Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

  The Miracle of Dunkirk is a gripping tale of the well-known rescue of British and French troops from the French town of Dunkirk who were pushed to the beaches by the powerful advance of Hitler’s blitzkrieg in May 1940. Unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain did not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy. Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, a stunned and joyful nation welcomed about 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops. The film was impressive but this highly readable narrative by Walter Lord offers a glimpse into the minds of the ordinary young men and the odds they faced as they hoped to survive long enough to traverse dangerous waters. I recommend The Miracle of D...

  A Child Without a Shadow: A Story of Resilience The story is  a memoir of the life of Shaul Harel. He was a Jewish boy named Charlie Hilsberg. As a child in 1930s Belgium he enjoyed a brief early experience with a loving and closely knit family until the Nazi invasion robbed him of his parents and an older brother and robbed them of their lives. Shaul survived. The shadow he lost was his early identity along with early memories of what happened in those early years as he was moved from home to home by caring Belgians who risked their lives to save so many Jewish children. Following the war, we learn of a different kind of survival. Shaul goes to Israel where he gets an education but adapting to the new culture is not easy.   Eventually Shaul is able to connect with other family members and other  hidden children .    We learn of his fierce loyalty to his new country and strong desire to become a physician. His drive to survive appears to motivate...

  Miep Geis Shines A Small Light is a riveting intensely emotional dramatic telling of the Anne Frank story focused on the moral courage of the Viennese-born Miep Geis who helped hide and support the Frank family and four other Jews in an annex above the offices where Miep worked for Otto Frank. A Small Light is an eight-episode series. In the beginning, Miep is 24 and living with the Dutch family who adopted when she was a sick child. The family encourages her to marry Cas. The parents are serious. Cas is her nonbiological gay brother. Miep goes in search of employment, which is hard to come by in 1930s Amsterdam, nevertheless, Otto Frank takes a chance on her lack of experience and hires her as a secretary for Opekta, which produces pectin for making jam. Otto Frank had moved his family to Amsterdam from Germany to escape Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. When the Nazis arrive, Otto Frank, his wife Edith, two daughters Margot and Anne and four others hide above the business. ...

  Code Name: Lise:  The True Story of the Spy Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Woman By Larry Loftis Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton Lise was the code name for Odette Samson. She's living in Somerset England with her children at the outset of World War II. Her husband is off at war. Because she was raised in France, her language and experience make her a potential candidate to help the resistance organised by Britain's War Office referred to as SOE (Special Operations Executive). The story moves quickly from training to deployment. Relying on a trove of records that include interviews and official communications, Loftis creates a vivid thriller of a determined young woman focused on carrying out her risky responsibilities as a courier under threat of the Nazi boot. As the story progresses, she falls in love with her commanding officer, Peter Churchill. Despite many thrilling escapes, she and Peter are eventually captured by Hugo, Germany's master spy catcher. Disg...

THE NAZI DOCTORS Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide   By  Robert Jay Lifton Reviewed by   Geoffrey W. Sutton Lifton peers into the lives of physicians who killed millions. He examines the beliefs and practices of Nazi culture, which provided a biomedical context for ridding Germany of disease by exterminating those targeted as responsible for such disease. In an evil irony, healers frame killing in an expanding narrative that ultimately reaches the level of genocide. In addition to records, Lifton included interviews with surviving Nazi physicians and some prisoner doctors who served as their underlings in Auschwitz. Lifton discloses his perspective, which is that of a an American psychiatrist, a Jew, with a psychoanalytic perspective informed in part by the ideas of Otto Rank. In the Introduction, Lifton informs us of key elements of his psychological model. People seek to deal with mortality by seeking immortality in various life proj...