The Book Smugglers
Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.05
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
P.J. Ochlan
-
By:
-
David E. Fishman
About this listen
The Book Smugglers is the nearly unbelievable story of ghetto residents who rescued thousands of rare books and manuscripts - first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets - by hiding them on their bodies, burying them in bunkers, and smuggling them across borders. It is a tale of heroism and resistance, of friendship and romance, and of unwavering devotion-including the readiness to risk one's life - to literature and art.
And it is entirely true. Based on Jewish, German, and Soviet documents, including diaries, letters, memoirs, and the author's interviews with several of the story's participants, The Book Smugglers chronicles the daring activities of a group of poets turned partisans and scholars turned smugglers in Vilna, "The Jerusalem of Lithuania".
©2017 David E. Fishman (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
People Love Dead Jews
- Reports from a Haunted Present
- By: Dara Horn
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture - and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly anti-Semitic attacks - Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: She was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones.
-
-
Wrong Narrator for this Book
- By MYK on 01-04-22
By: Dara Horn
-
The Kill Artist
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.
-
-
Reluctant Assassin
- By Snoodely on 10-30-13
By: Daniel Silva
-
Red Famine
- Stalin's War on Ukraine
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization - in effect a second Russian Revolution - which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief, the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem.
-
-
Horrifying
- By Mendy on 01-21-18
By: Anne Applebaum
-
Breaking History
- A White House Memoir
- By: Jared Kushner
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt, Jared Kushner
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jared Kushner was one of the most consequential presidential advisers in modern history. For the first time, he recounts what happened behind closed doors during the Trump presidency. Few White House advisors have had such an expansive portfolio or constant access to the president. From his office next to Trump, senior adviser Jared Kushner operated quietly behind the scenes, preferring to leave the turf wars and television sparring to others.
-
-
Proud Conservative female
- By Their Best Day Ever on 08-25-22
By: Jared Kushner
-
The Diary Keepers
- World War II in the Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It
- By: Nina Siegal
- Narrated by: Nina Siegal, Maggi-Meg Reed, Nan McNamara, and others
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.
-
-
Superior work!
- By Anonymous User on 02-24-23
By: Nina Siegal
-
The Book Thieves
- The Nazi Looting of Europe's Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance
- By: Anders Rydell, Henning Koch - Translator
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves, Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own.
-
-
An interesting topic but an incredibly dull story.
- By Paul on 02-12-17
By: Anders Rydell, and others
-
People Love Dead Jews
- Reports from a Haunted Present
- By: Dara Horn
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture - and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly anti-Semitic attacks - Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: She was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones.
-
-
Wrong Narrator for this Book
- By MYK on 01-04-22
By: Dara Horn
-
The Kill Artist
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.
-
-
Reluctant Assassin
- By Snoodely on 10-30-13
By: Daniel Silva
-
Red Famine
- Stalin's War on Ukraine
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization - in effect a second Russian Revolution - which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief, the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem.
-
-
Horrifying
- By Mendy on 01-21-18
By: Anne Applebaum
-
Breaking History
- A White House Memoir
- By: Jared Kushner
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt, Jared Kushner
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jared Kushner was one of the most consequential presidential advisers in modern history. For the first time, he recounts what happened behind closed doors during the Trump presidency. Few White House advisors have had such an expansive portfolio or constant access to the president. From his office next to Trump, senior adviser Jared Kushner operated quietly behind the scenes, preferring to leave the turf wars and television sparring to others.
-
-
Proud Conservative female
- By Their Best Day Ever on 08-25-22
By: Jared Kushner
-
The Diary Keepers
- World War II in the Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It
- By: Nina Siegal
- Narrated by: Nina Siegal, Maggi-Meg Reed, Nan McNamara, and others
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.
-
-
Superior work!
- By Anonymous User on 02-24-23
By: Nina Siegal
-
The Book Thieves
- The Nazi Looting of Europe's Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance
- By: Anders Rydell, Henning Koch - Translator
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves, Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own.
-
-
An interesting topic but an incredibly dull story.
- By Paul on 02-12-17
By: Anders Rydell, and others
-
The Devil's Diary
- Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
- By: Robert K. Wittman, David Kinney
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking historical contribution, The Devil's Diary is a chilling window into the mind of Adolf Hitler's "chief social philosopher", Alfred Rosenberg, who formulated some of the guiding principles behind the Third Reich's genocidal crusade.
-
-
Fresh perspective on terrible events.
