The Girl from Krakow; by Alex Rosenberg.

The book is published with not only a declaration that it is a novel, but with a much more explicit declaration on the page with publication details, to the effect that every name and event and detail in the book is a fiction and has no similarity to anything in life or fact - which parodies all such declarations so hugely, so without any shred of either subtlety to the parody or likelihood to any shred of truth left possible in the declaration itself, that one begins to wonder just how factual the story is after all. The author is mentioned as born along with his twin brother in Vienna in '46, just as the ending chapter describes the twins born to the protagonist, and one has to wonder, is the story after all a collage of true stories of survivors of the Holocaust, and not just a story woven to incorporate the various details of the era, of the war in Spain and then occupation of Poland by Germany and Soviet Russia in turns, and the war crimes and the various people who lived in that turmoil?

Rosenberg offers an astonishing amount of detail of those events in so short a book that is after all a story of survival of two people in mostly very separate places, and a good deal of what can only be his own conclusions of philosophy and life from reading various philosophies he mentions and having learned of the events and details of the era. His conclusions and his thinking about it all, though, is so nihilistic, one wonders if it is due to the same reason it is of many Germans who have understood the era and the failure of every philosophy given them, by church and by nazis subsequently, until Germany was left alone ashamed while those that propounded the philosophies were unscathed, whether escaped or still power through the world.

The book is very gripping, difficult to put down, as it tells of a young Rita Feuherstal who searched her self as a young student and insisted on being sent to school, then to faculty of law for studies at Krakow university, at the beginning of it all, and how she lived through the war years and escaped from place to place, from Karpatyn where she lived with her little son Stephan and her husband, Doctor Urs Guildenstern, to the ghetto after the husband had joined medical corps services in Russia and her region was occupied by Germany, and further.

Rita was persuaded by her friends in the ghetto to allow her son to be saved by their contacts, which results in an uncertainty and anguish since the whole time and region is uncertain about anyone's survival, and she keeps on searching for him in midst of her flights from one place to another, always returning to places dangerous for her own survival for sake of trying to find him. She meanwhile is fleeing the persecution and certain death, via new identity and temporary shelters provided by helping volunteers, from Karpatyn to Warsaw to Krakow to Heidelberg and back to Poland under Russian occupation post war to look for her son. She works in various places, meets various people, and the story takes us across a whole spectrum of variety of people in their beliefs and behaviours, their nationalities and their actions during the time.

The author manages to bring in a lot of lesser known atrocities, such as the extortion gangs operating during the German occupation of Warsaw, including a few Jewish gangs; the extermination of Polish officers by Soviet military under orders; the deportation of Crimean Tartars and others to places east such as Kazakhastan; and more. The sheer detail of how much he gives in terms of events and people is overwhelming, even before he expounds the philosophy of it all being diseases in process of evolution of life.

So people who fought one occupying regime, such as Home Army, often found themselves being hunted as fascists by occupying Soviets, for example; and while the volunteer who helped her to secure her son was of this resistance group in Poland, the general membership of the group was just as antisemitic as general public of Poland even before nazis were in power, in fact almost as soon as Poland was a nation post WWI. That Heidelberg was the most virulent in antisemitism amongst the German universities isn't advertised for tourists who are shown a pretty picture of the castle and river, now, and told it is a respectable university, is perhaps not a surprise - and one owes to the author for bringing it out.

Then there are the mussnazi, the Germans in various posts of good standing who joined and spout for survival but don't quite subscribe to the nazi thinking and aren't very antisemitic at that. And the strident lesser Germans who want to get the Jews sent east even as their superiors caution them about Allies being at the border, or even in town, and to change their thinking since the regime has lost, which the lesser ones won't accept so easily - they have nothing to sustain them post nazi era of hating various victims of the time, and snatching everything that belonged to those that were sent off to extermination camps. The other main character, Rita's paramour who also acquires another identity and survives in very different, very far away places from her until they meet again, giving the author a chance to describe those people and places in that era - Spain, Russia.

