Silvie

Rating:
Summary: A Powerful, Intimate, and Inspiring Journey
Review: "Silvie" is a testament to the spirit and love for life that is possible and should be celebrated. Silvia Gros-Martin shares with her readers a most incredible example of such strength. With a beautiful, yet haunting, style we follow her back into the bleakest time in our world's history. But as we look through her eyes, we see the world that she loved, the life that she lived with such vigor and passion, and the people that impacted her life, from her childhood in Austria, to her beautiful theatre in Amsterdam, to the Nazi death camps that she survived. The good times and the violently hellish times she endured are depicted with such vivid clarity and honesty that I felt as if I were there with her, sharing her laughter and witnessing her bravery. Taking this journey with Silvie will give the reader a look at this dark period in our history which cannot be found in a textbook. At moments we are joyous, at moments we are horrified by the reality of man's ability to hate and perform unspeakable acts of violence. Silvie's memoir provides a memorable and enlightening journey. I believe it should be read by everyone, for her story will inspire us never to forget or repeat the horrors that she survived. And, it will indeed remind us of our potential to love and embrace life, no matter how uncertain or rigorous that journey may be.

Rating:
Summary: A Powerful, Intimate, and Inspiring Journey
Review: "Silvie" is a testament to the spirit and love for life that is possible and should be celebrated. Silvia Gros-Martin shares with her readers a most incredible example of such strength. With a beautiful, yet haunting, style we follow her back into the bleakest time in our world's history. But as we look through her eyes, we see the world that she loved, the life that she lived with such vigor and passion, and the people that impacted her life, from her childhood in Austria, to her beautiful theatre in Amsterdam, to the Nazi death camps that she survived. The good times and the violently hellish times she endured are depicted with such vivid clarity and honesty that I felt as if I were there with her, sharing her laughter and witnessing her bravery. Taking this journey with Silvie will give the reader a look at this dark period in our history which cannot be found in a textbook. At moments we are joyous, at moments we are horrified by the reality of man's ability to hate and perform unspeakable acts of violence. Silvie's memoir provides a memorable and enlightening journey. I believe it should be read by everyone, for her story will inspire us never to forget or repeat the horrors that she survived. And, it will indeed remind us of our potential to love and embrace life, no matter how uncertain or rigorous that journey may be.

Rating:
Summary: The Persistance of Life
Review: SILVI, by Silvia Grohs-Martin is a compelling, affecting and, at times, racking study of the persistance of life in a near void of humanity. Her four years during WWII in German concentation camps -- the longest at the infamous Auschwitz -- are presented not so much as appalling nightmares but as comparative portraits of the unbelievable tenacity of the human will to exist. Just when one feels overwhelmed with the vast array of Holocaust literature and media, SILVI belies the myth that we've "heard it all." The book reads almost like a spy thriller. A teenage girl, already a known singer and entertainer in Europe -- leaps from country to country, one step ahead of the invading Nazis. Surrounded in The Netherlands, with no hope of escape, Silvi finds work in the sole venue open to Jews under the Nazi occupation -- the celebrated Hollandsche Schouwburg Theatre in Amsterdam. While most Americans know of Anne Frank's ordeal at the time, the Schouwburg and it's role as the city's only permitted Jewish theatre/gathering place/art gallery/coffee house and even marriage facility, will come as a surprising revelation. The vast number of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens whose lives were affected by this venerable landmark of the arts is inestimable. When the Nazi's finally close the Theatre, Silvi and her fellow actors are forced to guard their former audience as citizens are hauled to the Theatre and held for deportation. Working secretly in the Dutch Resistance, Silvi is able to convey a number of Jewish children to safety in the countryside. Finally, as she is about to be deported herself, she escapes in a desperate attempt to reach Switzerland. Captured in Belgium she spends the next fours years as a "guest" of the Gestapo regime. Told with a keen narrator's skill of observation and attention to detail, SILVI is at times sad, humorous, appalling, enraging, unthinkable and always, always engrossing. You will not put it down!

Rating:
Summary: Silvie's Personal Victory Against Hitler
Review: SILVIE is more than a testament to the human spirit and its will to survive against all odds. It is more than the story of a beautiful and talented young woman on the brink of life and love, caught up in the unspeakable horror of Hitler's war against the Jews. Silvia Grohs-Martin, in her brilliantly absorbing autobiography, engages the reader's wide range of emotions; laughter, tears, chills, thrills, outrage, compassion and love, all within the context of a single chapter; at times, a single paragraph. A compelling read from start to finish, Ms. Grohs-Martin's acute sense of detail, her innate joie de vivre, and her delicious sense of humor combine to tell her true story of enormous courage, hope and, yes, romance against a background of modern history's most devastating and shameful period. Never self-indulgent or self-pitying, always taut and engrossing, SILVIE reads like a Steven Spielberg screenplay, complete with bigger-than-life heroine whose youthful exhuberance turns to heroic defiance in the face of her formidable enemy, one she cannot conquer on her own, but one she can survive. It was perhaps her youthful zest, her determination to live out a full, rich life that gave this enchanting young woman the strength and the ability to carry her through to personal victory, despite the treacherous traps she encountered at every turn. From her youth as an aspiring actress in Vienna to her years as an ingenue at Amsterdam's legendary Hollandsche Schouwburg (Dutch Theater,) to its transformation into a Nazi-controlled deportation center for the Jews, to her numerous encounters with Nazi officials, and her uncanny capacity to escape their clutches, SILVIE not only prevails, she soars. Ultimately, SILVIE's extraordinary account of survival teaches us all that although we may not always be able to control our external circumstances, we can always control our reaction to them. A completely exhilerating read! I love SILVIE -- the book and the woman!