Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 30, 2006, Winnipeg, Manitoba B5 editor Morley Walker / 697-7307 Winnipeg free press email sunday july 30, 2006 books horrifying View through broken Glass historian puts a human face on Kristal nacht Kristal nacht prelude to destruction by Martin Gilbert Harper Collins 320 pages $28.50 reviewed by Tom Oleson i n october of 1938, the government of Germany expelled almost 30,000 jews who had lived and prospered in Germany for decades but were of polish Ori Gin. It ripped them from their Homes stripped them of their possessions and deported them at Bayonet Point to Poland. The polish government refused to accept most of them and Germany would not take them Back. So about 20,000 were left to languish in terrible conditions in Camps along the Border. Hundreds committed suicide. One of them a Young woman wrote to her brother in Paris. We realized this was going to be the end. We Haven to a Penny. Can you Send us something this is How sir Martin Gilberts Book Kristal nacht begins. It is also he suggests the actual beginning of the Holo Caust itself because it set in motion a train of events that was Only stopped by the Allied Victory at the end of second world War seven years later. The brother in Paris enraged by the treatment of his family bought a pistol and on nov. 7, went to the German embassy where he shot the third Secre tary five times. Hitler used the attack As an excuse to Ratchet up the persecution of the jews in Germany. When on nov. 9, the Diplo mat died of his wounds Hitler unleashed the stormtroopers and thugs of the nazi party on jewish synagogues businesses and Homes. Kristal nacht Means night of broken Glass hundreds of jewish establishments were attacked burned and looted ? the streets of almost every German City were littered with broken window panes. Although the jews had suffered persecution in various forms prior to nov. 10, 1938, Gilbert in agonizing detail describes How after that Day it increased and accelerated at an extra Ordinary rate until it led to the ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau and the near extermination of the jews of Europe. None of this is particularly new. It is Gilberts gift however to take this his tory and personalize it. The death of one million it has been said is a statistic. The death of six million is hardly even that ? it is barely comprehensible which May be one of the reasons that holocaust deniers can find such easy and credulous audiences. But the corollary to that is that the death of one person the horror inflicted on one family is a tragedy to which most people can relate. Gilbert an englishman is one of today a most distinguished and prolific historians ? he has this Book and another on the Battle of the Somme out this summer which brings him up to a count of somewhere near 40 volumes that he has produced. He is Best known As the author of the definitive six volume biography of sir Winston Churchill but for Many of his readers it has been his ability to put a human face on the holocaust that is his greatest accomplishment his ability to reduce some of the six million to individuals. He does that again Here in Kristall nacht. Much of the Book is drawn from interviews with and personal correspondence from people who survived the terror of that night and the horrors that followed. It is Well written and meticulously researched but it is a hard Book to read not because of its history but because of its humanity. That humanity cuts two ways. We Are Able to turn our backs on atrocities because we believe that we ourselves could not commit them that bad people run concentration Camps or Hack people apart with machetes. But on Kristal nacht As Gilbert amply documents crowds of Ordinary germans no different than we Are stood cheering As nazi thugs brutalized the jews. What happened on nov. 10, 1938, in the cities of Germany could with the right spark be unleashed against any minority in Winnipeg or any other City under the right ? or the wrong ? Circum stances. Canadians need to remember that they sent jewish refugees Back to hitlers death Camps before the War. Gilbert recalls that Mackenzie King when asked about the jews told parliament in 1939 that Canada would not throw her doors wide open to political on july 8, 1939, director of immigration Frederick Blair said that Canada would not open its doors to take in hundreds of thousands of jewish people who want emphasis added to leave Europe and a Day later Justice minister Ernest Lapointe defined Down the Issue ? he was emphatically opposed to admit Ting jewish refugees to Canada. A different take on consumer Power no one makes you shop at Wal Mart the surprising deceptions of individual Choice by Tom Slee Between the lines 240 pages $25 reviewed by Lindsey Wiebe we make choices every Day writes Ontario author Tom Slee. We choose the clothes we Wear the Way we travel the movies we watch and the places we but even with All this Choice Slee says the Rich Are getting Richer while the Middle class and poor Are losing ground. What has gone wrong he asks in this thought provoking mix of academic and social critique. Why is it that with More choices than any in society in history we do not get what we want despite myriad choices available Middle class poor losing ground these Basic questions form the underpinnings of this first Book by the Waterloo software professional and researcher. In it Slee explores the Pitfalls of a free Market Economy in particular what he refers to As Market think the idea that Consumers control the mar Ket and can hold corporations account Able. Slee does his Best to debunk this mindset arguing that even the most reasonable of individual decisions can produce negative results for the Gen eral Public. Much of the Book revolves around the fictional foibles of Jack and Jill who live in the made up town of Whomsley. Slee uses the characters to illustrate the routine conflicts Between personal and Public gain. Should Jack support a downtown department store or visit a newly opened big Box development and does it really matter if Jill leaves litter in a Public Park when surely others will be More environmentally conscious no one makes you shop at Wal Mart also draws on real world examples of difficult choices tackling everything from the Issue of Herd mentality to the prob Lem of free riders those who act in their own Best interests while assuming often mistakenly that others will work for the Public Good. Slee a reasoning is persuasive and his examples numerous and far reach ing the contentious subject of International pollution credits for one or the perennial Public is. Private school debate. But although no one makes you shop at Wal Mart is More accessible than the average academic text it still Falls Short of mass Market Appeal and those unfamiliar with game theory might find some sections slower than others. Slee spacing is often sluggish and the Overall arrangement of material feels unfocused. The sheer number of examples to deconstruct is also a Little daunting an ironic flaw in a Book about the dilemmas of Choice. Slee May have been better off focus ing on fewer but More detailed exam Ples to plead his Case. On the positive Side Slee a in text citations Are Clear and easy to follow and readers hoping to learn More about the complexities of decision making will come out with a solid list of followup books. No one makes you shop at Wal Mart does to qualify As Light summer read ing. However the Book does offer an intriguing critique of dominant ideas on consumer Power and puts Forward a valid argument for the benefits of collective decision making and regu lation. Lindsey Wiebe is a free press reporter. Pull up a suitcase hang out with an anti tourism tourist the naked tourist in search of adventure and Beauty in the age of the Airport mall by Lawrence Osborne North Point press 278 pages $32.50 reviewed by Douglas j. Johnston sometime in the last few years of the new millennium he a no More specific than that Lawrence Osborne embarked on a six month journey Fol lowing the 1960s hippie path known As the asian it saw him flee new York for Dubai Calcutta Bangkok Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand coast Bali and lastly Papua new Guinea. Each place merits a chapter in the naked tourist except Papua new Guinea which gets the better part of three. Osborne a new York City resident englishman is the author of four pre Vious books including 2004?s irreverent take on the world of wine the accidental connoisseur. His object this time round be the anti tourist diagnostician of places he views As ports of Call on planet modern travel he writes is like fast food Short Sharp incursions that do not weave a spell. In our age tourism has made the planet into a uni form spectacle and it has made us into perpetual strangers wandering through an imitation of a place we once wanted to go his stops on his journey from the Middle to the far East provide por traits cum analyses of the psychological underpinnings of the tourist Trade. Until journeys end ? when he searches for and finds people who be never seen a tourist before and who can to comprehend Why anyone would Ever want to be one. The books title is metaphorical not literal. Apart from one ritualized night Osborne never diffs his clothes. Tourism has Osborne a naked made the tourist is himself naked with fear. Planet into after travelling a uniform Halfway around the Globe he finally spectacle locates his hearts and it has desire ? a place made us into