But the slightly unacceptable and at any rate shocking bit is when Rita decides, having seen her sone alive after all with the woman from Home Army who had managed to save him, to not tell anyone, in the interest of saving not only the son from trauma a second time but the woman who had saved him. One would think bonds of blood and the years of having agonised for him, having gone into all sorts of danger to chance finding him, would at least allow her to tell the adults in question, even if not immediately demanding custody. Surely they could have worked out a solution whereby everyone would be together, in harmony?

What the book did not need, except probably forced by the publishers as de rigeur for last few years, is the physical details of intimacy of various characters. If the story was were published as a true story rather than as a novel, it could have been avoided!

The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust; by Edith Hahn Beer, Susan Dworkin.

Edith Hahn survived the Holocaust hiding in plain sight, like a few others - few, compared to the number that existed before the Holocaust in Europe, and also compared to the number that perished in the Holocaust as per the nazi determination of making Europe "Judenfrei", free of Jews. She went on to live her life, mostly determined not to look back, like most of such survivors of so harrowing an ordeal, until later in the century when a combination of factors made it imperative and possible to save their stories from being extinguished with them as they grew old and life was no longer a guarantee.

This need to save their stories from oblivion into recorded history was the motivation, while their need to live and not look back had been taken care of by lives lived in relative safety, families grown anew and more. And one of the key factors that had silenced such stories from being published earlier in the century, especially the post war years, was now no longer that relevant - which was the post WWII accommodation of hundreds, thousands of erstwhile nazis by various world powers including the Vatican and also the policy of US initiated by Allen Dulles in the interest of US and its cold war against the Soviets, resulting in helping hundreds of war criminals to flee or hide in Europe with other identities, or even without if it were possible to have them ignored.

And since the victims of  Holocaust were meanwhile silent, exposure of such war crimes and the general atmosphere of antisemitism of Europe was to remain hidden in plain sight too, the stories of various victims and their criminals or those that survived due to help and their helpers, saviours, meanwhile being hidden in plain sight too.

Thankfully that era is abating, and a few stories are now being heard by the world, published now that the stigma and strictures against their publications are somewhat abated.
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Edith Hahn, like many of the Jews of Europe of that era, was from a family not very strict in observance, although they did practice and observe some, but were more into the then current life of their nations, their time, with their aspirations taking them to the higher echelons of education in performing arts, medicine, law or business. Often they joined military of their nations too, and had fought in the WWI too without the antisemitism of their societies being not affected by it whatsoever.

Edith had aspired to be a judge due to a famous case in court during her young years in school, and did go on to almost finish her education in law, except the Anschluss and subsequent laws imposed in Austria made it impossible for her to take her final exams that would qualify her in Vienna, her home town, as a Doctor in Law. Her younger sisters escaped to various safe havens - Ersatz Israel, Great Britain - and went on to become parts of their new nations, while Edith and her mother lived on in Vienna, until picked up off street by authorities to be sent off to Germany for slave labour in farms. Edith successfully argued into being sent off alone, and spent years slaving in farms and factories in abominable conditions of starvation and cold, until she was sent back to Vienna for purpose of being deported to east "for resettlement". Her mother had already been sent off, and Edith never saw her again, although hoping against hope to do so one day.

Edith survived due to her own determination, her ability to hide herself in plain sight by submerging her personality and pretending to be illiterate and stupid, and with some luck, and a good deal of help from various people who helped her with food, shelter, and a change of identity - and then she met someone in Munich who was so determined to marry her, his own antisemitism and the danger of marrying her were non sequitur in the context in spite of her having told him of her being Jewish.

How Edith lived her life as Grete Vetter, a wife of a German who had grown up during nazi era and did think and spout along antisemitic lines but helped her nevertheless, how she managed to escape detection of her being Jewish until Russians occupied eastern Germany and she suddenly found herself not only able to say who she was but now became very valuable as an educated person who was definitely not a nazi, how she went on to be a judge for a while until it became too dangerous for her to stay on in another totalitarian regime and she managed to escape to Great Britain to join her sister, is all very gripping.

