Named one of the best books of 2014 by NPR; The New Yorker; and The Boston GlobeWhen Glenn Kurtz stumbles upon an old family film in his parents' closet in Florida; he has no inkling of its historical significance or of the impact it will have on his life. The film; shot long ago by his grandfather on a sightseeing trip to Europe; includes shaky footage of Paris and the Swiss Alps; with someone inevitably waving at the camera. Astonishingly; David Kurtz also captured on color 16mm film the only known moving images of the thriving; predominantly Jewish town of Nasielsk; Poland; shortly before the community's destruction. "Blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that lay just ahead;" he just happened to visit his birthplace in 1938; a year before the Nazi occupation. Of the town's three thousand Jewish inhabitants; fewer than one hundred would survive.Glenn Kurtz quickly recognizes the brief footage as a crucial link in a lost history. "The longer I spent with my grandfather's film;" he writes; "the richer and more fragmentary its images became." Every image; every face; was a mystery that might be solved. Soon he is swept up in a remarkable journey to learn everything he can about these people. After restoring the film; which had shrunk and propelled across the United States; to Canada; England; Poland; and Israel; and into archives; basements; cemeteries; and even an irrigation ditch at an abandoned Luftwaffe airfield as he looks for shards of Nasielsk's Jewish history.One day; Kurtz hears from a young woman who had watched the video on the Holocaust Museum's website. As the camera panned across the faces of children; she recognized her grandfather as a thirteen-year-old boy. Moszek Tuchendler of Nasielsk was now eighty-six-year-old Maurice Chandler of Florida; and when Kurtz meets him; the lost history of Nasielsk comes into view. Chandler's laser-sharp recollections create a bridge between two worlds; and he helps Kurtz eventually locate six more survivors; including a ninety-six-year-old woman who also appears in the film; standing next to the man she would later marry.Painstakingly assembled from interviews; photographs; documents; and artifacts; Three Minutes in Poland tells the rich; harrowing; and surprisingly intertwined stories of these seven survivors and their Polish hometown. "I began to catch fleeting glimpses of the living town;" Kurtz writes; "a cruelly narrow sample of its relationships; contradictions; scandals." Originally a travel souvenir; David Kurtz's home movie became the most important record of a vibrant town on the brink of extinction. From this brief film; Glenn Kurtz creates a poignant yet unsentimental exploration of memory; loss; and improbable survival--a monument to a lost world.
#655608 in Books Moore Susanna 2015-09-01 2015-09-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.25 x 1.17 x 6.27l; 1.00 #File Name: 0374298777320 pagesParadise of the Pacific Approaching Hawaii
Review
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful. The book to begin with...By AlicewaimeaHere; finally; is the first book to begin an exploration of Hawaii. Susanna Moore's meticulously researched story of the Kamehameha line brings alive life in Hawaii; how it all began and why it led to where we are today. A perfect companion to "A Shoal in Time" which is the definitive history of Hawaii; this book nuances daily life and many of the reasons behind events in Hawaiian history. A must read for any first time explorer to Hawaii as well as long time residents alike; the clear and factual style of writing are balanced with humor; wit and insight. A joy!5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Paradise LostBy allan bachmanSusanna Moore’s Paradise of the Pacific Approaching Hawaii was only partially written by Ms. Moore. Her beyond belief over-reliance on extracts from various historical tracts makes her contribution about 60% maybe less. The rest; endless quotes; some in context many not; seem contrived to fit into the not often linear narrative. Many could have been eliminated altogether and replaced by a single summary sentence.I was never sure if Ms. Moore was trying to impress with all the reading and highlighting she or someone had done or was just trying to provide her brief; 300 page (261 of text); book some heft. She failed. Many pages barely have any of her written words; a sentence here or there then a long passage from another work: a pattern which would be repeated interminably throughout the book.She deals with the amazing history of Hawaiian labor immigration and cultural effects in a page or two and really not at all and completely ignores the annexation story with an “oh; that’s for another book†dismissal. Hopefully a book she is not planning on writing. It like the last 50 years leading up annexation and beyond did not occur.For my money the best book is Gavan Daws Shoal of Time or coming in a distant second Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii James L. Haley; even Sarah Vowel’s Unfamiliar Fishes is at least amusing in its descriptions of the missionary impact on the native Hawaiians. Lastly; read Michener’s Hawaii as this book; even though fictional will be a better foundation for Hawaiian pre-history and beyond than anything to be found in Paradise.43 of 44 people found the following review helpful. One hell of a good story; but maybe not the story many readers will expect.By lyndonbrechtThis is a difficult book to describe. It is an utterly absorbing story; a kind of history told through the lives of participants--even the grimly proper missionaries come through as living; breathing human beings. This is not your book; if you are looking for nature. modern Hawai'i. a travelog or traveler's guide; or modern history. It stops at the point of American annexation of the islands. That said; Moore tells an absorbing story; primarily from Captain Cook's "discovery" of the islands to the annexation; much of it told in the form of interaction between the American missionaries and the dynasty of Kamehameha and his descendants. I'd suggest sampling a few pages before you buy. My guess is that many readers will love the book but that some will wonder why it was written.There is a great deal of Hawai'ian history that's background but not described in detail. This background includes such things as the arrival of whaling ships (largely American); the white (and also from Asia) beachcombers; the sandalwood trade; and details of the conquest of most of the islands by Kamehameha. The overall story is not ethnographic; not an academic analysis; not sociology nor a detailed account of missionary activity. It's first and foremost a narrative about people. The Hawai'ians descended from migrants encountering a new land;who over centuries formed an elaborate culture. The missionaries encountered a new land and new culture and tried to change it for what they saw as better. In the background are the arrivals of whaling ships; of commerce. There have been many arrivals in the islands; of course; including Chinese and Japanese and others brought in to work the fields.The central story remains the extended Kamehameha family and native interaction with missionary ideas. There's a great deal about Hawai'ian myths; traditions and particularly the cultural trait called "kapu." Moore describes the belief and cultural system as sometimes cruel and arbitrary; with the commoners sometimes treated like serfs; but one which once broken; left the people adrift and alone in a new and almost alien world. Moore does not see the thousand years before Cook's "discovery" in any way as an Eden; nor does she praise what the missionaries tried to create. She does portray the manipulations leading up to the annexation as rather negative; but not much detail is provided. By then; the native people were a minority in their own islands.Her last; short; section is titled "The Voice of Land Shells;" and is a personal reflection on the loss; melancholy in tone; it's also very well written. There's one appendix on personages and gods; with pronunciation indicated for the Hawai'ian words). There's a second appendix; a glossary; with many Hawai'ian word and pronunciations. These are helpful; given the welter of names featured in the narrative.