where not a single word of the global perpetual language is spoken. Strangers where the tourist infrastructure does wandering not through that place is the an imitation Central Highlands of Papua new of a place we Guinea. Once wanted but once found it scares the willies to go to out of him. How Many times in the course of a life do you think you Are searching for the other he asks. But when the real thing is staring you in the face ? without any mediation of Superior Force from your own civilization ? a brutal Shock takes hold of you. All your atavistic feelings of fear insecurity and tribal chauvinism return to the fore of your travel writing by its nature is almost invariably written in the first person. Everything recounted is filtered through the authors eyes and sensibility. Like most Good travel writing the naked tourist is As much personal Odyssey As a recounting of what a seen heard and smelled. Where some travel writers take a minimalist first person tack ? Eric Newby Early Paul Theroux ? relating what unfolds in a modest or retiring Way others robustly insert their personalities front and Centre. Osborne is of the latter Camp. Sometimes his dyspeptic meditations on our Western fetish for travel for quickly and briefly seeing the other and the new or at least almost new make him come off like a poseur rebel travel snob. Most of us can to take half a year off from our lives and careers. Nor even if we could could we afford the expensive detours Osborne took. Still the Man can write. He provides equally magnificent descriptions of the Sublime gabled thatch houses on 18-metre stilts in Back of beyond Jun Gle and the repulsive the Kombai of Papua new guineas folding Back the Foreskin of the Penis and pushing the whole Organ inside the body. And his abundant curiosity is ultimately redeeming. In spite of a pen chant for heavy streaks of irony by books end he reveals himself for what he is a romantic. Douglas j. Johnston is a Winnipeg lawyer and writer. As Gilbert makes Clear no ones hands Are clean Here not the Ordinary Ger mans nor the Canadian bystanders. Gilbert writes Kristal nacht taught in Hindsight a historical lesson that what begins As something finite in destruction and limited in time can quickly develop into a monster of mass murder that evil has gradations but is also a process and can move smoothly effortlessly Forward to a greater Tom Oleson is a member of the free press editorial Board. ancient Story timely subject the afghan Campaign by Steven Pressfield Doubleday 354 pages $33 reviewed by Bill rambo a Western coalition invades and tries to subdue Afghanistan. Early Progress gives Way to betrayals reversals and violent insurgencies. The troops on the ground must come to terms with each other and with the suffering they cause and endure. The coalition Leader is Alexander the great. Twenty three Hundred years later Many of the details in . Writer Steven Pressfield a seventh historical novel seem As though they Are drawn from real life. The narrator of the afghan Campaign is a Young Volunteer named Matthias whose family including two Brothers in alexanders cavalry does not want him to be involved in the War. I was 18, however Matthias says and As mad for glory As every other overheated Young blood in a kingdom whose 25-year-old Sovereign Alexander son of Philip had in Only four years sacked Earth a mightiest Empire and turned our Homeland delirious with Conquest Fame and the prologue outlines preparations for alexanders wedding to an afghan Princess at the end of the War. The rest of the novel describes Matthias spar to citation in that War. Most of the Narra Tion is in the present tense a style that feels immediate and personal. The Story a Broad historical events Are in line with what is known about Alexan Der a campaigns and Pressfield describes Many details of the kind of warfare mat Riel and tactics used by alexanders armies. In his squads first action destroying a Village Matthias witnesses grotesque atrocities on both sides. I am paralysed with horror. It is one thing to recount such a holocaust from the secure removes of memory and another to behold it before ones Matthias becomes a scarred Battle hardened Veteran but retains some Youthful altruism. Indeed some of his attitudes seem suspiciously enlightened for the ancient world and he sometimes conflicts with others about treatment of women and victims. Pressfield has created a cast of richly drawn and varied characters whose responses to horrors and tensions Illus trate Many different views about the necessity limits and effects of War. The novel presents perspectives that can still be heard today on All sides of debates about politics and War. Bill rambo teaches English and journalism at Niverville collegiate Institute. ;