Very valuable of course are the insights into human characters - how people had a choice of being decent or otherwise even in those circumstances, and how various people made those choices sheer out of their own volition. And she has much to say about her experiences and her understanding of societies and humans as individuals, which she says, profound truths expressed in concise but nevertheless definite terms, worth attention. For example, her early realisation that what the Jews had thought of as a mere prejudice, the antisemitism in ambient society, was a hatred inclucated and nurtured by teachings of church, that was submerged until freed by the nazi occupation of the nation.

That the churches are still continuing the lies used to flame this hatred is something of an open secret, known to all churchgoers who take the church teachings as truth - although this truth is about as true as the gospels validated by church of Rome post Nicea, and allowed to be read by general public.

Nehru: A Contemporary`S Estimate; by Walter Crocker.

The writer was a contemporary of the noble and charismatic world figure Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, but that is where any common ground - other than time spent by Crocker in India - ends.

Nehru was more than charismatic and beloved leader, noble of spirit and prince of soul, someone who had a not only very acute mind but a seeking intellectual thirst that went on regardless of humongous work, age and strife, someone who took trouble to be nice and courteous in trying circumstances, was brought up in comparative wealth but gave it all up for independence fight and then for India. That is a small and incomplete summary of what Crocker goes on to describe about Nehru, and it is all too true and more.

But the writing of Crocker in this work, not in style but in substance and level of perception, is so skewed between two poles of admiration of the man on one side and complete disdain or worse for the nation, the culture, the whole background, that one can only surmise either that the writer is unaware just how thoroughly, how firmly he is rooted in his colonial, racist, and religious background, to the extent of automatically assuming all other alternatives are beneath consideration, not worthy of attempting to understand, certainly not of respect and never as good as those he was familiar with - or, that this book, contrary to asserted claim, is not a work of the one writer mentioned, but has whole chapters of insertions of material that is derogatory and more, often enough to the point of vicious accusations or callous lies, assaulting India in general, Hindus and Hinduism more pointedly, and Nehru to the extent he is involved or did not please the erstwhile colonial masters.

Lest it seem far fetched, Crocker was indeed a part of British colonial forces stationed in India and disliked it intensely, and was thereby likely prejudiced as were most of those of his background, more sympathetic to muslims and church communities as the British ruling most often were, which is not hidden in this book except by omission of any mention of horrendous massacres perpetrated against Hindus by muslims or against the indigenous by rulers in Goa.

Such prejudice is exhibited here as often with explicit condemnation of one side as with either lack of mentioning of the other, as it is with even complete lies on side of his prejudice - for example he mentions the differences between what is termed South India and what is normally understood as North, which is generally understood as north or south of the ancient mountain range across middle, Vindhya; what he specifically, repeatedly mentions as the difference is "Hindu revivalism", which makes one wonder if he intends to force the reader to accept his unspecified assertion that Hinduism is dead and better off so.

In reality, which he either intends to cover up with this trick or refuses to see, or is blind to, is that it is only someone in a state of unconsciousness, coma or at the very least in a state understood opposite of well being, that needs to be revived, not someone conscious and relatively well.

With over a millennium of deadly onslaughts of islamic invaders marauding, looting, ruling and generally destroying the indigenous culture of India in general and Hinduism in particular, and that too quite intentionally, deliberately, zealously so, the regions more under the islamic rules were those where any need of reviving and reasserting were felt; and Hinduism and Indian culture that were dormant, beleaguered but far from wiped out (unlike anywhere other than in India, indigenous culture in India was not wiped out completely as it was elsewhere under islamic onslaught), were given a fresh breath of respite when islamic rule gave way to British (or French) colonial rule. (In Goa the story was different, and Portuguese rule competed well with the worst of islamic in attempted annihilation of Indian culture, and of Hinduism.)

