Customer Reviews

Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number (THE AMERICAS)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent analysis of the methodology behind totalitarian regimes, with emphasis on the persecution of Jews. Personally the most redeeming part I found in this book was Timerman's personal methods to cope with the traumatic torture, and, most applicable to myself, an existence without tenderness and love. His words ring loud and true, his advice is sound, sound, sound.

Jacobo Timerman has written a gripping and terrifying account of his experiences at the mercy of Argentina's Peronist regime of the late 70's. A well respected, professional journalist in Buenos Aires, he was editor of the major newspaper La Opinión until he was kidnapped by the military for publishing articles critical of their terrorist tactics. He details how as a political prisoner, and more signifigantly as a Jew, he was held and tortured by a military carried away by their own delusions and rationalizations of violence - and by their virulent anti-semitism. Timerman displays a penetrating insight into the mindset of his captors and of a society that tried to ignore what was happening. A must read.

I won't give a synopsis of the book b/c everyone else has already done that for you. What I can say about this book is that it is an impetus. After you read it, you'll most likely be hungry for more information about this brutal time in a seemingly well-developed country. Questions to consider: Why the silence of the press, with the exception of Timerman's newspaper 'La Opinion' and the 'B.A. Herald?' How could someone treated so horribly come out of it okay? Why did this happen after Pinochet's regime and the Nazi regime? This is post WWII, so why? Where was the rest of the world? The book is splendid, the first chapter gut-wrenching and beautiful. You will love it as much as Elie Wiesel's 'Night.'

One of the most harrowing books I've ever read. An amazing entreaty against violence of both the left and the right, and a heartbreaking analysis of contemporary anti-Semitism. Comparable at some points perhaps to Koestler's Darkness at Noon, except that it deals with torture in a more direct (and horrifying, since it's nonfiction) way. I wish this were required reading in schools.

I used this book in my introduction to Latin America course as a supplementary text. The writing is moving and heartfelt while being historically and politically relevant. Most students read this book in one sitting finding it impossible to put down.

Journalist Jacobo Timerman (1923-1999) makes a powerful statement about life as a political prisoner. Timerman was publisher of LA OPINION, a centrist-liberal newspaper when Argentina's military took power in a 1976 coup amidst violent instability. The governing militarists soon launched their National Reorganization Process (or "dirty war") to stabilize the nation by ridding Argentina of leftists, young activists, and other undesireables. Timerman dared publish stories opposing how the military was grabbing people who then disappeared, an action that led to his own arrest in early 1977. Isolated in a tiny cell, Timerman was regularly blindfolded, interrogated, and tortured with an electronic cattle prod. Adding to his dilema, Timerman was Jewish in a nation hardly devoid of military Anti-Semitism. Timerman describes learning to think and dream of almost nothing as a means of surviving his predicament. Ironically, a smuggled letter from his wife on their anniversary added to his torment by reminding him of family and freedom. Actually, Timerman was somewhat lucky; unlike most detainees he wasn't killed, but instead transferred to house arrest and then deported to Israel - saved perhaps by the efforts of diplomats. Writing these pages from exile in 1981, Timerman claimed he was unable to properly describe the physical and mental horror of his experience - although readers should get the point. Additionally, Timerman provides solid political analysis, while opposing violence, corruption, and Anti-Semitism. He also attacks police states of both the right and the left - a nice change from the many that find fault with one but not the other. All this in just 164 moving pages.

Timerman returned to Argentina in 1984 after civilian rule was re-established, and at this writing his son serves as that nation's foreign minister. Argentina recently converted several detention/torture centers into museums honoring the thousands of arrestees that vanished during the dirty war - while visiting one we met a guide who had been an infant when his father was arrested by the military in 1976 and vanished. Even today some mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared still protest by the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires.

Readers might also enjoy THE FIXER, a similar, fictional look at wrongful imprisonment based on the case of Mendil Belis.

This book blew me away. So much goes under the radar and this book exposes some real evil. A must read, but also pretty hard to take.

Although Timerman gives the best description of torture possible, I found this book to be a lot like reading a really long newspaper article. As a journalist, Timerman often gets caught up in the socio-political environment rather than the experience of torture and prison. This is supposed to be a memoir, not a political commentary on the situation in Argentina. I appreciated what Timerman wrote, but in all, I found the writing to be rather dry.

Jacobo Timerman's excruciating tale of false imprisonment at the hands of Argentina's totalitarian regime. He describes his two year imprisonment and the torture that he endures at the hand of his captors. Obviously a very tough topic to describe, this is not always an easy book to read. His story of perseverance and will to overcome his circunstances are truly inspiring. However I was not enamored with the amount of political commentary, and i think that takes away from his message.

Este libro es un resumen de un pais de tristeza. Anarchia, luchas, gobiernos coruptos, y la militaria- es lo mismo ahora en este pais bella y riqueza. Los maleducados hay un nivel de estupidez - ellos solo quieren el pavo, el dinero - la renta sin pensar de la gente.

Tienes que leer este libro!