How Social Security Picks Your Pocket: A Story of Waste, Fraud, and Inequities

Book Description

Three proposals for Personal Retirement Accounts were put forth by the Committee to Strengthen Social Security, appointed by President Bush. This book provides a detailed and candid assessment of those proposals - differentiating the good from the bad.

In addition, How Social Security Picks Your Pocket exposes how Social Security is implemented - who wins, who loses, and how the game is played; and offers suggestions for improvements to the system.

Issue-by-issue, the book gives a guided tour of a system of staggering waste and blatant inequities. You'll learn how average retirees are robbed of benefits - benefits that are redirected to wealthier, non-paying beneficiaries. You'll learn about the millions of people who pay lip-service to Social Security - but pay nothing else. They don't participate in the system described as their "worst nightmare."

The tour includes a visit with the teachers who become janitors for just one day, to qualify for $100,000 in Social Security benefits - each. The book also reviews the amazing 115% tax, inflicted on working seniors. Yes, these people can effectively pay more in tax than they earn.

The tour also includes the growing disability programs. Are you a hypochondriac? Good! You just may qualify for disability benefits. (Check out section 12.07 of the Social Security "Blue Book.") Did you know that one third of all workers getting disability benefits claim to have a mental impairment? Are you up on the latest designer diseases? And, did you realize that only one in every five hundred disabled workers recovers and returns to work - despite our miracle cures, technology, and "reasonable accommodations"?

You'll need your "hard hat" when visiting Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is a welfare program run by Social Security. It's been classified by the GAO as "high risk" due to its habit of paying benefits first, and asking questions later (or never). SSI has its very own disability program, and should be in the Guinness book for once paying benefits to 181 members of one family - simultaneously. In this program, more than sixty percent of disabled beneficiaries are paid for claimed mental impairments.

Be advised that the tour includes some unsavory neighborhoods, rife with crime and corruption. There is a discussion of the different schemes and scams used to rip-off the system, and the new and threatening trends on the horizon. The Social Security Administration claims that it can't estimate the amount of fraud in its programs. This book challenges that claim.

Of course, what Social Security tour would be complete without a discussion of insolvency, the trust fund, and Personal Retirement Accounts (PRAs)? Is the program really broke? Would PRAs help, or hurt? You'll get the lowdown on these matters, plus insights into a great alternative plan that has been serving retirees longer than Social Security, right here in America. Comparing the benefits of this alternative plan to those of Social Security is an enlightening, if sobering, experience.

The final stop on the tour is the author's dream plan for Social Security. It's a little different than any other proposal. Is it "Shangri-La" or Sham-ri-La? That's for you to decide.

Customer Reviews:

very thoughtful presentation.......2004-08-02

This book made me think a lot about how the Social Security program is run. There are many good recommendations in this book - worthy of serious consideration.

Generally, I liked this book.......2004-07-20

I was able to follow most of this book without too much trouble. The author has done a good job of quantifying the waste in SS. It's worth the read.

Read this book!.......2004-01-03

The author did a good job of showing why we need to update Social Security. Benefits are transferred illogically. Why give extra benefits to rich people at the expense of middle class workers? Also, the stuff about the Texas teacher scandal is infuriating. This rip off should be stopped!

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Top 50 Best Stock Investments
Bobbie Christinsen , Eric Christinsen , Bobbie Christensen , Eric S. Christensen , and Tami Dever
Manufacturer: Effective Living Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0964369982

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Top 50 Best Stock Investments
Bobbie Christinsen Eric Christensen
Manufacturer: Effective Living Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MCR8R4

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Good conclusions, good points, BAD BAD BOOK.

The Business of Commerce: Examining an Honorable Profession
Tibor R. Machan , James Chesher , and James E. Chesher
Manufacturer: Hoover Institution Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0817996222

Book Description

The authors of this book examine the prejudiced view that all business is inherently immoral and come to the conclusion that this view is dangerously wrong.

