On the 7 September 1940, the London Blitz began in ernest. This was when the Nazi Luftwaffe machine switched from daylight raids on military targets to heavy bomber raids at night focusing on large cities. Miriam's Family Blitz, already broadly conceived in, Miriam's War by the same author, places her family's first fifteen days of the London Blitz under a magnifying glass. A period in which the mundane lives of her close family and friends in the East End found themselves experiencing front-line warfare for the first time, undergoing the inconvenient blackout, general restrictions and rationing. From the family's once relatively quiet life, and with Miriam, released from Holloway prison only one year previously, the intense and very real fear of invasion, gassing, destruction and death occupies almost their every thought.
Holloway, House of Correction is an alternative fantasy and documents the unlikely friendship between two women; Victoria, wealthy, beautiful and recently married, and the impoverished Margaret, the only surviving daughter of Victorian England's most prolific serial murderer, Mary Ann Cotton. Both live close to the old Holloway Gaol when it became a women's only prison in the spring of 1902.
Mrs Miriam Baxter, an ordinary London housewife apart from being an ex convict, is devoted entirely to her family, which consists of her two children, parents and three sisters. She would call herself unremarkable. However, it was her determination and courage which took her and her family through the Second World War. In Miriam's War, there are no hints of heightened suspense, no clues as to where her story could veer to; it just is.
A dangerous and often fatal pursuit, collecting pieces of bombs is a prime activity for boys in London during WWII in the early 1940s. Young Tom Sloan is no exception. While investigating one ravaged building, he finds more than he expectsan injured German pilot, Hauptman Heinrich Leuzinger, who had ejected from his plane. Leuzinger begs Tom not to turn him in to authorities, but rather to help him see his wife and children again. Tom understands this is a dangerous dilemma for which there could be serious consequences. More than a thousand miles away in the North African desert, the boys father, Major Bernie Sloan, a British officer and the commandant of a German and Italian POW camp, meets captured German Colonel Hans Dieter Reichmann who tells an unbelievable story. Sloan, a Jewish man, harbors a deep hatred for Germany and its people. Sloan finds it difficult to believe that Reichmann may have actually saved a Jewish family by smuggling them out of Germany. Both father and son are about to discover that in war, as in life, things are not always as they appear, and people cant always be judged by the uniforms they wear. Or can they?
A composer and lyricist of enormous innovation and influence, Marc Blitzstein remains one of the most versatile and fascinating figures in the history of American music, his creative output running the gamut from films scores and Broadway operas to art songs and chamber pieces. A prominent leftist and social maverick, Blitzstein constantly pushed the boundaries of convention in mid-century America in both his work and his life. Award-winning music historian Howard Pollack's new biography covers Blitzstein's life in full, from his childhood in Philadelphia to his violent death in Martinique at age 58. The author describes how this student of contemporary luminaries Nadia Boulanger and Arnold Schoenberg became swept up in the stormy political atmosphere of the 1920s and 1930s and throughout his career walked the fine line between his formal training and his populist principles. Indeed, Blitzstein developed a unique sound that drew on everything contemporary, from the high modernism of Stravinsky and Hindemith to jazz and Broadway show tunes. Pollack captures the astonishing breadth of Blitzstein's work--from provocative operas like The Cradle Will Rock, No for an Answer, and Regina, to the wartime Airborne Symphony composed during his years in service, to lesser known ballets, film scores, and stage works. A courageous artist, Blitzstein translated Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera during the heyday of McCarthyism and the red scare, and turned it into an off-Broadway sensation, its "Mack the Knife" becoming one of the era's biggest hits. Beautifully written, drawing on new interviews with friends and family of the composer, and making extensive use of new archival and secondary sources, Marc Blitzstein presents the most complete biography of this important American artist.
In 1933, the celebrated German economist Robert Kuczynski and his wife Berta arrived in Britain as refugees from Nazism, followed shortly afterwards by their six children. Jürgen, known to be a leading Communist, was an object of considerable concern to MI5. Ursula, codenamed Sonya, was a colonel in Russia's Red Army who had spied on the Japanese in Manchuria, while MI5 also kept extensive files on her four sisters, Brigitte, Barbara, Sabine and Renate. In Britain, Ursula controlled the spies Klaus Fuchs and Melita Norwood, without whom the Soviet atomic bomb would have been delayed for at least five years. Drawing on newly released files, Family Betrayal reveals the operations of a network at the heart of Soviet intelligence in Britain. Over seventy years of espionage activity the Kuczynskis and their associates gained access to high-ranking officials in the government, civil service and justice system. For the first time, acclaimed historian David Burke tells the whole story of one of the most accomplished spy rings in history.
