Left to the Mercy of a Rude Stream

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Left to the Mercy of a Rude Stream

The Bargain That Broke Adolf Hitler and Saved My Mother

Stanley A. Goldman

224 pages
12 photographs

Hardcover

December 2018

978-1-64012-044-0

$39.95 Add to Cart
eBook (PDF)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

December 2018

978-1-64012-151-5

$39.95 Add to Cart
eBook (EPUB)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

December 2018

978-1-64012-149-2

$39.95 Add to Cart

About the Book

Seven years after the death of his mother, Malka, Stanley A. Goldman traveled to Israel to visit her best friend during the Holocaust. The best friend’s daughter showed Goldman a pamphlet she had acquired from the Israeli Holocaust Museum that documented activities of one man’s negotiations with the Nazi’s interior minister and SS head, Heinrich Himmler, for the release of the Jewish women from the concentration camp at Ravensbrück. While looking through the pamphlet, the two discovered a picture that could have been their mothers being released from the camp. Wanting to know the details of how they were saved, Goldman set out on a long and difficult path to unravel the mystery. 

After years of researching the pamphlet, Goldman learned that a German Jew named Norbert Masur made a treacherous journey from the safety of Sweden back into the war zone in order to secure the release of the Jewish women imprisoned at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Masur not only succeeded in his mission against all odds but he contributed to the downfall of the Nazi hierarchy itself. This amazing, little-known story uncovers a piece of history about the undermining of the Nazi regime, the women of the Holocaust, and the strained but loving relationship between a survivor and her son. 
 

Author Bio

​Stanley A. Goldman is a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and the founding director of the Loyola Center for the Study of Law and Genocide. He co-anchored a national program on CBS Network Radio during the months of the O. J. Simpson trial and has spent over two years as a regular contributor on CNBC. Goldman has spent more than ten years as a full-time employee of the Fox News Channel as the network’s on-air legal editor, as well as a news correspondent, analyst, and occasional host.
 
 

Praise

"The son of a Holocaust survivor rehearses the horrors of his mother's captivity, the improbability of her survival, and the deleterious lingering effects on her—and him. . . . A welcome excavation of an obscure corner of Holocaust history."—Kirkus

"This is a well-written page-turner for any reader wanting a different perspective on Nazi atrocities. The author effortlessly moves from the general to the particular and back as he puts his mother’s plight in context. . . . I can understand why Mr. Goldman felt he had to tell his mother’s story. It is a compelling one, and every reader who pretends to understand this dark era in human history should read it."—Steve Moore, bookpleasures.com

"Goldman . . . deftly mixes his personal experiences growing up the son of a survivor and the events surrounding the crash of Hitler’s 1,000-year Reich."—Tom Tugen, Jewish Journal

"An inherently fascinating read from cover to cover."—James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review

"Stan Goldman tells us through the story of his mother’s harrowing survival that there are still millions of more stories about the Holocaust, and there should be a never ending quest to bring out these stories for future generations to become more aware of such an unspeakable tragedy, and continually end the ignorance so that it could never happen again."—Stuart Nulman, Montreal Times

“Professor Goldman’s account of this previously untold moment in history is seismic. What a tale! It is not only purposeful but also riveting and enlightening. It’s a must-read, especially at a time when, sadly, there are creeping global similarities to the festering mindset in the run-up to World War II.”—Ashleigh Banfield, host of HLN’s Crime and Justice with Ashleigh Banfield
 

“A harrowing, haunting memoir and history. I couldn’t put it down.”—Charles Rosenberg, author of The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington

“Powerful. It’s riveting.”—Geraldo Rivera
 

“Stanley Goldman has written what may perhaps be the last genre of Holocaust memoirs. The son of a Holocaust survivor, he has pieced together his mother’s story and told it with respect and dispassion. . . . The result is a powerful work that probes the past and its indelible impact on those who have been directly touched by it. He writes with candor but not with rancor, a feat as remarkable as it is rare.”—Michael Berenbaum, director of the Sigi Ziering Institute and professor of Jewish Studies at the American Jewish University

Table of Contents

Preface    
Part 1. Malka’s War
1. Left to the Mercy of a Rude Stream    
2. “Salvation through Labor”    
3. A Minor Clerical Error    
4. A Führer of Industry    
5. The Children of Luck    
Part 2. The Jew Who Met Himmler
6. The Last Party of the Third Reich    
7. Meeting Himmler    
8. Appointment with the Executioner    
9. Trading for Jewish Lives    
10. A True Believer
11. The Count of the Red Cross    
12. The Buses Were White    
13. Time Brings on All Revenges    
Part 3. Living with Survival
14. There Was No Returning    
15. Memory    
16. The Last Chapter    
Postscript
Acknowledgments    
Notes    
Bibliography    
Index    
 

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