The Business of Commerce: Examining an Honorable Profession

Explores the cultural, philosophical, and theological sources of the bad reputation suffered by business in Western culture
Samples prominent opinion, from Plato to Galbraith
Examines the fundamental dichotomies of a society that seeks prosperity, yet disdains the very processes by which prosperity is achieved
Traces the ideologies that undermine the moral standing of commerce
Builds the convincing case that antibusiness sentiment rises primarily from the belief that human nature and human life find their higher value in an otherworldly realm, that earthly life finds its unworthy equal in the struggle to improve life in the lower realm . . . the business of commerce

The Business of Commerce: Examining an Honorable Profession demonstrates why such a view is unreasonable, unwarranted, and unjust. It presents compelling evidence that the profession of business is no less worthy of respect than the professions of medicine, science, art, or education. Along the way this book explores a number of related subjects that lead to a sobering conclusion: Unless a positive attitude emerges, economic prosperity will elude the very societies that need it most.

Customer Reviews:

Good conclusions, good points, BAD BAD BOOK........2000-08-02

Tibor Machan has published many volumes, but I wonder whether he has ever written a *book*, i.e. a work evincing the architectural virtue of integrity which Howard Roark stands for in *The Fountainhead*. In my review of his *Ayn Rand*, I deplored a lack of system and hierarchy, attributing it to the fact that the volume is a hastily put together collection of disparate articles. As I opened *The Business of Commerce*, I expected to find a much more tightly organized work, deserving of a more glowing review. But what I realize now is that I have been much too generous with the former volume.

What Machan is trying to do, in effect, is to give us Objectivism without the structure. This he does by writing (or co-writing) volumes such as this one, which follow no logical pattern but circle round and round, coming back again and again to the same topics and quotes, always "suggesting" (a favorite verb of his) but never ever *establishing* anything.

*The Business of Commerce: Examining an Honorable Profession* is supposed to offer a panorama of business bashing in Western culture, together with an analysis of its roots and a refutation of its premises. There is indeed a kind of panorama, but it is at best impressionistic and widely scattered. There is an analysis, identifying a dualistic view of man as the basic root of hostility to business, but it is so rambling and redundant that it exasperates more than it enlightens. As for the refutation of the premises of business bashing, it is always tentative, hypothetical, referring the reader to other works or further chapters (where a point is said to be "discussed in greater detail"), never concluding anything and ultimately leaving the various remarks floating in some sort of undifferentiated intellectual goo.

Machan and Chester never really *develop* their arguments: they content themselves with accumulating (and reiterating) a series of unintegrated, out-of-context points which never definitively answer the positions they are supposed to be refuting- all this, I suppose, to avoid the ultimate intellectual sin of dogmatism, of which Machan probably considers more disciplined Objectivist philosophers, like Leonard Peikoff, to be guilty. The authors' recommendations for the teaching of business ethics seem to apply just as well to their own work: "Here some measure of thoroughness and even-handedness in the presentation and discussion is about all that can reasonably be achieved. It is improper to avoid this difficulty [i.e. the divergences between different moral systems] by simply becoming an advocate of one's own position..."

I am not saying that Machan and Chester are ever really *wrong* on any specific issue. As they are merely rewording Ayn Rand's conclusions and arguments, on the contrary, they are most often right. But the book is so unstructured that it is almost impossible to remain in focus while reading it- an impression I also got from Machan's *Ayn Rand*, but which I attributed to the fact that I was familiar with most of the material and hence was occasionally bored.

In addition, Machan and Chester seem to be reluctant to admit just how much their own philosophy owes to Rand. When stressing that values presuppose living entities, they quote Karl Popper. When asserting that man's basic freedom is the freedom to think or not, they quote Emerson. And when defending the value of money, they do not even quote Francisco d'Anconia's money speech in *Atlas Shrugged*, even though most of their points are in it.

My recommendation, therefore, is to save your time and money and go directly to the source.

Book Description

Revised to reflect the changes in the IRS death tax exclusion and the required accounting by executors now that previous required forms are not needed, this guide explains the specific role and duties of an executor for any appointed as such or for anyone who has written a will and has appointed an executor to carry out the specific desires and intentions that a lawyer may not be able to perform if beholden to the legal system. Duties such as taking inventory and appraising a decedent's gross estate and preparing a Form 1040 "final," Form 706 (death tax), and Form 1041 (estate income tax returns) are considerable undertakings that are explained in detail in this guide for the layperson.

Customer Reviews:

What a wonderful little book covering how an executor performs his or her duties in administering and settling a decedent's esta.......2006-12-26

If you are going to be an executor or someone who has just died has named you to be an executor, then this book is for you. It is not a treatise on the subject, but it summarizes the basics regarding the tasks and responsibility you will be charged with when being an executor. Such tasks and responsibilities include tax, accounting and ministerial functions.