- By Sparkly on 04-20-16
By: Robert K. Wittman, and others
-
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century
- By: Alexandra Popoff
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If Vasily Grossman's 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag. But Life and Fate was seized by the Russian KGB. When it emerged posthumously, decades later, it was recognized as the War and Peace of the 20th century.
-
-
What? Nazism = communism?
- By James Messelbeck on 06-25-19
By: Alexandra Popoff
-
Adolf Hitler
- A Captivating Guide to the Life of the Führer of Nazi Germany
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Explore the rise of Adolf Hitler. Was Hitler, as Ian Kershaw asked, a natural consequence of German history, or an aberration? Not that Hitler had been in hiding, waiting to attack. The Führer had actually been following an aggressive and savage foreign policy for almost 10 years, and been named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1938.
-
-
Awesome little book
- By Bryan T. on 02-02-19
-
Gulag
- A History
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
-
-
Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn
- By Thucydides on 08-03-17
By: Anne Applebaum
-
The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
-
-
Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
-
East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
-
-
Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
-
Iron Curtain
- The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 26 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete.
-
-
Important story, imperfectly executed
- By jackifus on 12-08-12
By: Anne Applebaum
-
The Lemon Tree
- By: Sandy Tolan
- Narrated by: Sandy Tolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly 20 years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.
-
-
Steeping The Lemon Tree
- By Faithfull Fan on 04-11-18
By: Sandy Tolan
-
Anne Frank
- Her Life and Legacy
- By: Jemma J. Saunders
- Narrated by: Joanna Daniel
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anne Frank is the most well-known victim of the Holocaust. In 1945, at the age of 15, she died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, becoming one of the six million Jews who were murdered in Europe under the Nazi regime. But through her writing, her memory lives on. Jemma Saunders goes beyond Anne Frank's diary to fill in the gaps about her family history, her life before she went into hiding, and her final months at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. A sobering tale, Anne Frank's story is one that will continue to inspire for decades to come.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Andrew Glenn on 11-26-20
-
Where the Jews Aren't
- The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan. The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there.
-
-
The Jewish World of Our Ancestors
- By Roberta L. Ruben on 06-16-18
By: Masha Gessen
-
When Paris Went Dark
- The City of Light under German Occupation, 1940-1944
- By: Ronald C. Rosbottom
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation - even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords. At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose.
-
-
Good but not great
- By gaillardia on 08-21-14
-
The Orientalist
- Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life
- By: Tom Reiss
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part history, part cultural biography, and part literary mystery, The Orientalist traces the life of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a best-selling author in Nazi Germany. Born in 1905 to a wealthy family in the oil-boom city of Baku, Lev escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan. He found refuge in Germany, where, writing under the names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, his remarkable books about Islam, desert adventures, and global revolution became celebrated across fascist Europe.
-
-
The essential but mostly forgotten history leading up to the Russian and German revolutions of the 20th century
- By mark on 05-11-21
By: Tom Reiss
Related to this topic
-
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century
- By: Alexandra Popoff
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If Vasily Grossman's 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag. But Life and Fate was seized by the Russian KGB. When it emerged posthumously, decades later, it was recognized as the War and Peace of the 20th century.
-
-
What? Nazism = communism?
- By James Messelbeck on 06-25-19
By: Alexandra Popoff
-
Where the Jews Aren't
- The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan. The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there.
-
-
The Jewish World of Our Ancestors
- By Roberta L. Ruben on 06-16-18
By: Masha Gessen
-
The Devil's Diary
- Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
- By: Robert K. Wittman, David Kinney
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking historical contribution, The Devil's Diary is a chilling window into the mind of Adolf Hitler's "chief social philosopher", Alfred Rosenberg, who formulated some of the guiding principles behind the Third Reich's genocidal crusade.
-
-
Fresh perspective on terrible events.
- By Sparkly on 04-20-16
By: Robert K. Wittman, and others
-
The Book Thieves
- The Nazi Looting of Europe's Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance
- By: Anders Rydell, Henning Koch - Translator
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves, Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own.
-
-
An interesting topic but an incredibly dull story.
- By Paul on 02-12-17
By: Anders Rydell, and others
-
When Paris Went Dark
- The City of Light under German Occupation, 1940-1944
- By: Ronald C. Rosbottom
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation - even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords. At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose.
-
-
Good but not great
- By gaillardia on 08-21-14
-
East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
-
-
Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
-
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century
- By: Alexandra Popoff
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If Vasily Grossman's 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag. But Life and Fate was seized by the Russian KGB. When it emerged posthumously, decades later, it was recognized as the War and Peace of the 20th century.
-
-
What? Nazism = communism?
- By James Messelbeck on 06-25-19
By: Alexandra Popoff
-
Where the Jews Aren't
- The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan. The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there.