There are many pointers to the truth of this, from relative freedom of women in society to changed rituals of traditional weddings and more, to see that this divide across north and south is related to the relative extent and force of islamic rule of the regions. And similar pattern can be seen in other parts, west and east and northeast and what was northwest before partition.

Another example, his assertion that Goa was a part of Portugal (rather than a colony, as is obvious), and had no problem and was people with catholics while a few Indians had migrated (did he think Goa was brought like a ship from Portugal and fixed to rest of India? one wonders) - completely ignoring the massacres perpetrated by Portugal against Hindus, complete outlawing of Hindu traditions and even weddings so much so the people of Goa hurried through every religious ceremony (and still do, from centuries of habit of fear ingrained) lest the Portugese soldiers come and wreak havoc, and other atrocities he simply denies ever took place.

A similar insistence on his part goes on against India in other matters such as relations with neighbours, giving equal benefit of doubt at best and questioning if India would stay a democracy post Nehru. Perhaps an example of his racism that is not clear as racism to him, though, is about Nagaland. Crocker points out that NEFA (now named Arunachal Pradesh, a state at northeast boundary of India), rightfully does not belong to India because not only China questions it but the people are of "mongoloid" features. He says the same of Nagas, and it is not clear if he knows the two are separate regions. But clearly, it is racist to insist that races cannot be divided across national boundaries, and that invaders' and migrants' rights supersede those of indigenous? He takes care of those by complete neglect of relevant history (such as Naga are part of Mahabhaarataa, hence not strangers to India and not connected to India only due to British as he seems to claim) and more - just as British did it by the invention of Aryan migration theory, discrediting and disfranchising all of Hindus of India except those of south India.

In reality, Aryans were never supposed to be a race as such but a culture of civilised code of conduct, the code intricate and taught in society painstakingly in families, homes and live-in schools. The very word Aarya relates to Light, not colour of skin or other physical features but to a standard of behaviour related to an enlightened mind and a soul awakened.

That this was misunderstood by Europe, or was deliberately twisted to suit European prejudices, or worse, due to Macaulay doctrine of separating everything good of India from India and deliberately breaking the spirit of India, is swept under the rug as is the deliberate use of Swastika, which the very word means "well being", for purposes far from well being and in fact for evil.

Crocker comes across as, at best, struggling with his more than evident admiration and adoration of a prince of soul that was Jawaharlal Nehru, and compensating by his treatment of all that is India, people and history and culture of India, Hindus, and so on; at worst, as someone who allowed insertion of whole chapters of matter to that effect for that purpose that was at most rewritten by him so the writing style as such at a superficial level is not too discordant with his adoration of Nehru.

But what is indubitably true is that the great soul that was Nehru comes alive in reading this work, and that is in spite of really very little detail about him of a personal nature as such. For anyone even slightly familiar with the era or the halo of the figure, reading this is a deja vu.

Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany; by Karen Truesdell Riehl.

In Forbidden Strawberries, her autobiographical account of the Holocaust years, Cipora (Tsipora) Hurwitz says something that amounts to this - that she wants to tell about those people that are gone due to the murders, entire families and villages and regions, but did once exist, and she won't allow them to become non existent by the acts of murderers.

Reading Helga, this book that is another autobiographical account of the same years but from the other side of the divide, one realises how very true this thinking of Cipora Hurwitz is, how very close the Jews and many others came to being not merely forgotten but claimed non existent, by the determined attempt of the nazis to extinguish their beings, lives, existence. And Cipora Hurwitz is not the only one, or even the first one, to have thought of this - most survivors of the Holocaust have known this, and it is something that applies to other victims of such crimes too, whether the three million of East Bengal '71 or one million Armenians of a century ago, the women killed by various relatives of their own or the Yezdis and others massacred by zealots in name of the faith of killers.

