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Rating: 
Summary: A must read
Review: Daniel Silver's book is meticulously researched, well written and in many ways awe-inspiring. He has preserved for all time, through personal interviews and an exhaustive review of historical documents housed all over the world, the unbelievable story of the only Jewish institution in Berlin to have made it through the Nazi regime relatively unscathed. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Holocaust and/or Germany!
Rating:
Summary: Check the facts first
Review: Fair play suggests reading a book before purporting to review it, especially when that review is accompanied by an unfavorable rating. If Rivka Elkin had read Refuge in Hell before writing her review, she would have seen that the author does not claim to have done the first historical research on this subject. To the contrary, Mr. Silver pays tribute to the work done by Ms. Elkin and the authors of Zerstorte Fortschritte and acknowledges that their efforts established the basic historical record concerning the Berlin Jewish Hospital during the period 1938-1945. The only claim of uniqueness made for Refuge in Hell is that it is the first English-language book on the subject. The book's contribution is to have made this story available, in a readable style, to a general readership in the English-speaking world and to have added to the work done by Ms. Rivkin and other earlier researchers additional information based on survivor interviews and on documents that only became available in the course of the author's own research.Like Ms. Rivkin, Ms. Opperman deals not with the actual content of Refuge in Hell (which she appears not to have read) but with loose characterizations about the book made by reviewers. The author is unlikely to have had any control over what these reviewers said. His work should be judged on its own merits.
Rating:
Summary: Check the facts first
Review: The recent Jerusalem Post book review states: << The bizarre tale of the hospital never received much publicity, and certainly never became a symbol of Jewish heroism like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising did. >> Rightfully so - theirs was NOT an uprising. <<The closure of all Jewish medical and welfare institutions turned the Berlin Jewish Hospital into the only functioning medical institution available to German Jews.>> (Jerusalem Post) This statement is factually incorrect: The Frankfurt Jewish hospital, to name just one example, functioned until the deportations in the early 1940s diminished its staff (nurses and doctors) to the point where they simply could not care for the patients adequately. Walter Lustig's Frankfurt colleague, Herr Pfingst, remained on the job (he was also, incidentally, the brother-in-law of the last leader of the Frankfurt Jewish congregation, Louis Lerner) and was one of the last nineteen 100% Jews to be deported from Frankfurt when the Reichsvereinigung office was officially closed by order of the RSHHA in June 1943. <<THE JEW who knew better than any other about the German bureaucratic mindset was Dr. Walter Lustig, head of the national central Jewish organization and director of the hospital from 1942 (his predecessor committed suicide together with his wife soon after receiving notice of their deportation).The book is largely about him and the life-and-death power he was given. A highly controversial figure from start to finish, Lustig's dealings in those years with his boss, Eichmann, remain as much a mystery as the man himself. Lustig was coerced to select patients and medical staff for deportation. >> (Jerusalem Post review) Lustig was not <<head of the national central Jewish organization>>, this position was held by Rabbiner Dr. Leo Baeck until January 1943. According to th Jerusalem Post reviewer and Daniel Silver, Lustig <<was coerced to select patients and medical staff for deportation>> He was no different in that respect from other leaders of the Jewish congregations. Another major misinformation conveyed by the author of this book is (p.184) the claim that the hospital administered the Heimeinkaufsvertrag: ALL Jewish agencies and congregation offices had to do this work. It was the Gestapo's official attempt to collect 25 percent of the remaining Jewish assets for their own pockets through their account at the Tecklenburg bank. This was part of the fierce internal competition between National Socialist agencies for Jewish assets which became almost open warfare among the German bureaucracy functionaries by the early 1940s. I use this book with my students but find it frequently necessary to suggest that they use extreme caution . The author (Daniel B. Silver) is not very well informed. Charlotte Opfermann
Rating: 
Summary: The opposite of good is good intentions (Tucholsky)
Review: The recent Jerusalem Post book review states: << The bizarre tale of the hospital never received much publicity, and certainly never became a symbol of Jewish heroism like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising did. >> Rightfully so - theirs was NOT an uprising. <> (Jerusalem Post)This statement is factually incorrect: The Frankfurt Jewish hospital, to name just one example, functioned until the deportations in the early 1940s diminished its staff (nurses and doctors) to the point where they simply could not care for the patients adequately. Walter Lustig's Frankfurt colleague, Herr Pfingst, remained on the job (he was also, incidentally, the brother-in-law of the last leader of the Frankfurt Jewish congregation, Louis Lerner) and was one of the last nineteen 100% Jews to be deported from Frankfurt when the Reichsvereinigung office was officially closed by order of the RSHHA in June 1943. <> (Jerusalem Post review)Lustig was not < >, this position was held by Rabbiner Dr. Leo Baeck until January 1943. According to th Jerusalem Post reviewer and Daniel Silver, Lustig <> He was no different in that respect from other leaders of the Jewish congregations.Another major misinformation conveyed by the author of this book is (p.184) the claim that the hospital administered the Heimeinkaufsvertrag: ALL Jewish agencies and congregation offices had to do this work. It was the Gestapo's official attempt to collect 25 percent of the remaining Jewish assets for their own pockets through their account at the Tecklenburg bank. This was part of the fierce internal competition between National Socialist agencies for Jewish assets which became almost open warfare among the German bureaucracy functionaries by the early 1940s. I use this book with my students but find it frequently necessary to suggest that they use extreme caution . The author (Daniel B. Silver) is not very well informed. Charlotte Opfermann
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