Preventa de eBooks de II Guerra Mundial y guerra fría

Life in a wartime house

A Cool Head in Hell is a compelling historical narrative based on Harry Silmans diary, arguably the only contemporaneous account by a POW under the Japanese to survive WW2. In it, as well as in letters and later accounts, Silman details his experiences as a doctor in the British Army from the Dunkirk evacuation (in which he was amongst the last soldiers delivered to safety) to his deployment to Singapore and subsequent capture by Japanese troops.Silmans vivid diary entries take us through his time as a detainee in the notorious Changi prison camp, and as a forced labourer on the Burma Railway. His calm manner, resourcefulness, resilience and positive nature during such cruel conditions, in which survival was a daily gamble, stand out and his perspective is up-front, as he was tasked with care of so many ill, wounded and dying fellow combatants.Harrys diary, compiled on scraps and hidden improbably under the threat of extreme sanction,offers rare insight into the survival strategies and medical challenges endured by the prisoners of war, and the deep bonds they formed. The narrative is rich with personal anecdotes, including Harrys enduring friendship with an Anglican padre and his leadership in organising Jewish services, providing a poignant look at faith, community and solidarity in horrific circumstances.Astutely edited by Harrys daughter Jacqueline Passman, the book also reflects on the psychological and emotional aftermath of captivity, examining how Harrys experiences shaped him long after liberation.

Un documento único: la transcripción de las conversaciones que mantuvo Leon Goldensohn, psiquiatra del Ejército Estadounidense, con los principales encausados en el proceso de Núremberg.En 1946, con los juicios de Nuremberg en marcha, el psiquiatra del ejercito estadounidense Leon Goldensohn recibio el encargo de entrevistar a dos docenas de lideres alemanes encausados, asi como a numerosos testigos de la defensa y de la acusacion. El contenido de estas conversaciones no se ha desvelado hasta ahora, mas de cincuenta años despues.Robert Gellately -uno de los principales historiadores especializados en la Alemania nazi- nos ofrece en este libro treinta y tres de estas entrevistas (cuidadosamente transcritas, editadas y anotadas) con soldados y algunos de los oficiales nazis de mayor graduacion encarcelados en Nuremberg, entre los que se encuentran Hans Frank, Hermann Goring, Ernest Kaltenbrunner y Joachim von Ribbentrop.Como entrevistador, Goldensohn era especialmente astuto y, en cada una de las conversaciones, logro extraer las motivaciones y la desviacion moral que llevo a estos hombres a planear y cometer tan diabolicos crimenes. Nos presenta a unos soldados y oficiales que se debaten entre la admision y la negacion de los hechos, bien acusando a sus superiores o considerando que actuaron correctamente en todo momento.Gracias a la informacion biografica y las notas con las que Gellately ha completado cada entrevista, esta obra aporta informacion imprescindible para comprender la mentalidad y la mision de una ideologia enloquecida.

In 1939, when Ian Burumas epic opens, Berlin has been under Nazi rule for six years, and its 4.3 million people have made their accommodations to the regime, more or less. When war broke out with Poland in September, what was most striking at first was how little changed. Unless you were Jewish. Then life, already hard, was soon to get unfathomably worse.By 1943, with the German defeat at Stalingrad, ordinary life in Berlin would acquire an increasingly desperate cast. The last three years of the war in Berlin are truly a descent into hell, with a deranged regime in desperate free fall, an increasingly relentless pounding from Allied bombers, and the mounting dread of the approaching Soviet army. The common greeting of Berliners was now not Auf wiedersehen or Heil Hitler but Bleiben Sie ubrig -Stay alive. And by wars end Berlins population had fallen by almost half.Among the people trying to stay alive in the city was Ian Burumas own father, a prisoner conscripted into forced labour in the war economy along with 400,000 other imported workers. Buruma gives due weight to his and their experiences, which give the book a special added dimension. This is a book full of tenderness and genuine heroism, but it is by no means sentimental: again and again we see that most people do not do the hard thing most of the time. Most people go along. Its a lesson that has not lost its timeliness.