ohio, France, Washington DC and Belgium. He later returned to Judaism and considers himself a Jewish secular humanist. “The compelling story of an unfolding life carried by an insatiable search for meaning.” — Mahan Siler, retired Baptist minister “In Walter Ziffer’s beautifully written new book, you will learn of Walter’s complex life journey, and you may experience, thanks to his skillfully told story and clearly articulated questions and insights, a sense of his presence, the presence of a great man who finds in his own story lessons important for the rest of us, especially now.” —Richard Chess, Director, The Center for Jewish Studies at UNC Asheville “A powerful and unique addition to the literature of the Holocaust. Walter Ziffer’s memoir not only recounts his own personal resilience and survival of the camps, but also his own unusual spiritual journey in which he both becomes a Christian minister while retaining his quintessential Jewish identity. This is a learned, well-crafted, and fascinating new dimension to this literature.” — Michael Sartisky, President Emeritus, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities “The Holocaust portion [of this memoir]... is as true and chilling as a parent’s last words. His tale-telling prowess makes as strong a mental impression as it makes a factual one.” — Rob Neufeld, Asheville Citizen-Times

The Birth of Christianity from the Matrix of Judaism

The Birth of Christianity from the Matrix of Judaism
Author: Walter Ziffer
Publisher: Author House
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2006-06-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467816221

The book presents the essential information necessary for understanding how Christianity developed from being a Jewish sect to becoming an independent religion. While religious differences played an important role in the separation of Jews and Christians in the first and second centuries of the Common Era, there were also political, social and economic factors at work that contributed to the parting of the ways of these two groups. An effort was made to keep technical jargon to a minimum in this work. Thus we have here a book that is easily understood and yet scientifically sound. Footnotes should help steer the interested reader toward more specialized treatments of this or that sub-theme. In the end it is hoped that the book will be a stepping stone toward a more respectful and creative partnership between Christians and Jews in the neverending task of tikkun olam, the healing of our ailing world.

The Trial of God

The Trial of God
Author: Elie Wiesel
Publisher: Schocken
Total Pages: 211
Release: 1995-11-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0805210539

The Trial of God (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod) A Play by Elie Wiesel Translated by Marion Wiesel Introduction by Robert McAfee Brown Afterword by Matthew Fox Where is God when innocent human beings suffer? This drama lays bare the most vexing questions confronting the moral imagination. Set in a Ukranian village in the year 1649, this haunting play takes place in the aftermath of a pogrom. Only two Jews, Berish the innkeeper and his daughter Hannah, have survived the brutal Cossack raids. When three itinerant actors arrive in town to perform a Purim play, Berish demands that they stage a mock trial of God instead, indicting Him for His silence in the face of evil. Berish, a latter-day Job, is ready to take on the role of prosecutor. But who will defend God? A mysterious stranger named Sam, who seems oddly familiar to everyone present, shows up just in time to volunteer. The idea for this play came from an event that Elie Wiesel witnessed as a boy in Auschwitz: “Three rabbis—all erudite and pious men—decided one evening to indict God for allowing His children to be massacred. I remember: I was there, and I felt like crying. But there nobody cried.” Inspired and challenged by this play, Christian theologians Robert McAfee Brown and Matthew Fox, in a new Introduction and Afterword, join Elie Wiesel in the search for faith in a world where God is silent.

Messengers of God

Messengers of God
Author: Elie Wiesel
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 262
Release: 1985-03-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 067154134X

Originally published: New York: Random House, Ã1976.

