Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

  The Light of Days By:   Judy Batalion Reviewed by   Geoffrey W. Sutton The Light of Days is a harrowing and tortuous journey through Poland under the body and soul crushing acts of vicious Nazi aggression experienced by courageous Jewish women who creatively energized Jewish resistance with presence, weapons, and nourishment. Some were destroyed. Some survived. My interest in World War II stems from the stories my parents told of surviving the Nazi blitz of London. Since then, I have read various accounts of the bloody global war. And my wife and I have visited World War II and Holocaust Museums around the world as we learned about the Holocaust . The Light of Days stands out from the rest because it is about the role of women in the Jewish resistance-- a subject about which I had little knowledge. I found the book difficult to read for more than one reason. Despite previous reading about the horror of the Nazi doctors and the brutality of the Nazi invad...

Ravensbrück : Life and Death  in Hitler’s Concentration Camp      by Sarah Helm Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton, Ph.D. Ravensbrück  offers an organized collection of women’s voices documenting the diverse ways individuals and tribal groups of European women responded to Nazi enslavement, violence, and murder. The collection of stories is organized chronologically. But themes emerge because policies and war events change.   Changes in policy sometimes mean changes in leaders. But changes in policy also reflect changes in the war, which in turn, result in changes in the size and character of the camp’s victims. We have heard stories of the brutality of Nazi leaders in the death camps focused on the extermination of Jews. But at   Ravensbrück  we learn that Nazis, governed by superiority myths and emboldened by conquest, systematically destroyed the lives of European women after extracting every ounce of strength as t...