This book is comprised of 12 chapters:

1. Ease into Your Role as Executor
2. Take Charge after Death Certificate is Issued
3. Get Your Letters Testamentary
4. Administer the Estate Independently
5. Inventory and Appraisement
6. Estate Tax Form 706
7. Calculating the Gross Estate
8. Taking All Tax Deductions Allowed
9. The Marital Tax Deduction
10. Recapitulation and Tax
11. Fiduciary Tax Form 1041
12. Settle the Estate; Closing Matters

I particularly liked the following excerpt taken from the book's introduction:

"Too often, the role importance of an executor is misunderstood. The will-appointed person rushes off to an attorney, and dumps everything in the attorney's lap. This is a shirking of duty. It is also a gross error in judgment and a costly mistake."

This book is written so the reader will not shirk her dirty or make a gross error in judgment or a costly mistake. It talks about reading a will, doing what one must do to be granted Letters Testamentary, gather together the estate's assets, fill out the proper tax returns, make distributions to creditors and beneficiaries, and close the estate. The theory of the various tax returns are discussed here like I have seen in no other book covering the subject. Splendid job.

I would have liked the book better if there was a terms index in the back of the book. And I think the book would have been better if there had been an introductory chapter that overviewed the whole book and its subject matter.

In Chapter 2 there was a reference made to visit your public library to examine a copy of your state's Probate Code. I'm not sure this is practical advise in all states.

I particularly liked the summaries at the beginning of each chapter. And I liked the page numbering so it was easy to flip from chapter to chapter, ie. 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, etc.

With this book you should be armed to visit your county law library and be able to get whatever other information you see necessary to handle your duty as executor. This book cannot cover everything - so don't expect it to do so. But it is a worthwhile book to read. 5 stars!

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Leveling the playing field with the IRS

Settle Your Tax Debt
Sean Melvin
Manufacturer: Kaplan Business
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0793128366
Release Date: 1998-08-01

Customer Reviews:

Leveling the playing field with the IRS.......1999-02-21

Very well done book which helped me with my problems with the Irs. The forms that IRS sends when you want to offer a compromise were baffling (just like any government form). The Tax Debt book helps to get through the paper work, and the real life examples in the book are great. You still have to do the footwork, but the IRS will cut your tax bill if you know what you're doing. It wasn't easy to deal with IRS on your own, but it's impossible without a book like this. Knowledge means money when you're fighting the IRS!

Book Description

A detailed case study of the government policymaking process, this volume takes one key issue--the strategic minerals problem--and examines each stage of decision-making from the acquisition of raw data through the promulgation of foreign policy. By focusing on a single issue, the author is able to provide a unique window into the activities, structure, and dynamics of key U.S. government policymaking bodies--and a more accurate account of the policymaking process than has heretofore been available in print. Students of government, military strategies, and policymaking will find Anderson's work enlightening reading.

The Structure and Dynamics of U.S. Government Policymaking: The Case of Strategic Minerals

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The Structure and Dynamics of U.S. Government Policymaking: The Case of Strategic Minerals
Ewan W. Anderson
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORAWAW

Book Description

Sir John Gielgud's acting career was among the most distinguished of his generation. In a lifetime that lasted nearly a century, he appeared in hundreds of theatrical productions and films, receiving virtually every acting honor given, including an Academy Award for his performance as Hobson the butler in the film Arthur. Now, in this insightful authorized biography, written with unprecedented access to Gielgud's diaries and personal letters, author Sheridan Morley traces not only the actor's career, but gives a refreshingly frank look into Gielgud the man, and how his professional success as an actor often came at the expense of his personal happiness.

Customer Reviews:

Solid yet slightly lacking.......2003-05-26

Sir John Gielgud was one of the great Shakespearean thespians of the twentieth century, although I unfortunately never saw him on stage where he was apparently at his best. Morley's biography is well-written and informative, but somehow lacks a certain spark.

It follows Gielgud from his childhood (from a family with several respected actors) to his early acting career, ascending from a skinny-legged boy to a much-respected actor, and then a knight and universally revered thespian. His arrest for soliciting a plainclothes policeman resulted in a reworking of laws on homosexuality. And he left behind an astonishing body of work, from a quiet man whose life essentially revolved around his work.

