Margit's Story

Margit's Story
Author: Margit Meissner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Meissner was born in 1922 in Innsbruck to a Jewish family, as Margit Morawetz; soon afterwards, the family moved to Prague. Her father died in 1932. Pt. 2 (pp. 83-125), "Refugee", deals with the Holocaust. Following the "Anschluss" in Austria and the Munich Agreement in 1938, the family decided to leave Czechoslovakia. In mid-1938 Margit went to Paris to study in a dressmaking school, and was soon joined by her mother Lilly. Margit's brother, Bruno, emigrated to Canada in 1940, and her brothers Felix and Paul left for the USA and Australia respectively. After the war began, Lilly was interned by the French in Gurs; with the capitulation of France she was freed from the camp. Margit and Lilly crossed the border into Spain, were arrested and imprisoned, and later released. In September 1940 they arrived in Portugal, and in April 1941 they emigrated to the USA.

The Medieval Girdle Book

The Medieval Girdle Book
Author: Margit J. Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Bookbinding, Medieval
ISBN: 9781584563686

Between the 14th and 16th centuries a little-known book format, now called the girdle book, was used throughout various European countries. 'The girdle book' is distinguished by a cover that extends beyond the limits of the book itself and may end in a knot, hook or ring, or may be left ungathered. By this extension the book was hung from the belt with its head down, so when swung up it could be read without detaching it from the belt.0Today there are only twenty-six known examples identified and documented in collections worldwide. In 'The Medieval Girdle Book', the author provides a comprehensive look at these extremely rare books. A study of this scope, which contributes significantly to the information available has been lacking until now and makes this the first thorough treatment of all so far known girdle books. 0The author has examined each book in detail, documented its historical context, provenance, owner(s) or institutions associated with it, and described each from the bookbinder's perspective, including the materials and processes of their construction. Contrary to previous assumptions that only clerics and the religious used girdle books, 'The Medieval Girdle Book' shows they also contain legal, medical, and philosophical contents.

Intelligent Love

Intelligent Love
Author: Marga Vicedo
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2021-03-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0807025623

Winner of the History of Science Society's 2022 Davis Prize How one mother challenged the medical establishment and misconceptions about autistic children and their parents In the early 1960s, Massachusetts writer and homemaker Clara Park and her husband took their 3-year-old daughter, Jessy, to a specialist after noticing that she avoided connection with others. Following the conventional wisdom of the time, the psychiatrist diagnosed Jessy with autism and blamed Clara for Jessy’s isolation. Experts claimed Clara was the prototypical “refrigerator mother,” a cold, intellectual parent who starved her children of the natural affection they needed to develop properly. Refusing to accept this, Clara decided to document her daughter’s behaviors and the family’s engagement with her. In 1967, she published her groundbreaking memoir challenging the refrigerator mother theory and carefully documenting Jessy’s development. Clara’s insights and advocacy encouraged other parents to seek education and support for their autistic children. Meanwhile, Jessy would work hard to expand her mother’s world, and ours. Drawing on previously unexamined archival sources and firsthand interviews, science historian Marga Vicedo illuminates the story of how Clara Park and other parents fought against medical and popular attitudes toward autism while presenting a rich account of major scientific developments in the history of autism in the US. Intelligent Love is a fierce defense of a mother’s right to love intelligently, the value of parents’ firsthand knowledge about their children, and an individual’s right to be valued by society.

A Crime in the Family

A Crime in the Family
Author: Sacha Batthyany
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 030682583X

A memoir of brutality, heroism, and personal discovery from Europe's dark heart, revealing one of the most extraordinary untold stories of World War II One night in March of 1945, on the Austrian-Hungarian border, a local countess hosted a party in her mansion, where guests and local Nazi leaders mingled. The war was almost over and the German aristocrats and SS officers dancing and drinking knew it was lost. Around midnight, some of the guests were asked to "take care" of 180 Jewish enslaved laborers at the train station; they made them strip naked and shot them all before returning to the bright lights of the party. It was another one of the war's countless atrocities buried in secrecy for decades--until Sacha Batthyany started investigating what happened that night at the party his great aunt hosted. A Crime in the Family is the author's memoir of confronting his family's past, the questions he raised and the answers he found that took him far beyond his great aunt's party: through the dark past of Nazi Germany to the gulags of Siberia, the bleak streets of Cold War Budapest, and to Argentina, where he finds an Auschwitz survivor whose past intersects with his family's. It is the story of executioners and victims, villains and heroes. Told partly through the surviving family journals, A Crime in the Family is a disquieting and moving memoir, a powerful true story told by an extraordinary writer confronting the dark past of his family--and humanity.

