Customer Reviews

Test of Courage: The Michel Thomas Story

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

James Bond was a fictionalized glorified version of Ian Fleming's war career, but it's openly fictitious and admittedly entertaining (if shallow). This book has the fiction and the shallowness, but it reflects really poorly on Michel Thomas as a person. I've three primary objections:
(1) his chauvinism: MT always complains that women outside his family betray him, yet he manipulates them for his own purposes with no second thought (the daughter of the camp commandant for example, must have betrayed him because he refused her offer to rescue him a day before all the prisoners were rounded up, even though he was playing her to help his own survival). This rush to judgment that others have the worst-possible motives also shows in his attitudes towards the Poles, where he claims that Poland had the worst anti-Semitism in Europe (even though his own relations in Lodz were very successful), largely because he didn't think he and his mother were treated well (the worst thing that happened was a cruel joke where neighbors acted like he'd fallen down a well), where not long before the author discusses how his mother had done something socially unacceptable in the period by divorcing twice - so is it anti-Semitism or would a Catholic/Lutheran/etc. woman who divorced twice be treated similarly?
(2) The nonsense about the Gestapo giving up on torturing him after six or seven hours makes a mockery of the many people who had suffered under the regime for much longer.
(3) The claim of entering a psychological state making him incapable of feeling pain when he's being tortured - if this is really possible (and keep in mind neither the CIA and KGB could replicate a such feat), then it also makes a mockery of all the people throughout history who have suffered. It's simply that they didn't have MT's strength of character and mind to overcome their pain. Furthermore, if he did figure something like this out, he should have been visiting cancer or burn wards and teaching that to people instead of teaching languages to celebrities.

Skip this book - I'm disappointed that anyone would participate a biography that portrays him as a egomaniacal self-righteous misogynist (MT apparently participated in the writing of it). The way that it's written calls into question all the other claims that MT has made about his war record.

Recently, John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times, made some comments about this book at a symposion at UC Berkeley that in a nutshell give you all the reasons you need not to read this book. He stated:

"We published a story awhile back, by a very clever reporter named Roy Rivenburg, about a man who published his autobiography. And, if you read the autobiography, you'd be amazed you'd never heard of this man, because he pretty much single-handed won World War II for us. It was a preposterous book, and our review of it was an investigative review. It debunked many of the claims in this book and had some fun doing it, had a few laughs at the author's expense. When you put yourself out in public and make claims that are preposterous, and publish a book on it, you're likely to get a reviewer who will look into that and set the record straight. I'm very proud of that story, we haven't retracted a word of it, we don't intend to because it was true."

This book is actually a biography (not autobiography) of Michel Thomas by a British writer named Christopoher Robbins. The book is well-written and reads like a thriller, but thanks to some fine investigative reporting by the LA Times we now know that many of the "heroic" exploits of Thomas' life may be more fiction than fact.

This is a well-documented, gripping history that reads like a novel. In addition to exposing Vichy's complicity with the Germans during the occupation and the disgraceful beginnings of the cold war, Robbins' meticulously researched biography of Michel Thomas, whose existence during the Holocaust is distinguished by ingenious acts of courage, takes you inside the life of a singuarly brave man. This is not just another diary of surivival. In clear, unadorned prose Robbins has drawn the anatomy of triumph. In addition to being a well-written, intelligent book, Test of Courage is a deeply moving page turner

This book is loaded with factual errors [in my opinion]. It makes claims about the World War II feats of Michel Thomas that are completely at odds with military records, newspaper articles from that era and other reliable sources.

Some examples:

1. Author Christopher Robbins claims Thomas was an officer in the U.S. Army. In fact, Thomas was a civilian employee, and the L.A. Times, which debunked much of this book, has National Archives military documents from 1946 bearing Thomas' signature over the words "civilian assistant."

2. In the book, Thomas said he was born in Poland. However, for 38 years, he told journalists he was born in France -- and different parts of France at that.