Throughout our country, atrocities are taking place in doctor’s offices and hospital operating rooms. Physically healthy children and adolescents are being permanently disfigured and sometimes sterilized. Those youth say they’re transgender, and we—their parents, teachers, therapists, and doctors—are supposed to agree with their self-diagnosis and take a back seat as they make the most consequential decision of their lives: to alter their bodies in order to, we are told, “align” them with their minds. Medical, educational, and government authorities advise us to support the “gender journeys” of still developing kids, including medical interventions with poor evidence of long-term improvement. This would not be acceptable in any other field of medicine. Indeed, the treatments our medical authorities and Washington call “crucial” and “life-saving” have been banned in progressive Sweden, Finland, and Britain. Dr. Miriam Grossman is a child and adolescent psychiatrist whose practice consists of trans-identified youth and their families. In Lost in Trans Nation, she implores parents to reject the advice of gender experts and politicians and trust their guts—their parental instincts—in the face of an onslaught of ideologically driven misinformation that steers them and their children toward risky decisions they may end up mourning for the rest of their lives. The beliefs that male and female are human inventions; that the sex of a newborn is arbitrarily “assigned”; and that as a result the child requires “affirmation” through medical interventions—these ideas are divorced from reality and therefore hazardous, especially to children. The core belief—that biology can and should be denied—is a repudiation of reality and a mockery of what hard science teaches about being male and female. Dr. Grossman believes that parents know their child best; they especially know if they have a son or daughter. But currently in our country when it comes to gender identity, everyone knows better than mom and dad. Schools enable students to live double lives—Patrick at home, Patti at school. Activists tell kids their loving homes are “unsafe” when parents voice doubts about the child’s new identity. For refusing to see their son as their daughter, parents might be reported to protective services, a development that can lead to a family’s destruction. Lost in Trans Nation arms parents with the ammunition to avoid, or, if necessary, fight what many families describe as the most difficult challenge of their lives. Parents will learn what to say and how—at home, at school, and if necessary, to police when they appear at the door. “Don’t be blindsided like so many parents I know,” warns Grossman, “be proactive and get educated. Feel prepared and confident to discuss trans, nonbinary, or whatever your child brings to the dinner table.” Whether it’s the “trans is as common as red hair” claim, or the “I’m not your son, I’m your daughter” proclamation, or the “do you prefer a live son or a dead daughter’ threat, says Grossman, no family is immune, and every parent must be prepared. No child is born in the wrong body, Dr. Grossman reassures us, their bodies are just fine; it’s their emotional lives that need healing. Whether you’re facing a gender identity battle in your home right now, or want to prevent one, you need this book to guide you and your loved ones out of the madness.
It's 1940 and Nazi bombs are raining down on London, but 13-year-old bike messenger Jack has just discovered something unbelievable: a stray dog with a surprising talent. Jack navigates the smoky, ash-covered streets of London amid air raid sirens and falling bombs, dodging shrapnel and listening for cries for help, as a bike messenger for fire crews. When Jack finds a dog, miraculously still alive after the latest Nazi bombing of London, he realizes there's something extra special about the shaggy pup--he can smell people who are trapped under debris. With his new canine companion, nicknamed Rip because of the dog's torn ear, maybe Jack can do more than just relay messages back-and-forth--he can actually save lives. And if Jack's friend Paula is right about the impending Nazi invasion, he and Rip will need to do all they can to help Jewish families like hers. There's just one problem: Jack has to convince his ill-tempered father to let him keep Rip. Based on true episodes during the London Blitz in World War II, this action-packed and touching story explores the beginnings of search-and-rescue dogs and the bravery and resourcefulness of young people determined to do their part for their country.
This book is the first scholarly English translation of the Ze’enah U-Re’enah, a Jewish classic originally published in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and was the first significant anthological commentary on the Torah, Haftorot and five Megillot. The Ze’enah U-Re’enah is a major text that was talked about but has not adequately studied, although it has been published in two hundred and seventy-four editions, including the Yiddish text and partial translation into several languages. Many generations of Jewish men and women have studied the Torah through the Rabbinic and medieval commentaries that the author of the Ze’enah U-Re’enah collected and translated in his work. It shaped their understanding of Jewish traditions and the lives of Biblical heroes and heroines. The Ze’enah U-Re’enah can teach us much about the influence of biblical commentaries, popular Jewish theology, folkways, and religious practices. This translation is based on the earliest editions of the Ze’enah U-Re’enah, and the notes annotate the primary sources utilized by the author.