One of the unusual aspects of "John Gielgud: The Authorized Biography" is the respect that Morley has for Gielgud. He keeps his tone constantly respectful but not fannish. His handling of potentially sordid situations (the soliciting case) is always careful and respectful, a rarity in most biographies. His handling of Gielgud's homosexuality and its place in 1940s and 1950s England is particularly good. The attitude there and then was quite different from now. Some of the best actors today -- Ian McKellen being the most prominent -- are able to be openly gay, but then it was actually illegal. Morley does a good job describing the social and legal atmosphere at that time, through conversations, letters to the editors, the press's response, and the changes in the law. One slightly frustrating aspect of the book is the lack of presence of the Gielgud family -- when one of them popped back into the narrative, I found myself wondering, "Who is that again?"

Morley also offers insights into British theater and actors, including Gielgud's connections with Vivien Leigh, Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Noel Coward. We get to hear the good and bad reviews, some from Gielgud himself, such as his disgust with his shoeless "Romeo" costume (though the picture of him in that play isn't bad). And (wow, another rarity) Morley lets us see some examples of Gielgud's undeniable wit. Though he seems to have put his foot in his mouth frequently, he had some great zingers: at one point he complained about a flatulent crew member by saying that he didn't mind dying, but must it be in a gas chamber?

What is lacking? Perhaps it's a greater sense of knowledge about what made Gielgud tick. Morley knew him, but he fails overall to really let the readers really know what he was like. I got bits and pieces of his personality -- his shyness, his wit, his intense love of acting -- but not a picture of the whole. Some of the dates and situations seem unreliable or debatable. That, and I found the pictures a little unsatisfying. I like it when professional and personal photos are balanced out; this book had almost entirely professional pics.

Gielgud was part of a golden generation of great actors, and had a certain quality that filled whatever stage or screen he was on. While "John Gielgud: The Authorized Biography" can't be called the best, it's certainly worth a look.

Dueling Gielguds.......2002-04-21

It is difficult not to compare Morely's work to Jonathan Croall's altogether superior "John Gielgud: A Theatrical Life 1904-2000," which came out shortly before. "John Gielgud: The Authorized Biography" is decidedly inferior to the Croall book, although a interesting effort on its own merit. It does not have the depth of analysis of Croall's book (essentially skipping over Gielgud's relationship to his family, which Croall goes into in significant detail), as well as making numerous mistakes (saying, for instance, that Gielgud didn't play his first Shaw until doing the Preminger film of "Saint Joan" - forgetting that he played in both "Arms and the Man" and "Androcles & The Lion" at the Old Vic almost twenty years previously; or saying that Gielgud's 1974 Prospero was "his first full-length Shakespeare since 1958," forgetting that he played Othello in 1961. Another puzzling inconsistency was when Morely wrote that Donald Wolfit's hatred of Gielgud started when they did "Richard of Bordeaux" together in 1933, even though he'd already written that Wolfit was furious at Gielgud for allegedly having his Claudius cut down for the West End transfer of "Hamlet" in 1930. Morely also insisted that Gielgud won two Tony Awards for directing "Big Fish, Little Fish" and "Five Finger Excercise" (Gielgud was awarded for the former, but was even nominated for the latter; although Gielgud did win "Best Foreign Production" for "The Importance of Being Earnest" in 1947 and a special Tony for "The Ages of Man" in 1959.)

There are some surprising omissions as well, ignoring completely Gielgud's rivalry with Giles Isham when they were at the Old Vic in 1929/30, when at the offset it was assumed that Isham instead of Gielgud would play Hamlet.