Justice Not Vengeance: Recollections

Justice Not Vengeance: Recollections
Author: Simon Wiesenthal
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2024-09-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

“The beloved and reviled ‘Nazi hunter’ pens his life story, and a riveting one it is. Born in Galicia, one of the most war-ravaged territories in the world, he miraculously survived World War II, with more than one hair’s-breadth escape. Since that time he has been occupied mainly with tracking down Nazi war criminals who have gone into hiding and in pushing, through publicity, reluctant German and Austrian officials to bring war criminals to justice... the book consists of mainly... a miscellany of cases and questions that have engaged the 81-year-old Mr. Wiesenthal, who has lived in Vienna since the war, through the course of his unique career. Above all, it contains the story of how, after 12 years of tracking him down, he was able to point his finger at Adolf Eichmann, then living pseudonymously in Argentina, so that the Israelis could kidnap him for trial and eventual execution. But, apart from successes such as this one, Mr. Wiesenthal’s book contains histories of Nazi war criminals whose whereabouts have not yet been discovered or who have remained unattainable in spite of his efforts... this book may best be described as a companion volume, or even as a supplement, to Mr. Wiesenthal’s classic 1967 work, The Murderers Among Us... Mr. Wiesenthal’s recollections do not involve evil men alone. There is a chapter on the late Andrei Sakharov, praising him and describing the author’s efforts on his behalf, and there is one on Raoul Wallenberg, who was arrested by the victorious Soviets in February 1945 after his heroic efforts the previous year had succeeded in saving the lives of tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest. Since then, Mr. Wallenberg’s whereabouts have remained a mystery... In all, this book provides a sense of a formidable presence, of a force larger than life that seems equal to an enormous task it has taken on.” — The New York Times “Simon Wiesenthal, who has devoted his life to hunting down Nazis, believes that ‘guilt cannot be forgiven but only paid for by expiation.’ In his memoirs, which created a furor when they were published in Austria (where he now lives) in 1988, Wiesenthal explores the lack of remorse among former Austrian Nazis in the larger context of that country’s approach to its past. This is not an autobiography in the strict sense — those wishing a fuller account of his life should turn to The Murderers Among Us (1967); rather, Wiesenthal shows here how his own pursuit of war criminals came to be entangled in the net of Austrian politics. Appropriately, Justice Not Vengeance reaches its climax in a narrative of his battles with the late Austrian chancellor, Bruno Kreisky... In these absorbing memoirs, Wiesenthal goes some way toward counting up the cost, to Austria itself, of its ongoing destructive attempt to suppress and to deny its past.” — Commentary Magazine “The Nazi hunter’s life and raison d’être are eloquently encapsulated by this autobiography — and its title. The book opens with a biographical sketch by Peter Lingens, an Austrian journalist who provides background on Wiesenthal’s life up until the sleuth’s second escape from death shortly before liberation... the final testament of a major 20th-century figure, seeking vindication from any image of vindictiveness.” — Kirkus “Renowned Nazi-hunter Wiesenthal recalls his escapes from death in concentration camps where his family perished, and his career tracking down war criminals. The shattering account, as riveting as a spy yarn, concerns his ruthless global pursuit of hundreds of murderers and collaborators, including Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Mengele and the SS officer who arrested Anne Frank.” — Publishers Weekly “This is a fascinating book for more reasons than one... The details of the numerous cases in the book read truly like detective stories.” — International Journal on World Peace

Shmuel's Bridge

Shmuel's Bridge
Author: Jason Sommer
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2022-03-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1623545129

A moving memoir of a son’s relationship with his survivor father and of their Eastern European journey through a family history of incalculable loss. Jason Sommer’s father, Jay, is ninety-eight years old and losing his memory. More than seventy years after arriving in New York from WWII-torn Europe, he is forgetting the stories that defined his life, the life of his family, and the lives of millions of Jews who were affected by Nazi terror. Observing this loss, Jason vividly recalls the trip to Eastern Europe the two took together in 2001. As father and son travel from the town of Jay’s birth to the labor camp from which he escaped, and to Auschwitz, where many in his family were lost, the stories Jason’s father has told all his life come alive. So too do Jason’s own memories of the way his father’s past complicated and impacted Jason's own inner life. Shmuel's Bridge shows history through a double lens: the memories of a growing son’s complex relationship with his father and the meditations of that son who, now grown, finds himself caring for a man losing all connection to a past that must not be forgotten.