3. Robbins claims Thomas was with the first battalion of U.S. troops as it entered the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945. After the L.A. Times proved otherwise, Thomas tried to backtrack, claiming he never said he was with the battalion, only that he arrived at Dachau sometime the first day. There are two problems with this explanation. First, the introduction to "Test of Courage" states that Thomas verified every fact in the book. Second, Thomas had been claiming he was with the first troops in newspaper articles dating back to the 1950s.

4. The book says Thomas single-handedly discovered and rescued millions of Nazi Party ID cards from destruction at a paper mill near Munich in May 1945. But this version of events is flatly contradicted by October 1945 articles in the New York Times and London Express.

5. Robbins also claims Thomas escaped Gestapo butcher Klaus Barbie. But in 1983, the U.S. Justice Department's chief Nazi hunter called a press conference to denounce Thomas' Klaus Barbie stories. And when Thomas testified at Barbie's 1987 trial, the prosecutor asked the jury to disregard Thomas' testimony, saying it wasn't made in good faith.

Although the book purports to be thoroughly documented, the "evidence" [in my opinion] in it didn't hold up, as several media reports have demonstrated.

Being an avid fan of Michel's language teaching methods I was very very disappointed in "The Michel Thomas Story". Whilst Michel's early life and times made very sad reading, I felt that Christopher Robbins book, whilst good in many respects, did not really give an insight into Michel's personality or post-war life. It focused almost entirely on World War 2 and the problems that it bequeathed to Michel.

For instance, Michel leaves Europe after WW2 and pops up in the USA but there is scant mention on how he made a living sufficient to finance and start up his language schools and the book practically ignores his contacts with many well-known people in Hollywood etc. His personal life must have had many more interesting threads than the writer of this biography has chosen to develop.

If Michel himself were to write a biography I am sure that I would then feel that I knew the man behind the name and there is clearly much more of interest to develop in another book.

Every success to Michel - his language teaching methods are simply magic and certainly work, even on me, a non-linguist!

Michel Thomas is as interesting a person as can be imagined. From his survival of Nazi Germany and Vichy France to his creation of an incredible language-teaching method. The sole shortcoming of the book is the author's tendency to diverge on a tangent and explain the history requisite to understanding the story. (Those unfamiliar with WWII history will doubtlessly appreciate this.) The work serves to chronicle one of the most impressive individuals living today. I highly recommend this book, and once you've read it, pick a language and check out "<German, Italian, French, Spanish> with Michel Thomas!"

The popular concept of the modern intellectual is the bipolar opposite of the popular concept of the modern soldier. Most, in our culture, accept this as Truth and hardly find it a point of reflection. One need not go to far back in time however, to see how the concept of the Renaissance man as artist, intellectual, and citizen soldier has only recently been smothered and killed off. Many today believe that there is nothing worth defending, that violence--no matter what--is not justified. Michel's life is a rage against those people. Michel's life has been spent between obtaining prestigious degrees, creating revolutionary teaching techniques, fighting the Gestapo, and hunting Nazis. A Jew who escaped from a concentration camp and joined the French Resistance, his entire family was slaughtered by Nazi Germany. His greatest pain comes from the fact that for years the world stood idly by as millions of Jews were sent to their deaths. Michel's life is a beacon in an ethically and morally baron landscape. Like the author, I should note that my opinion of this man is not biased, as I am not a Jew. But also like the author, I'd like to quote the Russian poet who said, "I am not a Jew, but in the presence of anti-Semites, I am Jewish."
I give the book 4 stars because the organization of the book is sometimes awkward and I found that the percent narration to quotation was too far weighted towards the narration side. These points should not, however, distract the reader too much as this is simply a great story.

Hats off to Chris Robbins for telling the story of this man's extraordinary life.

The story of Michel Thomas life, in particular his astonishing -- but thoroughly documented -- WWII experiences, is one of the last great untold stories from that era. Amazingly, Thomas lives today, still productive, still fighting, in New York, with his revolutionary language-teaching method finally having been discovered by the world, thanks to his putting it on tapes and CDs just a few years ago. They have become best-sellers in the UK, topping all the competition.