Still, it's an interesting book that probably would have seemed better if I hadn't read Croall's first. He's very matter-of-fact about Gielgud's homosexuality, and uses his 1953 arrest as a focal point (as Croall does). Olivier comes off poorly in both books, although I would say that Morely has more patience with him than Croall seems to (in Croall's book, Olivier is depicted as a kind of antagonist, which I think gives his book more drama). I also think that Morely has a tendency to accept a lot of the Gielgud history at face value, whereas Croall thinks it through and considers the logic of a lot of it. The best example of this is the legendary story of Gielgud and Olivier swapping of roles of Romeo and Mercutio in 1936: Morely accepts that this gimmick was intended from the get-go, whereas Croall ponders (quite logically) that Gielgud and producer Binkie Beaumont were hedging their bets against Olivier's inexperience in Shakespeare at the time, and the role-swapping was agreed upon in case Olivier's reviews as Romeo were so disastrous that they would switch parts to keep the production from suffering. In view of the state of Olivier's career at the time (he had yet to even attempt a leading Shakespearean role on the professional stage), this makes infinitely more sense. Another example is the famous story that Gielgud went to Olivier after the latter opened in Hamlet and said "it's one of the most brilliant performances I've ever seen, but it's still my part." Morely reports it as though
he witnessed it, but Croall points out that not only did neither actor mention it in his autobiography and that Gielgud was actually in America when the comment was allegedly made, but such boasting was very out of character for Gielgud.

This is not to say that Morely's book is a wash. He does a fine job of talking about Gielgud's finances, and brings up the point that Ralph Richardson and Gielgud maintained a friendship despite the fact that Richardson was homophobic and openly uncomfortable with Gielgud's private life (a topic Croall doesn't mention, and indeed even Morely doesn't do much more than mention in passsing). Morely does blow it a lot, though - such as the famous anecdote where Gielgud goes to meet Richard Burton in the latter's dressing room after a performance of "Hamlet," and drops the brick "Why don't you come along when you're better...I mean ready?" Every time I've heard that story related (including Croall's book), it took place in 1953 when Burton played the part at the Old Vic, but Morely maintains that the exchange took place during the 1964 Broadway production. I think he booted it, and I think he does that a disconcertingly large amount of the time. He also has a tendency to bring himself into the narrative (a paragraph might begin with "John approached me about writing this book..."), which I find disconcerting.

"John Gielgud: The Authorized Biography" is a must-read for serious students of Gielgud's career, but Croall's book is the definitive study and should definitely be read first.

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The Authorized Biography of John Gielgud
Sheridan Morley
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0340368039

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The Authorized Biography of John Gielgud
MORLEY Sheridan
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton General Division
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OV57Q2

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John Gielgud - An Authorized Biography

Manufacturer: Hal Leonard Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0634054678

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JOHN GIELGUD: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY.
Sheridan. Morley
Manufacturer: Applause Books,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RINLLU

Customer Reviews:

A Fascinating Account by a Polish Jew Who Escaped From a Death Train.......2007-03-20

Originally written in 1946, Cyprys' account is remarkably free of the Judeocentric, German-whitewashing, anti-Christian, and anti-Polish tendencies of today. She devotes almost as much attention to German crimes against Poles as to those against Jews. Furthermore, Cyprys makes it clear that the Germans regarded the Poles as having no more inherent right to live than the Jews. Consider what happened when two Poles were mistakenly herded with Jews into a Treblinka-bound train: "Two gentiles in our wagon tried to explain to the Germans that they did not fit into this society and tried to show their documents. All to no avail. `Even if you are not a Jew, you are a damned Pole', yelled the German, and slapped the older woman's face, barking `Polish swine' and with his rifle butt drove her to the wagon." (p. 95).

Cyprys reported a balanced range of Polish attitudes towards Jews (pp. 118-119, 127, 132), some of which varied within the same family (pp. 142-143). Ironically, she was helped by the obsessively anti-Semitic Mrs. Zosia, who felt sorry for the Jews and who aided them (pp. 220-221).

In his FEAR, Jan Tomasz Gross presents a distorted view of Poles acquiring Jewish properties during the German occupation. In contrast, when mentioning how some Poles pretended to be Volksdeutsche in order to join in the German-sponsored pillage of Jewish properties, she nevertheless added: "The local mob usually guided the Germans to the rich Jewish houses and stores. With the deepest shame I must admit that there were some Jews among the scum." (pp. 25-26).

One inflammatory Polonophobic Holocaust myth is the one about Jews, while being transported to the death camps and with full knowledge of their impending deaths, being forced to endure the sight of indifferent or gleeful Polish onlookers. Against such nonsense, we learn that the death trains had small, barred windows well above eye level, and with nothing to stand on in order to look out of them (p. 96). Viewing (in either direction) was nearly impossible. The author and her daughter were loaded on a Treblinka-bound train. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Cyprys was boosted up and enabled to cut through the bars to jump out and to have her daughter Eva (Ewa) get pushed out.

