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Leap Into Darkness
''Leap into Darkness'' is a 1998 memoir by Holocaust survivor Leo Bretholz and co-author Michael Olesker, in the vein of ''Night'' by Elie Wiesel or ''My Brother's Voice'' (2003) by Stephen Nasser, in which he recounts the astounding story of his surviving the Holocaust as a young man owing to his wits, stomach for risk taking and well developed flight instinct. Synopsis The book begins with the Anschluss, Hitler's entry into Austria in 1938. The book recounts Bretholz's early life and the beginning of the war, as well as the seven years he spent on the run. Throughout the book he escapes the Nazi Regime several times, including from a train that was headed towards Auschwitz. Bretholz was 17 when the Germans took over his native Austria. His mother, more realistic than other relatives, saw disaster and insisted that he escape, which is what he did for the next seven years, traveling through Germany, Luxembourg, France and briefly, Switzerland, to jails and numerous internment c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leo Bretholz
Leo Bretholz (March 6, 1921 – March 8, 2014) was a Holocaust survivor who, in 1942, escaped from a train heading for Auschwitz. He has also written a book on his experiences, titled ''Leap into Darkness''. He escaped seven times during the Holocaust. Life Leo Bretholz was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 6, 1921. His father, Max Bretholz, was a Polish immigrant who worked as a tailor and died in 1930. His Mother, Dora (Fischmann) Bretholz, also Polish, was born in 1891 and worked as a seamstress. He had two younger sisters, Henny and Edith (Ditta). After the ''Anschluss'' in March 1938, many of his relatives were arrested. At his mother's insistence, Bretholz fled on a train to Trier, Germany, where he was met by a smuggler. He swam across the Sauer River into Luxembourg, where he spent five nights in a Franciscan monastery. Bretholz was arrested two days later in a coffee shop and chose to be taken to the Belgian border over arrest or being sent back to Germany. On November ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Olesker
Michael Olesker (born 1945) is a former syndicated columnist for ''The Baltimore Sun'' newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland, and a book author. Olesker attended the University of Maryland where he was on the staff of the school newspaper, ''The Diamondback'', serving as the sports page editor. Olesker started writing for the ''Baltimore News-American'' in 1978, prior to becoming a ''Baltimore Sun'' writer between 1979–2006. He was also a commentator on WJZ-TV from 1983 through December 2002, and his columns were syndicated in other newspapers such as ''Newsday'' and the ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette''. Olesker resigned from the ''Sun'' on January 4, 2006, after it was alleged that his columns contained passages plagiarized from articles at other newspapers. Fox ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memoir
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiography since the late 20th century, the genre is differentiated in form, presenting a narrowed focus. A biography or autobiography tells the story "of a life", while a memoir often tells the story of a particular event or time, such as touchstone moments and turning points from the author's life. The author of a memoir may be referred to as a memoirist or a memorialist. Early memoirs Memoirs have been written since the ancient times, as shown by Julius Caesar's ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'', also known as ''Commentaries on the Gallic Wars''. In the work, Caesar describes the battles that took place during the nine years that he spent fighting local armies in the Gallic Wars. His second memoir, ''Commentarii de Bello Civili'' (or ''Com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memoir
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiography since the late 20th century, the genre is differentiated in form, presenting a narrowed focus. A biography or autobiography tells the story "of a life", while a memoir often tells the story of a particular event or time, such as touchstone moments and turning points from the author's life. The author of a memoir may be referred to as a memoirist or a memorialist. Early memoirs Memoirs have been written since the ancient times, as shown by Julius Caesar's ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'', also known as ''Commentaries on the Gallic Wars''. In the work, Caesar describes the battles that took place during the nine years that he spent fighting local armies in the Gallic Wars. His second memoir, ''Commentarii de Bello Civili'' (or ''Com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland. Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933. After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March, which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government began isolating Je ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocaust Survivor
Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accepted definition of the term, and it has been applied variously to Jews who survived the war in German-occupied Europe or other Axis territories, as well as to those who fled to Allied and neutral countries before or during the war. In some cases, non-Jews who also experienced collective persecution under the Nazi regime are also considered Holocaust survivors. The definition has evolved over time. Survivors of the Holocaust include those persecuted civilians who were still alive in the concentration camps when they were liberated at the end of the war, or those who had either survived as partisans or been hidden with the assistance of non-Jews, or had escaped to territories beyond the control of the Nazis before the Final Solution was imp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Night (memoir)
''Night'' is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi Germany, Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camp, Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the parent–child relationship as his father deteriorates to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful, teenage caregiver. "If only I could get rid of this dead weight ... Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever." In ''Night'' everything is inverted, every value destroyed. "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends", a Kapo (concentration camp), kapo tells him. "Everyone lives and dies for himself alone." Wiesel was 16 when Buchenwald was liberated by the United States Army ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel bibliography, 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including ''Night (memoir), Night'', a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D. C. In his political activities, he also campaigned for victims of oppression in places like South Africa, Nicaragua, Kosovo, and War in Darfur, Sudan. He publicly condemned the 1915 Armenian genocide and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany") began after the unification of Germany excluded Austria and the German Austrians from the Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1871. Following the end of World War I with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1918, the newly formed Republic of German-Austria attempted to form a union with Germany, but the Treaty of Saint Germain (10 September 1919) and the Treaty of Versailles (28 June 1919) forbade both the union and the continued use of the name "German-Austria" (); and stripped Austria of some of its territories, such as the Sudetenland. Prior to the , there had been strong support in both Austria and Germany for unification of the two countries. In the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy—with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and was raised near Linz. He lived in Vienna later in the first decade of the 1900s and moved to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and was appointed leader of the Nazi Party in 1921. In 1923, he attempted to seize governmental ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and state. A landlocked country, Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The country occupies an area of and has a population of 9 million. Austria emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium. Originally a margraviate of Bavaria, it developed into a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1156 and was later made an archduchy in 1453. In the 16th century, Vienna began serving as the empire's administrative capital and Austria thus became the heartland of the Habsburg monarchy. After the dissolution of the H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism (german: Hitlerfaschismus). The later related term " neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War. Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist '' Völkisch'' movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly influenced by the paramilitary groups that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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