Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* There is growing suspicion that there are no stories left to tell of the Holocaust; all the pain and horror has been revealed to the point of repetition. But human-rights lawyer Sands proves that there is still room for thoughtful writers to educate, engage, even beguile readers on this terribly important subject. His riveting history of the terms "genocide" and "crimes against humanity," the men who invented them, the manner in which they were first used (at Nuremberg), and how they have forever changed international law and relations revitalizes the subject. Most impressively, he interweaves his grandparents' powerful story into the larger narrative, including an enduring family mystery. Thus, in this expertly organized and passionately researched title, readers will learn of rapidly changing borders, rushes to escape violence, and people who stood on the right side of history versus those who sank to the depths of depravity. An unexpected page-turner, East West Street is a book for the twenty-first century that reminds us that the cruel lessons of the twentieth still have much to impart and must not be ignored. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
Library Journal Reviews
The Holocaust was a tragedy for whole cities and towns as well as individuals and their families. The contrast among these levels of devastation underpins this gripping book, which centers on the lives of Leon Buchholz, the author's maternal grandfather; Hersch Lauterpacht; and Raphael Lemkin—the latter two experts in international law and important figures in the Nuremberg Trials. All three once resided in what is today the Ukrainian city of Lviv. Their experiences and Sands's (Torture Team) efforts to uncover the secrets and half-truths in their family stories form this fascinating account of forgetting, forgiving, and moving on. Lauterpacht, a key figure in the British prosecuting team, worked to indict the Nazis for "crimes against humanity." U.S.-based Lemkin championed the term genocide, which he invented. Both helped build the structure under which future war crimes could be adjudicated internationally. Neither strictly memoir nor history, Sands's study achieves a balance between the individual and the political that brings the events of the Holocaust into new focus. VERDICT Readers interested in history, political science, and/or religion shouldn't miss this compelling work with unforgettable characters.—Margaret Heller, Loyola Univ. Chicago Libs.
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Sands (Torture Team), a human rights lawyer and professor of international law at University College London, takes readers on a labyrinthine journey into the personal histories of three men whose lives were forever altered by the Nuremberg trials of October 1946. Two of them—Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht—were founding luminaries of the new field of international human rights law; the third, Hans Frank, was Hitler's personal legal counsel. Sands intertwines their stories with his own tragic family history, and seeks to illuminate the guiding principles of humanitarian law while unearthing the forgotten stories of the men who fought for its establishment in the wake of Nazi devastation. Part detective story and part heart-wrenching family history, the teeming narrative is anchored in the Ukrainian city of L'viv (alternately Lwów, L'vov, or Lemberg), hometown of Lemkin and Lauterpacht, and an emblem of the changing face of 20th-century Europe. Yet despite this attention to place, the book feels curiously unmoored, with the personalities and ambitions of its three main characters getting lost under a glut of biographical detail. Sands clearly revels in discovering long-lost family secrets; unfortunately, he also loses sight of the innovations in legal theory that Lemkin and Lauterpacht helped usher in, the ostensible focus on which is arguably the book's most original aspect. (June)
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