Helga is from the divide, the deep ravine that is a mere thin line socially, the wall that is not concrete or even a glass wall, that was of Roman creation post driving Jews from Judea, and existed in Europe between Jews and others for centuries, until early last century it went crazy and people from one side were often unaware of their neighbours across the divide being exterminated. That is, those that were aware of the people across the said wall at all, whether they admitted them as humans as Helga's parents and grandparents did, or not, as the youth group Helga was forced to join were made to think.

Most of us are aware of Hitler Youth as the young boys that were brought in to war towards end of war in Germany to fight the last battles. This story is of real children, specifically from the protagonist's point of view that is girls centred but does mention there were boys too in the same groups, from '39 to the end of the war when the Russians were at Berlin already.

As incredible as the earlier parts where the young at ten are forced to join the youth groups is, it gets only more incredible what with the indoctrination that is so very easy and the very religious zeal with which the young in the story view the leader they are taught to worship - until one reflects that the tactic is merely copied from church and other institutional indoctrination which is no different, after all. Here, too, there was the paraphernalia of the other sort associated that helps, such as food provided at group meetings and subsequently at the resorts where they were stationed for years.

Until the very end, these kids did not have a real clue that they were being fed lies, even though their parents often knew but were too afraid to tell the kids, and the only clue they had if any was a personal acquaintance or more than one, about the people maligned being not quite so dirty or evil or ugly as they were told, whether the maligned were Jews or those of other countries, other parts of the world.

How suddenly the tale changes from this well fed youth world of lies and delusions to a sudden order given them to leave and go, since Russians were then too close, and the complete horror of so young a bunch of girls alone on roads to Berlin choked with people trying to escape the Russians while these young girls tried to walk home - and coped with numerous dangers, being shot at and raped, and more, is the horror of the last few chapters.

And one can only wish it all had been a horror story rather than history, and the Helga of this and Lalechka and Cipora of other tales of the time had been safe with their parents! If only one could fly back through time and clutch them to heart and fly them off to a safer zone in time!

Lalechka: An Amazing Holocaust Survivor Rescue Story; by Amira Keidar.

The title is more than merely apt in that it is amazing, it is about a child that survived holocaust due to rescue by her mother's friends who hid her and moved her whenever they were askance about her being noticed, and showered her with love and care in those vital babyhood years - she was born in October '41 - until she was handed over to Jewish organisations that took care of bringing her to Israel to her uncle as per her mother's wishes. But it meanwhile portrays an amazing landscape in which a few women growing up from childhood together stay friends and care for one another even as world explodes around them and it is highly difficult, to say the least, to manage one's very survival.

In the process of telling the story the author also gives the surrounding picture of Poland as it was before occupation - where Jewish people were surviving despite increasing restrictions and "economic warfare" prescribed by politicians, and more practiced in various ways across the country - and during occupation when it got difficult to survive the conditions imposed by invading German army and gestapo, until the Jewish population of Poland was almost completely massacred. The details of horrors perpetrated make it all come alive, and it is impossible to describe the horror one experiences even as one reads it, realising they went through this, and that people perpetrated this.

Lalechka survived and went on to live in Israel where she migrated, alone for much of the time after she had been of necessity handed over to the organisations by her mother's friends so unwillingly, and it took years before she could understand any of her past, her family's travails, and more. The lonely child affected by having to move so much and losing the loving care so early is heartrending, especially when she is finally visited and is angry about why it was so late.

One detail the author brings out quietly, but without special emphasis, is how the girls, the young women are strong despite the odds, while the males in the story are human as well, not the giants of the fairy tales embraced by commercial popular culture but heroes in their own right who care for the families under those very trying years and circumstances.

Forbidden Strawberries: by Cipora Hurwitz.

True life account of a woman who, as a small child, grew up in occupied Poland during the second world war, hidden most of the day for years when Jewish children were feared taken away and murdered by the nazis - although the writer points out more than once and with good reason too, that to say nazis instead of Germans is merely a political correctness bordering on fraud. She points out that those that did it had been brought up German, and those that later denied being nazi nevertheless did not give up the identities and whereabouts of the war criminals hiding in plain sight, even when their crimes were neither unknown nor in question.