The oft-quoted Polish remarks about Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising "getting burned like bugs", although invariably presented as such, wasn't necessarily derogatory. After all, Poles used the same phrase to refer to themselves in the face of their defenselessness against German incendiary bombing during the Warsaw Uprising! (p. 200).

The Germans strongly promoted alcoholism among Poles. This was done in order to degrade them (Lemkin elaborated on this) and to exploit this dependency as leverage in the denunciation of fugitive Jews (p. 174).

Cyprys elaborates on the semi-collaborationist Polish Blue Police (Policja Granatowa): "There were policemen who would accept neither bribes nor ransoms but, for the sake of their ideology, would hand over the Jews. Looking at this group objectively, however, one has to say that among their ranks there were many Volksdeutsch volunteers. The activities of the Polish police aroused such hostility among the majority of the Polish people, that death sentences were passed on several policemen by the Polish underground organizations and executions were carried out by Polish lads...upon the orders of the Organization a detailed list of all policemen was kept in the Underground offices. These contained, apart from proved misconduct, evidence of their standard of living which ascertained whether a dark blue was profiteering from blackmail or extortion. These lists of evidence were kept till the Warsaw Uprising: I do not know whether they survived the insurrection." (p. 138).

However, by no stretch of the imagination was the Polish Blue Police the main force in the roundups of Jews for their deaths: "On about 5 August [1942] all `workshop territories' were hermetically closed and the Germans and Ukrainians started a ruthless expulsion of anyone found outside these areas--always with the efficient help of the Jewish militia. Wherever a German or a Ukrainian did not venture the militia men would gladly fish out as many as possible of those still hidden in cellars and vaults, only to oblige the Germans." (p. 52).

Most Polish blackmailers (szmalcowniki), "the scum of mankind" (p. 119), took only part of the belongings of their Jewish victims and didn't usually actually denounce Jews to the Germans (pp. 119-120). They sometimes excused their conduct by their poverty and even gave the Jews advice on how better to disguise their Jewishness (p. 140).

Underworld Poles weren't the only ones that fugitive Jews feared: "The Jewish Gestapo men who remained alive were very dangerous. Their eyes were penetrating and Jews pointed out by them were lost beyond hope." (p. 165). Cyprys personally observed them shouting Jewish slogans or singing Jewish songs in order to provoke a telltale reaction in fugitive Jews among the pedestrians (pp. 165-166).

Cyprys alludes to Zegota as follows: "It goes without saying that only a fraction of the Jews in hiding knew about the existence of this committee. Those who were in touch with the patriotic `Polish intelligentsia' or people who worked in the Underground were most likely to benefit. Everything was obviously carried out in the greatest secrecy, using all available means of security." (p. 150). Complaints about Zegota aiding only a modest number of Jews are clearly off the mark.

In fact, Cyprys has a very sage understanding of ALL underground activities: "In reality underground activities were extremely stressful and required a great deal of steadiness and concentration. And because it had gone on for so many years, it was exhausting even to the strongest individuals and led to many casualties." (p. 184).

Cyprys provides a level of detail about the Warsaw Uprising usually done by Polish authors. We read, for instance, about the devastating effects of the German nebelwerfer ("roaring cow" or "cupboard"), and the systematic destruction of Warsaw by Germans AFTER the Uprising.

One of the best memoirs by a holocaust survivor.......2007-03-15

It is ironic that the author of this amazing journal never saw her work published, instead it was her two daughters who published it after her death. It is a gripping read,and recounts how the author escapes a death train heading to Treblinka by sawing off the bars on the window of the train and jumping out of it into the wilderness, together with her 2 yr old daughter! It is so much more than an account of survival, it gives one pause for thought as to what one would do given similar circumstances...I myself am mother to a toddler, and reading this just made me feel connected to the author, in that I too would do anything for my child, but do I possess the same courage as Ruth? It's impossible to imagine her life in occupied Poland, trying to live on the Aryan side, amongst Gentiles, keeping her daughter amongst strangers, not knowing if she will be saved...this is an amazing account of a woman's courage, a mother's love, and undying faith.

Very moving.......2006-09-03

I read this book about 6 years ago, in a period when I read every Holocaust testimony I could lay my hands on, to help me understand the first hand testimony I, alone, had received from a lifelong friend who herself survived the Vilna ghetto, and three concentration camps.

