In Mania's Memory - Hardcover

Lisa Birnie

3.98

41 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1897476450 ISBN 13: 9781897476451

Publisher: SIMPLY READ BOOKS, 2010

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New York Times bestselling author Lisa Birnie investigates the true story of two women and their roles during the Holocaust. When Mania Kroll was seven years old, her aim in life was to become Poland's Shirley Temple. But when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, her life was drastically changed. Fast forward to 1976 and Mania, now an adult living in Toronto, hires a cleaning lady, Johanne, who she believes to recognise as a concentration camp guard...

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Review:

"It's a thorough and satisfying exploration of how two people on opposite sides of a great divide survived an unspeakably grim period of human history." - "The Vancouver Sun" "Finding the truth "In Mania's Memory" takes readers on a page-turning trail." - "The Oakland Press" "This book is much more than a wrenching story of one woman's survival. It is also a narrative about the memories of a German woman caught up in the lunacy of the Third Reich in 1938. It is a thesis on the power of memory. It is a journalistic investigation of archival documentation searching for clarity, truth and validation... A gripping, meticulous and fearless book." - Vancouver Holocaust Education Center

"'In Mania's Memory' Lisa Birnie captures brilliantly the intersect of memory, the perhaps flawed memory of the victim at age 12, and the near-perfect denial of memory of the perpetrator-guard. This book reads like a superbly crafted suspense novel. But it is not fiction. The Polish-Jewish child Mania's encounter with terror in Auschwitz was documented, the alleged sojourn of her German rescuer, Johanne, as a Nazi guard, is not. Most such records were destroyed. Being myself a child who survived the Shoah in hiding and who attempts to avoid the trauma of too much Holocaust literature, I was nevertheless totally captivated, even inspired, by this extraordinary tale. " - Robert Krell, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. "As the library technician for Patrick Henry High School, San Diego, I was asked for recommendations for something new and insightful for two different departments, History and English. Your book, 'In Mania's Memory', was exactly what we needed. Over 50 copies were ordered. It is unique, informative, and well written, one of my favorites in quite a long time. " - Care Kelly, Library Technician, Patrick Henry High School, San Diego, Calif. "This book is much more than a wrenching story of one woman's survival. It is also a narrative about the memories of a German woman caught up in the lunacy of the Third Reich in 1938. It is a thesis on the power of memory. It is a journalistic investigation of archival documentation searching for clarity, truth and validation. It is a travelogue into towns in Poland and Germany 60 years after horrors were committed in their concentration camps and villages. Many stories are woven together in this book - the survival of the child, Mania; the love affair between an attractive domestic worker and a dashing SS officer: and the reunion between Mania and her alleged rescuer, Johanne. While learning about the lives of Mania and Johanne we also become privy to the delicate interviewing

About the Author:

Lisa (Hobbs) Birnie worked for thirty years as a newspaper reporter in Melbourne, London, San Francisco and Vancouver; served full time on the National Parole Board of Canada for nine years; and was a contributing editor to the magazine Saturday Night. She has written ten books, which have included New York Times bestselling titles, and won numerous prizes including a Ford Foundation Fellowship to Stanford University, the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, a Gold from the Canadian National Magazine Foundation. Lisa was a writer-in-residence at Monash University in Melbourne and currently lives in Vancouver, BC. She is eighty-one years old and sees no reason to stop writing.

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