This child's parents were eventually taken away, presumably to Treblinka where most of those in the neighbourhood were, and murdered as were all others. She was protected by those that did remain, and survived, miraculously, not only the hiding for hours but subsequently the slave labour, the camps, the abominable conditions and starvation, the witnessing of the massacres and burning of humans in camps where the ashes from chimneys fell in the strawberry fields that the concentration camp children were supposed to pick for the Germans but not eat. Thus the title.

Cipora was to survive, later find other Jewish people including children when she was finally back in her neighbourhood, even some relatives including a brother who had fled to Russia and survived in Siberia, and then migrate to Israel via refuge in camps in Germany and France. Even post the losing of war, she describes how a German policewoman inspecting trains treated her unfairly, inhumanly, not with counrtesy or correctness but rather with terrorising tactics, for a crime (or rather what in the era of deprivation post war was a crime) committed by a German couple sitting next to them - which fact was testified to by the rest of the occupants of the train compartment.

The account of the life in Poland close to Russian border and elsewhere is very detailed and alive, and brings the whole horror home, of how the local Polish were only too eager to follow the nazi diktats long before Germany occupied Poland, and how they were not happy to see any Jews survive, as often as not. How German occupation dehumanised Jewish population, how the Jews survived only by fleeing across the river to Russia or else by miracle or chance, and more. Some not very publicised details too, such as Ukrainian and Cossack troops were used for the horrors perpetrated in neighbourhoods, by Germans and Russians later; how Red Army occupation was a breath of relief for the short while after war when the Jews were yet to migrate to Israel, and the various specific stories of Jewish families in Poland and later in places where she stayed for short while during migration to Israel.

One is glad Cipora survived, had a life despite the horrors she suffered, and lived to tell the tale. And too, that she was forthright, not politically correct in that she did not deny the horrors unlike the friend of her husband who provoked her into a rage by accusing her of falling prey to propaganda against Germans, or choose not to tell.

It is all too well known a phenomena how victims who survive can be too traumatised to accept it all happened, and when treated with a bit of honeytrap by the tormentors, can either forgive or deny it all. This happens on personal level, and politically it is often convenient. Nevertheless such denial is a lie, a falsehood, a fraud perpetrated not only against the victims of past but the innocent of the future who are denied truth thereby.

The Girl With No Name; by Diney Costeloe.

This story is a sequel, though not with the same characters, of The Runaway Family, in that it is about the persecution of Jews by nazis and the story of those few that managed to escape to get to England by refugee trains, chiefly children. The earlier one ends where a family manages to escape and arrive, and this begins with arrival of the children on the refugee train to be welcomed in England by their foster parents.

This one focuses on one girl, escaped alive from Hanau, who has to deal repeatedly not only with her identity crisis as a refugee, but also with the dichotomy of being seen as an enemy alien by some in the country where she takes refuge. There are fewer of those, fortunately, and more of the good caring people who give her a home, love of their hearts and more.

The girl, Liselotte Becker who is naturally called Lisa at first, moreover loses her memory when she is caught in an air raid, and hence the name.

The author is excellent in descriptions of how England experienced war, from the refugee trains arriving with children to end of war, and too of the various individual characters who are shaped differently, by nature and by experience thereafter, even when sharing experience.

One wishes though that the final choice of Lisa didn't quite depend on chance and events, and that she had had the choice instead and chosen well, as destiny or rather choices of another did for her. But in any case, it is a marvel the author makes this tale so satisfying, in spite of the terrible events she is describing without sugarcoating.

The Runaway Family: by Diney Costeloe.

The Runaway Family deals with the beginnings of persecution of Jews in Germany under nazi rule, up to the point where a few, mostly children, were allowed to escape officially, travelling on trains out of Germany, by letting Jewish organisations abroad provide foster homes where they could be taken care of. The beginning of the story is not exactly beginning of the persecution of Jews, only of the nazi methodical escalation of it until they were massacred in millions.

This book deals in a novel form by portraying the tale of a family of parents and four very young children who have to run from place to place, hiding from persecution, trying to survive, in face of the poverty imposed on Jews via confiscation of properties and deprivation of work sources. Food is difficult to manage, too, what with Jews being forbidden from most activities including buying food, or walking in park, or being in playgrounds.

Even when familiar with the general theme of how persecution works, when reading it hits one anew, how vicious and mindless, how heartless this persecution was, rendering humans to a non human state de jure, and too how the people around often accepted and even joined in the persecution, however much most now assert they knew nothing then.

This book ends well, with this particular family escaping to England safely, albeit not all at once. But the author is very good at the descriptions of various stages of their travails, which are in all likelihood experiences of various families and people who lived at that time in those regions and went through this and lived to tell.

That Kennedy Girl: by Robert DeMaria.

This one is a rare insight into the very famous, glamourous, and wealthy family often named American royalty - the Kennedy family - from a point of view they are rarely seen.

Most often of course, people look at things from a male-centric point of view, especially when the paterfamilias is so powerful, so driven by the aspiration to rise above the slot one is relegated to when in a minority that is looked down on and not allowed in mainstream, not quite near the top. This gets all the more so when the said paterfamilias succeeds in his plans, and so spectacularly at that. It is all the more so and even only natural when this success involves someone as glamorous, as noble, as John F. Kennedy, especially when he and his twin brother of spirit carry a nation's hopes and are assassinated so young, with world's shock and tears marking their family loss as that of their nation's, even that of the world.

But the tragedies that beset the Kennedy clan did not begin with the two more famous brothers, or even with the known tragic death in war of the eldest of the brothers, the firstborn whom the hopes of the paterfamilias were pinned on to begin with, in the second world war. There were the two sisters too, of the elder of the siblings, whose stories are not as well publicised.

One of course is the very pathetic elder daughter Rosemary Kennedy, who was subjected to terrible and terribly unfair treatment - the parents had a lobotomy performed and then had her live in seclusion in Wisconsin far away from not only the limelight the clan lived in, but also very rarely visited by most of family, including her mother Rose Kennedy who didn't visit her for decades. All this, because she was "rebellious", and a hint of some escapades that the catholic mother did not approve of and the father couldn't allow the scandals obstruct his plans for careers for his sons and himself - and the young woman was reduced to a vegetable, living life of an orphan.

This book deals with the other, lesser known story of the Kennedy daughter who died young, far away from her homes, having been estranged from her family due to the parents' - especially the mother's - harsh demands of sacrifice of happiness from the young daughter who wished only to marry someone she loved.

Kathleen Kennedy, did a little better than her elder sister Rosemary, but not much - she had to fight terrible battles only because her mother saw it as a sin when Kathleen wished to marry an Englishman, never mind he was an aristocrat and well off, William Cavendish, Lord Hartington who was eventually to be Duke of Devonshire. Joe Kennedy, the eldest brother, stood up for her and with her at the wedding where others present were the Devonshire family of the groom, and in a short span of less than a year thereafter both Joe and the newly married groom died in the war. The mother of the bereaved bride had only an offer for her of a chance to redeem herself from the sin by having her marriage annulled.

Kathleen didn't give up on life and love, and was all set to marry another British aristocrat, but both died in an air crash before they could wed. A young life so very lost, and one grieves for the unnecessary losses, sadness, and more.

But what hits one more than any other factor, reading this, is how horrible the whole imposition of sin on innocence is, so enforced by institutionalisation of guilt to rule the world in form of religious strictures that have obedience to an institution as the first condition, with no freedom of thought, much less of spirit or soul.

The Start, 1904-1930: Twentieth Century Journey Vol. I (William Shirer's Twentieth Century Journey); by William L. Shirer.