And while Robbins weaves a gripping tale in this book, few realize that Thomas's most historic achievement is one that is given only passing mention in this biography. For it was Thomas who rescued the Nazi Party's worldwide membership card files from destruction by the SS at the end of the war. The ten million members of the NSDAP would have been able to hide their affiliation with the most notorious political movement in history, but for the determined efforts of Michel Thomas. And the defendants at the Nuremberg war crimes trials would not have been presented with such incontrovertible evidence of their crimes, were it not for Thomas's efforts in rescuing and preserving these crucial records.

The NSDAP Master File became the heart of the collections of the Berlin Document Center, an enormous archive kept under US Military Police guard on the leafy street of suburban Wasserkafersteig in Berlin until 1994, when the US State Department turned the collection over the German Bundesarchiv.

Robert Wolfe, the pre-eminent expert in the world on captured German war documents, has publicly attested to the fact that Thomas was the original rescuer of these crucial files.

Thomas also escaped Klaus Barbie -- the "Butcher of Lyon" -- in 1942 and testified against Barbie more than 40 years later.

His work in the French Resistance and US Counter Intelligence Corps won him praise in the Resistance and a nomination for a Silver Star by the US Army .

Thomas' biography has been re-issued in 2003 by Hodder & Stoughton, with a new final chapter about his battle against the LA Times. It is a story of one man's relentless will to overcome overwhelming odds in a fight against ignorance and media arrogance in the 21st century, having done the same in the 20th century fighting the evils of genocidal Nazism.

In an era that celebrates clever expedience over commitment to basic convictions, Thomas's life story is an enduring one of inspiring courage and indomitable will.

This book tells an improbable tale which, surprisingly, is entirely true.

The book can be hard to follow chronologically for readers unfamiliar with WWII history, and its style can be a bit hagiographic at times, but the underlying facts of Thomas's life are supported by absolutely solid documentation and statements from Thomas's surviving wartime comrades, who went to bat for him when his bona fides were questioned by an L.A. Times humor columnist after the biography was published.

In 2003, their testimonials were forwarded to the U.S. Army by Arizona Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic New York City Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, along with original military documentation from the National Archives concerning the specific battles in which Thomas participated. The following year the U.S. Army awarded Thomas the Silver Star for his bravery fighting against the Nazis in 1944. In a moving ceremony, Senators Bob Dole and John Warner pinned the medal on Thomas in the shadow of the Atlantic Wall of the newly-dedicated WWII Memorial in Washington, in May 2004. Thomas's family and friends, and several of his wartime comrades stood by, many with tears in their eyes, along with an honor guard of Army Rangers standing at attention. Because Thomas was also a recognized member of the French Resistance, the Ambassador of France, M. Levitte, also attended the ceremony, and saluted Thomas's wartime heroism.

[...]

The Michael Thomas story leaves the reader spellbound by a sinew of life threaded through a wave of racial hatred and apathy such as the world has possibly never known. It follows the inquisitive and courageous mind of a polish Jew named Michael who refuses to surrender his convictions under any circumstances, nor deny himself to the enemy. Surviving three French concentration camps, where the "siren song" of death paralyzes the masses, he survives to become part of the French resistance, and finally joins US Army Intelligence to establish a brilliant sting operation to capture the most offensive Nazi officers. Forever haunted by the love and loss of his mother, his aunt and his one true love Suzanne, he leads a life as a pledge to God helping others around the world in whatever fashion possible. Michael spearheads a mission to teach languages and establish an international university, in an attempt to help others awaken the sleeping giant within to crave learning and become self-empowered. The book also provides unbelievable insight into the cowardice and brutality of the Vichy French government, the horrible silence of the international community to help immigrate Jewish refugees, and the lengths to which the Army cloaked heinous Nazi crimes for their own technological gain. Michael's candor and compelling story leaves you wanting more.