Squint

Squint
Author: Margit Novack
Publisher: Extra Step Media
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2021-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780578933030

"Squint," Margit Novack's unique memoir, opens our eyes to the abundant possibilities of later life. She pairs profound and memorable personal stories with larger themes -- downsizing, caregiving, forgiveness, estrangement, and more -- and shows that with the right perspective and "re-visioning," the future is rich with possibility. Realistic, compassionate, substantive, and uplifting, Margit Novack's "Squint" is a guidebook that leaves us better equipped for the years ahead.

Bitter Herbs

Bitter Herbs
Author: Marga Minco
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2020-09-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1473577012

‘The evening the men came I fled through the garden gate...’ The Netherlands, World War II When the Nazis invade the Netherlands in May 1940 it's clear that life is changing for the girl and her family. Step by step, the Nazis close in on the Dutch Jews. But when the authorities finally come to the family home a split decision will have devastating consequences. Marga Minco’s autobiographical novel Bitter Herbs is a Dutch classic that has been translated into more than fifteen languages. This deceptively simple and profoundly moving tale is now reissued with a new translation by Jeannette K Ringold.

On the Verge of History

On the Verge of History
Author: Izabella Agardi
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2022-04-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3838216024

Rural women have not had a formative role in the public histories of Central Eastern Europe. Izabella Agárdi aims to correct that by concentrating on their life stories and their connections to general histories. She investigates how Hungarian-speaking, ordinary women in rural contexts born in the 1920s and 1930s remember and talk about the twentieth century they have experienced, and how, through their stories, they articulate historical change and construct themselves as historical subjects. In her analysis, Izabella Agárdi traces the interactions between micro- and macro- narratives as well as the specific tools women of this generation appropriate to talk about personal memories of their often traumatic past. From these stories, a particular mnemonic community emerges, one that speaks from a highly precarious position 'on the verge of history'. It is up to future generations whether these women's experiences will be remembered or forgotten.

The Choice

The Choice
Author: Edith Eva Eger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1501130811

A New York Times Bestseller “I’ll be forever changed by Dr. Eger’s story…The Choice is a reminder of what courage looks like in the worst of times and that we all have the ability to pay attention to what we’ve lost, or to pay attention to what we still have.”—Oprah “Dr. Eger’s life reveals our capacity to transcend even the greatest of horrors and to use that suffering for the benefit of others. She has found true freedom and forgiveness and shows us how we can as well.” —Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate “Dr. Edith Eva Eger is my kind of hero. She survived unspeakable horrors and brutality; but rather than let her painful past destroy her, she chose to transform it into a powerful gift—one she uses to help others heal.” —Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and Christopher Award At the age of sixteen, Edith Eger was sent to Auschwitz. Hours after her parents were killed, Nazi officer Dr. Josef Mengele, forced Edie to dance for his amusement and her survival. Edie was pulled from a pile of corpses when the American troops liberated the camps in 1945. Edie spent decades struggling with flashbacks and survivor’s guilt, determined to stay silent and hide from the past. Thirty-five years after the war ended, she returned to Auschwitz and was finally able to fully heal and forgive the one person she’d been unable to forgive—herself. Edie weaves her remarkable personal journey with the moving stories of those she has helped heal. She explores how we can be imprisoned in our own minds and shows us how to find the key to freedom. The Choice is a life-changing book that will provide hope and comfort to generations of readers.

Not in My Family

Not in My Family
Author: Roger Frie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199372551

Roger Frie explores what it means to discover his family's legacy of a Nazi past. Using the narrative of his grandfather as a starting point, he shows how the transfer of memory from one German generation to the next keeps the forbidding reality of the Holocaust at bay.