Shirer is known most for his famous book about the Third Reich, but reading other works of his is illuminating and satisfying just as much, and funny, this book about his early years is no exception! Of course, one thinks this is funny because one expects a level of writing suitable more to a youth of twenty something, and this is in all likelihood written later, but then again, one forgets being young is not necessarily equivalent of being unaware, and someone who grew so well could only have begun by awakening during those years he is writing about in this work.

So while one goes through a first part that does suit those early years and one's low expectations of such a youth, the second chapter zaps one awake and one begins to marvel at all the author has to tell.

He begins with his early years in Chicago, and a concise history of all that is worthy of mention about the town it then was, and there is much every which way one looks - and much one is usually not told in the usual descriptions of the history of the nation much less city, for example about the labour movements and the stiff opposition from the business and politics nexus that broke them. Then there are the various great minds he talks about, including his father, that influenced him, thinkers and authors, those early years.

The family shifted to Cedar Rapids when his father died, rather early, and he describes the new place and history thereof, along with histories of his ancestors and family, all very very interesting. And then in mid twenties post WWI he is in Paris, as described in the first part, and begins another very interesting part, what with the various writers and so forth he comes immediately into contact with, and life in Paris, and more.

The memoirs one would necessarily expect of course to become immediately far more interesting when the young man shifts to Paris, comes in contact with the great authors and others - artists, politicians, journalists, ballet divas and more - and so it does, right up to the end. It is a testimony to the author's general persona, his mind and spirit and awareness that it doesn't reduce to a catalogue of names, and that after finishing it on reflection one realises that the part prior to Paris was well balanced, not a boring prologue to the exciting bits.

The Europe theatre in this, straddled as it is between the two world wars and set mostly in Paris, London and Vienna, does remind one a good deal of the World's End series of Upton Sinclair. The sensibilities of the two works, perhaps the two authors, are far too alike in this, and one wonders if they were close in life too, or was it merely a similarity of mind and spirit of the two that shared a time frame in the world events along with interests that focus on the space very similar.

Very worth reading for anyone interested in the world events of that era, or in consciousness awakening, for that matter.

January 11, 2017. 

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The Kennedys: The True Story Behind America's Most Powerful Family; by Hilary Brown and Go Entertain

If one knows nothing about the subject, this is a good and concise introduction to the topic, published in a book form from a student thesis at a not too high level, most likely - most of us however do know almost everything this book has to offer, still, it does give some information to most readers who are not completely well versed in the subject.

Some of the deeply painful parts are, of necessity, glossed over, whether due to need of concise form or restrictions imposed by needs of privacy, or much more likely, because the author just couldn't spend that much time and effort on the book. Of those, much is written and published and more about the more famous persona of the clan, but two stand out as being less known about.

One of course is the very pathetic elder daughter Rosemary Kennedy, who was subjected to terrible and terribly unfair treatment - the parents had a lobotomy performed and then had her live in seclusion in Wisconsin far away from not only the limelight the clan lived in, but also very rarely visited by most of family, including her mother Rose Kennedy who didn't visit her for decades. All this, because she was "rebellious", and a hint of some escapades that the catholic mother did not approve of and the father couldn't allow the scandals obstruct his plans for careers for his sons and himself - and the young woman was reduced to a vegetable, living life of an orphan.

The other, Kathleen Kennedy, did a little better but not much - she had to fight terrible battles only because her mother saw it as a sin when Kathleen wished to marry an Englishman, never mind he was an aristocrat and well off, William Cavendish, Lord Hartington who was eventually to be Duke of Devonshire. Joe Kennedy, the eldest brother, stood up for her and with her at the wedding where others present were the Devonshire family of the groom, and in a short span of less than a year thereafter both Joe and the newly married groom died in the war. Kathleen didn't give up on life and love, and was all set to marry another British aristocrat, but both died in an air crash before they could wed.

The author takes a stock of the various misfortunes that the clan dealt with, including the rape charges against one in the nineties, but stops short of the sensational murder charge against a close relative, a nephew, that might have been after all unfairly brought against the boy only because he was related to the Kennedy family.

All in all, worth a look.