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In 1942 one young social worker, Irena Sendler, was granted access to the Warsaw Ghetto as a public health specialist. While she was there, she began to understand the fate that awaited the Jewish families who were unable to leave. Soon she reached out to the trapped families, going from door to door and asking them to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling children out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them.
Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left-their lives, and those of their unborn babies.
In the century's darkest time, one man became the most unlikely of heroes. German-Catholic industrialist and Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler used his wealth and influence to save the lives of more than 1,300 Jews who would have otherwise died in the concentration camp at Plaszow. Here is the story on which Steven Spielberg based his powerful motion picture. If you like this, try Ursula Hegi's Stones from a River.
In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system.
Ben Shapiro uncovers the simple strategy used by liberals and their friends in the media: bully the living hell out of conservatives. Play the race card, the class card, the sexism card. Use any and every means at your disposal to demonize your opposition - to shut them up. Then pretend that such bullying is justified because, after all, conservatives are the true bullies and need to be taught a lesson for their intolerance.
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
In 1942 one young social worker, Irena Sendler, was granted access to the Warsaw Ghetto as a public health specialist. While she was there, she began to understand the fate that awaited the Jewish families who were unable to leave. Soon she reached out to the trapped families, going from door to door and asking them to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling children out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them.
Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left-their lives, and those of their unborn babies.
In the century's darkest time, one man became the most unlikely of heroes. German-Catholic industrialist and Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler used his wealth and influence to save the lives of more than 1,300 Jews who would have otherwise died in the concentration camp at Plaszow. Here is the story on which Steven Spielberg based his powerful motion picture. If you like this, try Ursula Hegi's Stones from a River.
In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system.
Ben Shapiro uncovers the simple strategy used by liberals and their friends in the media: bully the living hell out of conservatives. Play the race card, the class card, the sexism card. Use any and every means at your disposal to demonize your opposition - to shut them up. Then pretend that such bullying is justified because, after all, conservatives are the true bullies and need to be taught a lesson for their intolerance.
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
Told with the same old-fashioned narrative power as the novels of Herman Wouk, The Seamstress is the true story of Seren (Sara) Tuvel Bernstein and her survival during wartime. This powerful eyewitness account of survival, told with power and grace, will stay with listeners for years to come.
Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is convinced he is right and engages attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Rosenzweig to justice.
A historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers in World War II Austria and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families. A heartbreaking, heartwarming story for fans of The Nightingale, Lilac Girls, and Sarah's Key.
In 1945, in a now-famous piece of World War II archival footage, four-year-old Michael Bornstein was filmed by Soviet soldiers as he was carried out of Auschwitz in his grandmother's arms. Survivors Club tells the unforgettable story of how a father's courageous wit, a mother's fierce love, and one perfectly timed illness saved his life and how others in his family from Zarki, Poland, dodged death at the hands of the Nazis time and again with incredible deftness.
She has hair of ginger and lovely green eyes, and she has just been transported with her family from Terezín to Auschwitz. In short order, her father commits suicide, and her mother and younger brother are dispatched to the gas chambers, but fifteen-year-old Hanka Kauderzová is still alive. Faced with the choice of certain death in the camp or working in a German military brothel, she chooses a chance at life. Passing for an Aryan, Hanka spends her days in the brothel cold, hungry, fearful, and ashamed.
Why we think it’s a great listen: Seabiscuit was a runaway success, and Hillenbrand’s done it again with another true-life account about beating unbelievable odds. On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared.....
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat.
Maya and Rebecca Ward are both accomplished physicians, but that's where the sisters' similarities end. As teenagers, they witnessed their parents' murder, but it was Rebecca who saved Maya from becoming another of the gunman's victims. The tragedy left Maya cautious and timid, settling for a sedate medical practice with her husband, Adam, while Rebecca became the risk taker.
They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, spirited Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15 who scrawled “V” for victory on the walls of her lycée; the eldest, a farmer’s wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Strangers to one another, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazi occupiers.<
Only 22, Emma learned to bake at the side of a master, Ezra Kuchen, the village baker since before she was born. Apprenticed to Ezra at 13, Emma watched with shame and anger as her kind mentor was forced to wear the six-pointed yellow star on his clothing. She was likewise powerless to help when they pulled Ezra from his shop at gunpoint, the first of many villagers stolen away and never seen again.
Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."
Bronx-born top turret-gunner Arthur Meyerowitz was on his second mission when he was shot down in 1943. He was one of only two men on the B-24 Liberator known as Harmful Lil Armful who escaped death or immediate capture on the ground. After fleeing the wreck, Arthur knocked on the door of an isolated farmhouse, whose owners hastily took him in. Fortunately, his hosts not only despised the Nazis but had a tight connection to the French resistance group Morhange and its founder, Marcel Taillandier.
The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz is the extraordinary true story of a British soldier who marched willingly into Buna-Monowitz, the concentration camp known as Auschwitz III. In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a POW labour camp, E715, near Auschwitz III. He had heard of the brutality meted out to the prisoners there, and he was determined to witness what he could. He hatched a plan to swap places with a Jewish inmate and smuggled himself into his sector of the camp.
He spent the night there on two occasions and experienced at first-hand the cruelty of a place where slave workers had been sentenced to death through labour. Astonishingly, he survived to witness the aftermath of the Death March in which thousands of prisoners were murdered by the Nazis as the Soviet Army advanced. After his own long trek right across central Europe he was repatriated to Britain.
