Witnesses At War: Summary and book reviews of Witnesses At War by Nicholas Stargardt, plus links to an excerpt from Witnesses At War and a biography of Nicholas Stargardt.
Witnesses At War Children's Lives Under the Nazis
by Nicholas Stargardt
Hardcover: Jan 2006,
512 pages.
Paperback: Jan 2007,
528 pages.
Already hailed as "magnificent . . . some of the best historical writing about
the aftermath of the war I have ever read . . . stunning" (The Guardian),
Witnesses of War breaks new ground in its exploration of the lives and
the fate of children of all nationalities under the Nazi regime.
Children were at the center of Nazi ideology; now we have their history of those
years. Their stories open a world we have never seen before. War came home to
children as a set of events without precedent, spectacular and terrifying by
turns. As the Nazis overran Europe, children were saved or damned according to
their race. Precious few remained unscathed during the war, and most suffered a
moment that overturned their lives. For some, it was the evacuation to become
junior colonists in the East; for others, it was the onset of heavy bombing, the
separation of families or learning to keep their parents alive by smuggling
food, creating black markets and devising their own escape networks. Some herded
women waiting to be shot. Girls manned flak batteries; boys confronted Soviet
tanks.
Drawing on an untouched wealth of original material – school assignments;
juvenile diaries; letters from evacuation camps, reformatories and asylums;
letters to fathers at the front lines; even accounts of children's games —
Nicholas Stargardt breaks stereotypes of victimhood and trauma to give us the
gripping individual stories of the generation Hitler made.
The positive note from this book is elegantly summed up by Ruth Kluger, writing in The Washington Post, who says "Reading about these years, one can only marvel that Europe recovered so thoroughly. The war children who survived to see a more prosperous world did not become a social burden (as many seem to have feared at the time) but became productive and responsible citizens. Their wounds were real enough, but they coped -- and cope -- with them privately, and with dignity. If there is any hopeful message to be gotten from this harrowing book, it is the wonder of human resilience."
Perhaps this can give us hope for the countless children affected by wars today, including the estimated 300,000 child soldiers fighting in more than 85 countries (according to Amnesty International, 2006). (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
The Washington Post - Ruth Kluger
The child witnesses here are both boys and girls, "Aryans" and Jews. The author, who teaches history at Oxford and is himself the son of a German-Jewish refugee, recreates everyday life in the Nazi Reich with multilayered quotes that provide a sense of intimacy unmatched by any other narrative I know. At the same time, the reader never loses sight of the larger historical framework.
Library Journal - Maria Bagshaw
Owing to the subject, the content of this book is frequently disturbing to read. Therefore specialists on this topic may be best prepared for it. The book is recommended for academic and large public libraries.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Perhaps most unusual is Stargardt's illumination of how the Nazi regime affected German children, from those sent away to be "re-educated" to the idealized Hitler Youth sent to die in battle; it's a sharp and taut account of misery.
Booklist - George Cohen
Starred Review. Stargardt's riveting account draws on original material from children's schoolwork, juvenile diaries, letters from evacuation camps, letters to fathers at the front, letters from reformatories and psychiatric asylums, children's artwork in the Jewish ghetto of Theresienstadt and German villages in the Black Forest, as well as adult accounts of children's games.
Kirkus Reviews
Fascinating and often unsettling; an illuminating companion to firsthand accounts such as Irmgard Hunt's On Hitler's Mountain and The Diary of Anne Frank.
The Sunday Times - John Carey
The 21st century promises to be as full of wars as the 20th, which is why we need books like Stargardt's that remind us and our leaders what war really means.
The Guardian - David Cesarani
Magnificent new book .. His concluding chapter contains some of the best historical writing about the aftermath of the war I have ever read ... stunning.
About the author: Nicholas
Stargardt is the son of a German-Jewish father and Australian mother.
Born in Melbourne, he has lived in Australia, Japan, England and
Germany. He studied at King's College, Cambridge, and is a fellow of
Magdalen College, Oxford, where he teaches modern European history.
Witnesses of War is his second book; his first, The German Idea
of Militarism: Radical and Socialist Critics, 1866-1914 was
published in 1994. He has written widely on the history of modern
Germany, political and social thought and the Holocaust. He has two sons
and is married to the historian Lyndal Roper.
The devastating story of war through the eyes of a child soldier. Beah tells how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and became a soldier.
It is 1943 - the height of the Second World War - and Berlin has essentially become a city of women. In this page-turning novel, David Gillham explores what happens to ordinary people thrust into extraordinary times, and how the choices they make can be the difference between life and death.
These are 2 of the 9 readalike suggestions for Witnesses At War. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
BookBrowse
(705 words).
Library Journal - Maria Bagshaw