As Cat R reports, the author's daughter found her mother's manuscript in 1979, after the former had died. The text gives a very personal account of the Nazi invasion of Poland, this one from the perspective of a Warsaw native shipped with her small daughter, in January 1943, aboard a cattle car from the ghetto, bound to a certain death at Treblinka.

Certain except that she fought back. She knew from rumors what happened there. With a hacksaw blade she had concealed, she determined to saw through the bars of one of two small windows in her car, and reached them from the shoulders of two strong young boys willing to help her.

To ensure that the boys threw her daughter out the window after she had jumped, Eva gave a bag of chocolate, sugar and bread to a sympathetic friend too old to join her, and asked her to ensure they got it if they did as she had asked.

The jump was but the beginning of one Jewish mother's perilous and somehow miraculous bid to survive--with her child.

In the end, this sufferings of this mother and child were far less severe than those of my friend Masha. Nevertheless, this is a gripping, and important account, not to be missed.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

persecution and heroism.......2000-05-30

This wartime memoir was discovered by the author's daughter in 1979, following her mother's death. It relates the events of the Nazi persecution in Poland, the suffering and degradation of the Warsaw Ghetto ... and an extraordinary courage and will to survive. Realizing the fate in store for her, Ruth made plans for escape. In the winter of 1943, she and two-year-old Eva were rounded up and crowded into a cattle-car for the fatal journey to Treblinka. A single chance for life remained to them: a perilous jump from the moving train. Their first night of freedom was spent huddling together in a freezing, abandoned dog-kennel, with Ruth licking her daughter's wounds. In their danger-fraught flight for survival, they encountered kind-hearted Catholics who risked their lives to aid a Jewish mother and child. This book is a powerful first-hand account of terrifying times, and a testimony to a mother's courage.

A great look into the Holocaust!.......2000-04-12

This would have to be one of the few diaries that tells the story of the horror of the Holocaust. Ruth lives through many tough situations, where her quick thinking saves her and her daughter Eva. It paints a clear picture of how people in Warsaw were treated, and how the Germans got rid of the Jews in the Ghetto and in Warsaw. It is rather sad, but it is true. If you read this story, you will learn first hand about the life that Jews lived in the Holocaust. I suggest reading it!

A Jump for Life: A Survivor's Journal from Nazi-Occupied Poland

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For those who love Glasgow

A Jump for Life: A Survivor's Journal from Nazi-Occupied Poland
Ruth Altbeker Cyprys
Manufacturer: ISIS Large Print Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Holocaust | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Poland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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Biographies & Memoirs | Large Print | Formats | Books
ASIN: 0753150573

Book Description

Through vivid word pictures and her own delightful drawings, Rosemary Trollope roams across places and generations, capturing with an artist's eye the detail and atmosphere of her own haphazard childhood in a Gloucestershire rectory before World War II -- from hilarious family escapades like the day their deranged cook almost poisoned the children with arsenic to the problems caused by the General Strike during the family's move. The foreword is by bestselling British novelist, Joanna Trollope, the author's daughter

Customer Reviews:

For those who love Glasgow.......1999-05-23

My brother gave me this book because, like Rosemary Trollope, I had attended the Glasgow School of Art, lived in Glasgow and loved the city. Her love of Glasgow and it's people is apparent throughout these autobiographical vignettes. Glasgow, like most cities, is not a place you instantly fall in love with. You have to live there and after a while you grow to love this city and it's people. I lived there many years after she did and though I could not relate to her upper class existence, I enjoyed her stories nonetheless. It's a way of life that no longer exists and she makes no apologies for it; why should she? To think at a time when her family had indoor plumbing and telephones, my family were living in houses with earthen floors and no indoor plumbing. Indeed my Mother's first job as a young girl of 14 was to work as maidservant in these well to do houses. Though she is definately from the other side of the tracks, she tells her story with humour and understanding. Glasgow is a great place to start and reading this book I wanted to go back and start all over again.

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A Jump for Life; a Survivor's Journal from Nazi-Occupied Poland
Ruth Altbeker Cyprys
Manufacturer: Continuum, 1998
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

A Jump for Life: A Survivor's Journal from Nazi-Occupied Poland
Ruth Altbeker Cyprys
Manufacturer: Continuum Intl Pub Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLYRQI

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