Customer Reviews

City of Life, City of Death: Memories of Riga

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Max Michelson's chronicle of his life in the ghetto in Riga, Latvia during the Nazi occupation is an incredible tale that can't be told by anybody else, because most people died. The story is told so simply that the miracle of his survival lives outside the pages in what we know of history and what we realize from the few statistics he gives. Everyone should read this book. It is the actual, human story that those of us who haven't faced death at the hands of an evil power have tried to create in our own heads to understand. Considering world events today the kind of education that Max Michelson provides is just the kind we need.

In addition to providing a detailed account of the Holocaust in Riga, Latvia, this book is an excellent description of pre-WWII Jewish life and culture in Latvia. Due to the lack of survivors, there are relatively few accounts of the Holocaust in Latvia. The author is an engineer, and he understands the importance of detail. I found the description of his family life very interesting from a cultural standpoint. Overall, I think this an excellent account, especially interesting for someone who is interested in how the Holocaust affected people in different countries and the the kinds of people and cultures that disappeared.

This is a very wordy description of one Jewish family and its various branches. The first 80 pages could have been done in 30. After the first part it becomes an interesting description of one person's view of survival. Good book if you are studying the Holocaust.

I found out about this book only because a Google search for something completely different listed a portion of a sentence with my father's name in it. I clicked on that link and discovered that my father was mentioned in this book.

I purchased this book and was fascinated to learn that the author and my father followed similar paths leading up to the war, and almost the identical path during the war. It seems as if they were in the same camps at the same times, working the same work details, and even came to the US on the same ship. They even had the same lifelong hangup: refusal to eat potato skins.

The writing style is conversational, with all that implies: easy to read, narrative, thoughts jump around a bit just as you would expect from a person telling his own story.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about Jewish life in Riga about 1925 to 1945.