Father Land: A Study of Authoritarianism in the German Family

Father Land: A Study of Authoritarianism in the German Family
Author: Bertram Schaffner
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2022-06-08
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

“This valuable and penetrating little book deals with one of the baffling problems of our age, namely the relation between Nazi and German... The thesis of the book is that the traditional German character is derived from a rigid, authoritarian, static family system which adapted itself readily to the Nazi pattern and remained essentially unaltered when the Nazi layer was stripped away. The implication is that German and Nazi are more nearly identical than is realized by naïve exponents of ‘denazification’... a well-written, sensible book suggestive as to methodology and rich in wisdom...” — The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science “An interesting study of paternal ‘authoritarianism in the German family,’ with implications for the political behavior of the Germans as a people.” — Foreign Affairs “Of the many postwar books now available on Germany and the various phases of its culture, ideologies, and social structure, this book stands out. The approach is scientifically oriented, combining psychiatry with sociology and anthropology.” — American Journal of Orthopsychiatry “This is a book by a social scientist, on a timely subject. It is a pity that more books of this kind are not prepared by the people who have the required insights and the necessary data, and rushed through the presses while there is still time to make use of their results. The author is a psychiatrist who knows how to make his special skill applicable to the wider problems of our day.” — Political Science Quarterly “[F]ascinating reading... Schaffner presents his views with admirable clarity.” — The Public Opinion Quarterly

When Angels Fooled the World: Rescuers of Jews in Wartime Hungary

When Angels Fooled the World: Rescuers of Jews in Wartime Hungary
Author: Charles Fenyvesi
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2024-04-14
Genre: History
ISBN:

“This is a beautiful book in many ways. Beautiful not only for its writing but also for its portrayal of decent, heroic gentiles during the Holocaust. I defy anyone reading this account of angels under the German occupation not to shed tears by the end of the book — beneficent tears of hope, joy and gratitude. When Angels Fooled the World tells of five individuals: Raoul Wallenberg, a Lutheran pastor, a janitor, a woman who worked in a municipal birth registry, and a journalist who happened to be the author’s uncle by marriage. All dared to go against the prevailing Nazi German policy and saved Jews from deportation and death... a unique blend of passionate engagement and clear, level-headed analysis of the crucial months in 1944 when the Germans and their Hungarian Arrow Cross supporters ruled the land. The book’s lambent prose, as well as its mixture of memoir and broad sweep of Hungarian-Jewish ambience and history, enhance its fascination and appeal.” — Sun Sentinel “This captivating writing by a noted Hungarian-American author and journal editor, himself a Holocaust survivor, focuses on Hungary during the Holocaust period and the outstanding courage of a group of Righteous Gentiles (viewed as “angels” of salvation) including, among others, the well-known Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews with exit passports; a civil servant woman who provided Jews with certificates that they were Christians; and a Lutheran priest who saved Jewish children in a Christian orphanage. The book is based on historical facts, anecdotes, interviews, and the author’s family experiences and tribulations. Family photos and a relevant bibliography enhance this interesting volume.” — Multicultural Review

Walls: Resisting the Third Reich — One Woman’s Story

Walls: Resisting the Third Reich — One Woman’s Story
Author: Hiltgunt Zassenhaus
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2021-04-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Walls is the story of how a young German woman, acting alone with the cooperation of a handful of other individuals in wartime Germany, brought sustenance and hope to thousands of political prisoners of the Third Reich. “When so many of us seem crippled by the numbness we see in our own society, Walls reminds us of the power of individual conscience.” — The Nation “I want my friends to read this book. I want to fix them with a glittering eye, à la Ancient Mariner, and force them to sit down and start reading. How else can they learn that a book about wartime Germany and concentration camp horror can be enthralling, inspiring and even possess charm.” — Pamela Marsh, Christian Science Monitor “The autobiography of Hiltgunt Zassenhaus pierced through the malaise and oppressive apathy of our society to affect me more profoundly than I recall a book ever having done before.” — Genesis II “The suspenseful and dramatic story of one courageous woman’s bold deception of the Gestapo.” — Book-of-the-Month Club News “This book releases its own inspiriting energies. In times that call for courage, ever more courage, Walls will remind any human heart of its own worst dangers and its best possibilities.” — National Catholic News Service “... set down in cool reflection but charged with inescapable emotion...” — The New Yorker