For decades he couldn't bring himself to revisit the past that haunted his dreams, but now Denis Avey feels able to tell the full story - a tale as gripping as it is moving - which offers us a unique insight into the mind of an ordinary man whose moral and physical courage are almost beyond belief.
What did you love best about The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz?
Fascinating account. I enjoyed the additional autobiographical detail and it was easy to empathize with the author. Well written and authentically narrated. The story is so astonishing that at times I found myself wondering if it could be true but the details seemed sufficiently plausible and I was absorbed from beginning to end.
What other book might you compare The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz to and why?
None
Have you listened to any of Sean Barrett’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Same as title
Any additional comments?
No
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Would you listen to The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz again? Why?
Yes I would, although the story stuck with me.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, luckily enough I took it for long runs!
Would you try another book from Denis Avey and Rob Broomby and/or Sean Barrett?
YES
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz?
THE EXCHANGE AND BOLDNESS TO CONFRONT AN SS SOLDIER
What does Sean Barrett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
ONE FEELS HE IS TALKING DIRECTLY TO YOU.
Any additional comments?
ANYONE INTERESTED IN THE FACTS OF WW2 HISTORY SHOULD READ THIS STORY. IT IS BOTH HEART BREAKING AND UPLIFTING AND LEAVES ONE WITH A SENSE OF PRIDE THAT THERE WERE THOSE WHO WERE PREPARED TO LOSE EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO HELP ANOTHER HUMAN BEING IN AN EXTREMELY BAD SITUATION. IT IS HARROWING AND INFORMATIVE AND I COULD'NT PUT IT DOWN. I THINK IT IS A MUST READ!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
For all the WWII movies, and History Channel programmes, this audio book was an eye opener to the Actual Horrors experienced by One Denis Avey, a British POW. Very interesting, I could not stop listening.
What did you like best about this story?
A Journey of a man through the war. Not too much in depth detail day by day, but snippets of off the critical pieces over those years with just the right amount of detail as lived through and experienced by Avey.
What does Sean Barrett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Awesome Narrator... Calm, soulful, meaningful delivery.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Horrified at the atrocities of the Concentration Camps.
Any additional comments?
My Favorite Listen So Far.
Having just come back from Krakow and a vistit to Auschwitz this book was so so real. I could see the camps in my minds eye. Having wittnesed this and read the book I can honestly say it brings to light the horrors of the Solution. The way Dennis tells his story and relates, especially for me, the incident regarding the crying child, just makes you sick to the core. Although many soldiers dont like to talk about what they went through, I feel its so important that we keep the light burning about this period in our recent history. Especially for today's youth and tomorrows. After all, if not for Dennis and people like him....none of us may have ever existed. This book should be included as a must for historians of the period. A simple story but so well told. You will shed tears.
20 of 20 people found this review helpful
In the words of the man himself, a true account of real hero. It moved me laughter and sorrow. I found this story of one man's experience of the war to be enlightening and harrowing at the same time. Highly recommended.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
Could not stop listening to it. An absolutely amazing life and truly epic story. An incredible man with an incredible life story that was gripping, educational and highly emotional. This book will educate you and shows the power of positive thinking as well as the terrible arbitrary lottery of life and death during war. It will certainly have you in tears more than once or you are not human. Would give 6 stars if I could. The narration and language is absolutely first class. Top of my list.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
I visited Auschwitz several years ago and when I saw this book I felt compelled to read it and find out how someone survived the austerity within the camps. To think that people survived the treatment they endured is hard enough to grasp but to believe that someone put their own life in jeopardy to enable another to have a better chance of survival takes courage to a new dimension. Once I started listening I wanted to keep driving just so I could listen more. A compelling read and very informative.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
I do have one criticism of this amazing story. Denis Avey gives us an overlong preamble to the main events which - from the title - most people will be interested in. Though nevertheless an extraordinary incident, he actually only spent 2 nights in Auschwitz altogether. Yet the title seems to promise even more.
However, that is to criticise only the publishers, who obviously wish to establish a 'hook' that will entice people to go out and buy the book. The events narrated are incredible enough and, narrated in a 'stiff upper lip, old-school', utterly British way, manage to hold rapt the listener's attention. The central portion deals with Avey's time in a camp whose inmates - fed and housed according to the Geneva Convention, a million times better than the inhabitants of the adjacent Auschwitz - nevertheless have to work alongside those other striped-pajama inmates. It's a gruelling account, all the more so as told by an eye-witness.
Yet the most incredible section is perhaps the final one, where Avey becomes the subject of a documentary, whose producers set out to track down one or two of the people Avey encountered. The story of this search is both heartwarming and yet also poignant, as Avey realises that his postwar life might have turned out very differently if only he had not been himself so traumatised by the events he had witnessed and been an unwitting accomplice in.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
What an Inspirational story,
I have never been moved to write a review until now,
what a wonderful true story of courage such a moving and compelling account of life's struggles in war, tears welled in my eyes on more than one occasion
would 100% recommend this book with 5 *
Narrated beautifully
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
A very interesting visit into the mind of a man who believed in himself. Fascinating
Heart felt listen , sadness , happiness and joy . Really makes you realise what those poor people went through :(
Beautifully written and wonderfully read; it will make you both laugh and cry. But most of all it will make you truly appreciate what a whole generation had to do to survive a period in our history that must not be forgotten
Amazing Amazing Amazing story the best story I have ever listened too ... so moving ... it makes us realise how lucky we are today
Although the story is very riveting the narration is to me very boring. Disappointed. The narrator could have been more expressive.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful