Pulling it all together
Writing has always been my thing. Back when I was a crime reporter in the US, picking my way across murder scenes and figuring out how to get blood out of my shoes, I was there because I wanted to write. And when I worked in communications for the British government, trying to persuade spies...
Wise parables and meaningful tales
Specific leitmotifs dominate any attempt to weave together a narrative of the history of Romania and Hungary during the Second World War: the complex, troubled, vital historical background of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and the emergent territorial claims of the Soviet Union; the cultural, ethnic and demographic tessellation of the region; the inalienable plexus...
The secret mission
In the few days that had elapsed since the ghetto was set up in the little Carpathian town of Ostrov, the Jewish Council, the so-called Judenrat, had succeeded in being neither good nor bad, but rather in being wholly naïve. Appointed chairman of the council, Mr Faivel Fischknopf was an elderly Jew with a little...
