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Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Wyden finds the painful truth about a childhood friend.
Review: I do not wish to hurt anyone who has suffered from the holocaust by writing this review, nor do I want dishonor anyone who was destroyed by it. I am only making an observation about what happened to this woman named Stella. Stella was a beautiful blonde girl who reached early maturity during WWII in Berlin. She was Jewish, but with her blue eyes she could easily pass for a gentile. When Hitler started his personal war against Jews, he initiated the most horrible and beastly experience that could happen to human beings. With his henchmen, and their vicious attacks on Jews and other peoples, he pushed people into emotional dungeons, and it is at these dark, these lowest levels, that we discover what we are really capable of doing. In his painful memoir of his experiences of the holocaust, Elie Weisel, shows us in Night, that when the Nazis tossed tiny bits of bread to starving Jews, many of them killed for that one morsel of food, sometimes ending the lives of their loved ones for a chance to put something in their mouths. For me, this book was about survival. No one knows what they are capable of unless they are taken to that horrifying nightmare place of doom, and unless one has been there, there is absolutely no way of knowing what our choices would be. Many would argue that Stella did not get to the extremes that occurred in the death camps. But we do know that she was beaten over and over and over again. And then she was offered a chance to have it all end by being a "catcher" for the Nazis. We know that other Jews committed suicide to avoid the beatings and the offer of becoming a catcher to stay alive. I can only thank God that I have never had to be in such a situation, because I don't know what I would do. How could I know? I do know that I have a very strong instinct to live, and I think that may have been why Stella took the path that she did. I believe, that in making that choice, she did lose her "soul." I think that is the only way that a human being could do what she did. For Stella did not only "catch" Jews for the Nazis, many eyewitnesses said she seemed to enjoy it. I think for anyone to make that "choice" you would have to put your entire being into it in order to perform those horrible crimes. In the end, I think Stella suffered far more than if she had allowed herself to die at the hands of the Nazis. At the age of about 21, she began the life of a person who is hated by virtually everyone she had ever known and anyone she would ever meet. She lives her life constantly attempting to convince herself that she didn't do anything wrong. She lives in total seclusion, with the lights always dim, year after year with no one to love her, no one to hold her, no one to console her. And still she survived into old age. Survival was Stella's strongest urge. It kept her alive to live a lifelong death, the death of her humanity, with the destruction of hundreds, perhaps thousands on her hands. Would I choose survival? In retrospect, had I been a "Stella," I can only pray that I would have had the ability to accept my death at the hands of the Nazis.
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Summary: A gripping and unforgettable book
Review: This book is well worth seeking out, even if it is out of print.What makes it all the more fascinating is that the author grew up with the subject of the biography. The text seems meandering at first, but the interweaving of his story -- and that of Stella -- comes sharply into focus, as the writer shares his innermost thoughts. Although he does not make Stella blameless, he does demonstrate empathy for her -- in the end, she lives but has lost her soul. She is an unforgetable character. Striking, too, are the many `supporting' characters Wyden introduces to us, brave and courageous Jews who survived in Berlin through much of the war and, in some cases, all of it. These individual stories are striking, heart-warming, sometimes funny, and always unforgetable. I found the book as engrossing as a fictional thriller, truly a `can't put down' item! Don't miss it!
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Summary: A sickening but outstanding account
Review: When I first read this book I was sickened that someone could do this to their own people. It also shows the weaknesses of the Nazis and their "ideal" person because many Jews fit the profile of the "perfect Aryan". In the end God works in wonderous and mysterious ways. Stella got what she deserved when her daughter was taken from her by the Jewish community of Berlin and raised as a Jew. It is a must read for those interested in World War II and the Holocaust.
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