Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES, was established in 1942. Women joined the WAVES in the wake of World War II and served in a variety of roles. The author of this book was a member of the WAVES, and she served in an instructor role. She taught members of the Navy how to operate a specific type of gun sight among other things. This was a really neat book to read. 

 This book discusses the crash landing of a cargo plane full of US Army nurses and medics into Nazi occupied territory in Albania. The survivors would endure many hardships, from the weather to dodging bullets. This book is a story about courage and survival, and the willpower to return home that people shared.

I have read another book by this author and enjoyed it, more than this one. This book had an amazing story that I had not heard before. The book was well-researched and full of factual information that I found very interesting. At times, the writing did seem to slog on more than was necessary. I feel that there were definitely sections that could have been more to the point. That being said, I enjoyed the book and liked learning about these people. 

 The 101st Airborne Division, also known as the Screaming Eagles, is a light infantry division of the United Stated Army. The Screaming Eagles have participated in some very well known and serious engagements from World War II up to the present day. This book is the person account of one such member who served during World War II and found himself in Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. This book is very direct and does not embellish any wartime activities. The author just recounts his experiences as they were. This is a book with tremendous importance to the historical record, as personal accounts give all of the figures and statistics a soul. I enjoyed reading this book. 

 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Germany in 1906. His father was Karl Bonhoeffer, a noted critic of Sigmund Freud, and a psychiatrist. Bonhoeffer decided to pursue a career in theology, even studying abroad in the United States. He returned to Germany in 1931, where he was ordained. He was a firm anti-Nazi from the earliest days, being pretty outspoken about it, causing serious issues with the Nazi regime. He became involved in the underground German resistance movement. This book was less detailed than I would have liked, but did offer a decently broad overview about Bonhoeffer and his activities in the anti-Nazi movement. 

 This book covers the train derailment and subsequent disaster in Waverly, Tennessee. The train belonging to L & N Railroad derailed at the main crossing in Wavery on February 22, 1978. The train was carrying two tanker cars filled with liquid propane gas. One of the tanks was damaged during the derailment, and damaged further when crews moving the derailed cars dropped a set of train wheels on it. In addition to the damage, temperatures began warming, and despite the fire department spraying water on the tankers, the damaged car blew. The explosion occurred on February 24, 1978, just before 3pm. Sixteen people died either during the explosion or from the burn injuries they suffered as a result.

This book was written by the daughter of the only surgeon in the town. Dr. Ali was a strong leader in this time of crisis. There were many first responders, and other good citizens, who pulled together to help each other. I found this book particularly interesting because it is only about three hours from where I live. I also discovered they built a really nice memorial to commemorate those who lost their lives and the ones who helped, and I would really like to see that the next time I am out that way. 

 This book is the story of the author's great-grandfather, Siegfried Merzbacher, a German-Jewish chemist who collaborated with the Nazi regime. Merzbacher worked on various household products, including a toothpaste that used radioactive material. He worked gas masks and chemical weapons prior to the outbreak of World War II. His research was certainly taken into consideration for the later gassing of Jewish people during the Holocaust. The author takes a deep dive into Merzbacher's career and how he dealt with it. The book also takes a couple of really wild turns that I was not expecting.

As a history major who specialized in World War II history, I find books like this extraordinarily interesting and extremely important to the historical record. A lot of people, Nazis, former Nazi allies, collaborators, and look-the-other-way types buried their wartime activities. I am certain that a decent portion of those people regretted their part and had a hard time living with the things that they saw and did. Certainly, there were many that did not, especially when they got to waltz along through life without having to pay any price. I think in our modern era people get taken by charismatic people who manipulate them and use hot topics as a way to garner support and obedience. It was very clearly the same 80+ years ago. I also think that people look back at this time without thinking about how hard it was to live through, needing to make sure you had shelter and food, a job, or weren't sent to a camp to be killed. People probably did a lot of things they would not normally do to survive. I think all of those things should be considered when reading this book.

I listened to this Audible version on my commute to and from work at the beginning of the week. I actually bought this book because I thought it had something to do with people that used radium products, and, while it did, it was about so much more. I was really pleased with this purchase, and I was so into this book that I forced my coworker to listen to my dramatic updates about it. I thought the author did a really tremendous job researching chemical weapons and the use of radium in products. I thought it was really brave, in a sense, to confront the obvious collaboration of someone in your family with a group that is known to history for a major atrocity. I am sure the author and his family went through a lot of feelings during this process, and probably still are as the reviews and comments about this book roll in. I really, really enjoyed this book. It is absolutely one of the best ones I have read so far this year. 

 Carl Katz was born in Germany in 1899. He moved to Bremen in the early 1920s, where he ran a wholesale business. He was forced to sell his business by the Nazi Party at the end of 1938. He eventually became on of the leaders of the Jewish community in Bremen until 1942 when he and his family were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. While in the camp, he worked with the Nazis about his block. The story of this man was really interesting, but, in addition, the look into post-war Germany was really valuable. It shows how a society attempts to rebuild and make amends, how they address their history, and how people who were involved in some heinous things just returned to life no problem. This was a good book. 

 Crystal City, Texas was home to an internment (concentration) camp for people of German, Italian, and Japanese descent that resided in the United Stated during the period of 1943-1948. The camp held, at maximum, almost 3,400 people. Many of those incarcerated were native-born United States citizens (if this is ringing some bells, it should be). If there is any measure of peace to be taken from this disgraceful action, it is that they were housed and fed with basic amenities unlike concentration camp prisoners in Europe and other prisoners of war held by Axis powers. This entire episode of United States history is gross.

This book is so relevant in our current period. People who were born and raised here in the United States are often fed a HIGHLY stylized, pretty version of how the United States is always there, a champion of the disenfranchised and dreamer. Unfortunately, in our modern era we are repeating some of the nastiness of our past, despite the efforts of some of us who retain some humanity and an education. Deportations happened to the Indigenous population, then to the Japanese, German, and Italians. Today, deportations are happening again. It is so important to not let history like this lay by the wayside for the generations that we are raising now, and it is equally important to stop supporting regimes that love committing crimes against humanity and other war crimes.

This book was wonderfully researched and well written, and I highly recommend it. If you are interested in this topic further, there is a monument to the internees on this site that you can view. The site was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 2014, and archeological investigations have been underway. There are also several books out there written by children who were interned here, as well as other accounts from adults from the time. 

 During the final few weeks of war in Europe, many German citizens died by suicide. There are several reasons why people chose to die by suicide: Nazi propaganda, fear of retaliation, unwillingness to accept defeat, and general depression. There were over seven thousand suicides in Berlin alone, with other German cities also having really high suicide rates. The amount of death in World War II and in the immediate aftermath from suicide, injuries, and general poor condition. I think the suicide deaths are often ignored or talked about with less frequency because people zero in on Holocaust deaths or war casualties. It is important to discuss these deaths, because these were people as well. They endured war as well. The impact of the Nazi regime touched everyone, and it is important to see all of the nasty, inky tendrils and where they reached. I thought this book was really important. 

 Herschel Feibel Grynszpan was born in Hanover in 1921. His parents were Polish Jews who had immigrated to Germany several years before his birth. Herschel's education was cut short due to the discrimination that Jewish students were facing in the pre-war years. The family was deported in 1938. Herschel found himself becoming an assassin, murdering Ernst vom Rath, which led to his arrest by French police. The story of Herschel was dramatic, and I was really invested in what happened to him and his family during and after the war. This book was really good, and I hate that I waited so long to read it.