-
-
The Jewish World of Our Ancestors
- By Roberta L. Ruben on 06-16-18
By: Masha Gessen
-
The Devil's Diary
- Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
- By: Robert K. Wittman, David Kinney
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking historical contribution, The Devil's Diary is a chilling window into the mind of Adolf Hitler's "chief social philosopher", Alfred Rosenberg, who formulated some of the guiding principles behind the Third Reich's genocidal crusade.
-
-
Fresh perspective on terrible events.
- By Sparkly on 04-20-16
By: Robert K. Wittman, and others
-
The Book Thieves
- The Nazi Looting of Europe's Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance
- By: Anders Rydell, Henning Koch - Translator
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves, Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own.
-
-
An interesting topic but an incredibly dull story.
- By Paul on 02-12-17
By: Anders Rydell, and others
-
When Paris Went Dark
- The City of Light under German Occupation, 1940-1944
- By: Ronald C. Rosbottom
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation - even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords. At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose.
-
-
Good but not great
- By gaillardia on 08-21-14
-
East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
-
-
Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
-
The Aleppo Codex
- A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A true-life thriller about the journey of one of the world's most precious manuscripts - the 10th-century annotated Hebrew Bible known as the Aleppo Codex - from its hiding place in an ancient Syrian synagogue to the newly founded Israel. Using his research, including documents that have been secret for 50 years and interviews with key players, AP correspondent Friedman tells a story of political upheaval, international intrigue, charged courtroom battles, obsession, and subterfuge.
-
-
don't quess at pronunciation of foreign words
- By dlb on 05-28-12
By: Matti Friedman
-
The Zhivago Affair
- The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book
- By: Peter Finn, Petra Couvée
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In May of 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to the Russian countryside to visit the country's most beloved poet, Boris Pasternak. He left concealing the original manuscript of Pasternak's much anticipated first novel, entrusted to him with these words from the author: "This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world." Pasternak knew his novel would never be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an assault on the 1917 Revolution, so he allowed it to be published in translation all over the world.
-
-
Read this to understand Doctor Zhivago and Russia
- By KathrynVB on 10-16-14
By: Peter Finn, and others
-
Defying Hitler
- The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule
- By: Gordon Thomas, Greg Lewis
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An enthralling story that vividly resurrects the web of everyday Germans who resisted Nazi rule.
-
-
The Righteous Few
- By Linda on 05-19-19
By: Gordon Thomas, and others
-
Judgment Before Nuremberg
- The Holocaust in the Ukraine and the First Nazi War Crimes Trial
- By: Greg Dawson
- Narrated by: Gary Dikeos
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When people think of the Holocaust, they think of Auschwitz, of Dachau; and when they think of justice for this terrible chapter in history, they think of Nuremberg. Not of Russia or the Ukraine, and certainly not a town called Kharkov. But in reality, the first war-crimes trial against the Nazis was in this idyllic, peaceful Ukrainian city, which is fitting, because it is also where the Holocaust actually began.
-
-
Don’t Insult Your Audience
- By Michael Richards on 01-21-22
By: Greg Dawson
-
Never Remember
- Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Masha Gessen
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gulag was a monstrous network of labor camps that held and killed millions of prisoners from the 1930s to the 1950s. More than half a century after the end of Stalinist terror, the geography of the Gulag has been barely sketched and the number of its victims remains unknown. Has the Gulag been forgotten? Writer Masha Gessen and photographer Misha Friedman set out across Russia in search of the memory of the Gulag.
-
-
a wonderful reminder never to forget
- By Privet on 05-25-19
By: Masha Gessen
-
Lenin
- The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women.
-
-
Lenin totally took an extra piece of that cake.
- By John Gathly on 05-14-19
By: Victor Sebestyen
-
Hanns and Rudolf
- The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.
-
-
I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
-
The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
-
-
Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
-
Mussolini's Daughter
- The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe
- By: Caroline Moorehead
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edda Mussolini was the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s oldest and favorite child. At 19, she was married to Count Galleazzo Ciano, Il Duce’s Minister for Foreign Affairs during the 1930s, the most turbulent decade in Italy’s fascist history. In the years preceding World War II, Edda ruled over Italy’s aristocratic families and the cultured and middle classes while selling Fascism on the international stage. How a young woman wielded such control is the heart of Moorehead’s fascinating history.
-
-
Mind Blowing
- By Greg on 01-27-23
-
Prague Winter
- A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Albright
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia—the country where she was born—the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history.
