Edward Anders

Amidst Latvians During the Holocaust Edward Anders

***Rated one of "Best Books of 2011" by KIRKUS REVIEWS. ***Anders's remarkable reminiscences show that in the morass of the "Bloodlands" there were honest, helpful people of Latvian, German, Slavic descent, illustrating the utter absurdity of the "collective guilt" concept. -FRANK GORDON, journalist, Tel-Aviv. ***Surviving the Holocaust by a hair, Anders became a brilliant scientist. Upon retirement, he turned to Holocaust studies. Part I is a memoir of his youth, including the Soviet and German occupations of Latvia. Part II discusses, with objectivity and precision, Latvian conduct during WWII. -ANDREW EZERGAILIS, Professor of History, Ithaca, NY. ***Anders survived by an outright lie (invented by his father) that his mother was a German foundling raised by a Jewish couple. His father was soon executed, but Edward and his mother bluffed their way through the nightmarish years of the German occupation (1941-1945), helped by the good will of the non-Jews among whom they were living. -MORRIS HALLE, Institute Professor of Linguistics, MIT, Cambridge, MA. ***Much has been argued about whether Soviet and Nazi terrors are comparable. Anders, a Latvian Jew who savored and survived both, presents a compelling personal story and a dispassionate analysis of the events surrounding victims and victimizers as they were drawn into the most tragic episodes of recent European history.--P?TERIS BOL?AITIS, Board Chairman, Occupation Museum Association, Riga.