-
-
History from a Personal Perspective
- By Jeanette Finan on 02-22-13
-
Stalin
- The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives
- By: Edvard Radzinsky
- Narrated by: David McCallum
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Kremlin intrigues, the private worlds of the Soviet Empire's ruling class, Radzinsky thrillingly brings them to life. And the riddle of that most cold-blooded of leaders, a man for whom nothing was sacred in his pursuit of absolute might, and perhaps the greatest mass murderer in Western history, is solved.
-
-
A Great Book About a Great Tyrant
- By Moon Man on 05-01-05
By: Edvard Radzinsky
-
Aftermath
- Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
- By: Harald Jähner, Shaun Whiteside - translator
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does a nation recover from fascism and turn toward a free society once more? This internationally acclaimed revelatory history of the transformational decade that followed World War II illustrates how Germany raised itself out of the ashes of defeat and reckoned with the corruption of its soul and the horrors of the Holocaust - and features over 40 eye-opening black-and-white photographs and posters from the period.
-
-
Where are the photos?
- By Cassandra on 01-17-22
By: Harald Jähner, and others
What listeners say about The Book Smugglers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Logophile
- 10-12-20
The rescue of Jewish culture in WWII's Lithuania.
I would not recommend this as a first WW2 book but, after reading extensively on what catastrophic deliberate destruction and hatred of anything or anyone Jewish in central Europe before, during, and after the war, it provided me an insightful realization of the way a few key committed Jews made it truly their legacy to save the literature, books, Torah scrolls, cultural relics, and documents at the risk - and cost - of their lives in Vilna, the Jerusalem of Lithuania. This book follows the key players - and the literature - from before the major Nazi pogroms, past Stalin, past the fall of the Soviet Union. Touching, amazing, dry, then fascinating again, it felt like it had reached a good ending after Part 3, but Part 4 brought it to an "Ahhhhh."
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marian
- 05-21-19
Big Reasons to Redefine What Belongs to Whom
I highly recommend this book both a timeless, placeless testament to cultural misappropriation and, additionally, to the specific story of tenacity and will during lifetimes of cultural wrongs. If you are not generally a reader of “Holocaust era” memoirs, be advised the lessons of minority cultures and their efforts to preserve their histories and cultures as regimes change, wars pass through, leaders issue foolish and shameful dictates, borders for legal entities alter, and power centers shift are not restricted to Jewish experience. Through the extremes, and this book provides extreme examples, we can create global policies for cultural rights. As an American raised in the diversity of southern California, I cannot comprehend and hope never to comprehend politics of exclusion and genocide. Our miscellanies give depth, interest, strength, and mutual relevance.
This is not a “spy thriller,” but anxiety rivers through the telling. The first few chapters do a gentle, slow launch of the book. As the book proceeds, you’ll hear great poetry, see images crafted with words long ago, sicken from the losses, feel the hope in despair, and understand human desperation to control what you can influence.
There were some personal relationships sentences here and there that I felt should have been under the editor’s Sharpie, but the scope of the scholarship seems to otherwise be significant and strong. At other times, I found personal life applications for some of the homily-style wisdom in these pages.
I listened on Audible. This was a slight disadvantage as I do not have a visual to spell some Yiddish names or phrases in the book. A Kindle/paper copy to accompany Audible might be a good idea, especially for people who are reading this book for school/university/research purposes. The Audible delivery, was, otherwise, without deficit.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- deb
- 10-04-17
Magnificent Obsession to Save Jewish Culture
The Jews of the Vilna ghetto (now Vilnius, Lithuania) during the Nazi occupation had their own group of characters who served as a form of Monuments Men endeavoring to save their culture contained in manuscripts, various documents, religious items, and more from removal to Germany or destruction. The author masterfully tells about the poets and their friends who smuggled items to safe places to be found later only to find that the items had to be smuggled again from the grasp of the Soviet Union. Some of the poetry and lyrics for songs are incorporated into the story of the community. The holdings in the community were among 43 of the top libraries that Germany wanted to include in their master library. The character development and the personal stories make this an excellent book.
This book sheds light on a type of Jewish resistance and optimism during the Nazi occupation. Most people would not think of how important the books and other documents were during the WWII and later timeframe.
The Book Smugglers adds more depth to the story of the books and libraries looted by adding the characters. Anders Rydell told part of the story of the stolen libraries in The Book Thieves...
Read or listen to The Book Smugglers soon, maybe even read it again.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeannie Marcus
- 06-02-18
An important and trajectory story
A well told story of the fate of the Jewish people and culture in Eastern Europe.
The details of the attempted eradication of the Jewish people should be known and told to make sure it doesn’t happen again to any people.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!