Search:

Hotel Cuba : a novel / by Hamburger, Aaron,author.;
Fleeing the chaos of World War I and the terror of the Soviet Revolution, practical, sensible Pearl Kahn and her lovestruck, impulsive younger sibling Frieda sail for America to join their sister in New York. But discriminatory new immigration laws bar their entry, and the young women are turned back at Ellis Island. With few options, Pearl and Frieda head for Havana, Cuba, convinced they will find a way to overcome this setback. At first, life in big-city Prohibition-era Havana is overwhelming, like nothing Pearl and Frieda have ever experienced--or could have ever imagined in the rural shtetl where they grew up. As the sisters begin to adjust, their plans for going to America together become complicated. Frieda falls for the not-so-dreamy man of her dreams while Pearl's life opens up unexpectedly, offering her a taste of freedom and heady romance, and an opportunity to build a future on her own terms. Though to do so, she must confront her past and the shame she has long carried. A heartbreaking, epic family story, Hotel Cuba explores the profound courage of two women displaced from their home who strive to create a new future in an enticing and dangerous world far different from anything they have ever known.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Jewish families; Jewish women; Jews; Jews, Russian; Man-woman relationships; Refugees; Sisters; Travelers;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The jazz club spy : a novel / by Rich, Roberta,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A sweeping, New York-set historical novel following a Jewish cigarette girl who moonlights as a spy and attempts to bring justice to her family on the eve of World War II"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Historical fiction.; Spy fiction.; Novels.; Betrayal; Immigrants; Jews; Russians; Women spies;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The Holocaust codes : the untold story of decrypting the final solution / by Jennings, Christian,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.'The Holocaust Codes' is the first dedicated study of the cat-and-mouse struggle between a British cryptographer at Bletchley Park, and an Austrian SS officer responsible for the mass killings of thousands of Russian and Polish Jews. The account of how Nigel de Grey cracked the Enigma-coded signals of SS Major Hermann Höfle is one of the greatest untold stories of the WWII.
Subjects: De Grey, Nigel, 1886-1951.; Höfle, Hermann, 1898-; Cryptographers.; Enigma cipher system.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

In the midst of civilized Europe : the pogroms of 1918-1921 and the onset of the Holocaust / by Veidlinger, Jeffrey,1971-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From an award-winning historian, the first full depiction of the wave of anti-Jewish pogroms that followed the Russian Revolution and how they laid the groundwork for the Holocaust. Includes illustrations and maps"--
Subjects: Antisemitism; Antisemitism; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jews; Jews; Pogroms; Pogroms;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Black square : adventures in post-Soviet Ukraine / by Pinkham, Sophie,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."This captivating and original narrative blends politics, history, and reportage in a street-level account of a vexing and troubled region. In the tradition of Elif Batuman and Ian Frazier, Black Square presents an evocative, multidimensional portrait of Ukrainian life under the shadow of Putin. In vivid, original prose, Sophie Pinkham draws us into the fascinating lives of her contemporaries--a generation that came of age after the fall of the USSR, only to see protestors shot on Kiev's main square, Maidan; Crimea annexed by Russia; and a bitter war in eastern Ukraine. Amid the rubble, Pinkham tells stories that convey a youth culture flourishing within a tragically corrupt state. We meet a charismatic, drug-addicted doctor helping to smooth the transition to democracy, a Bolano-esque art gallerist prone to public nudity, and a Russian Jewish clarinetist agitating for Ukrainian liberation. With a deep knowledge of Slavic literature and a keen, outsider's eye for the dark absurdity of post-Soviet society, Pinkham delivers an indelible impression of a country on the brink."--Provided by publisher.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Girl at the edge of sky / by Nattel, Lilian,1956-author.;
"From the bestselling author of Web of Angels comes a unique and thrilling novel based on the life of Lily Litvyak, a female Soviet fighter pilot shot down behind German lines in the Second World War. Lily Litvyak is no one's idea of a fighter pilot: a tiny, dimpled teenager with golden curls who lied about her age in order to fly. But in the crucible of the air war against the German invaders, she becomes that rare thing--a flying ace, glorified as the White Rose of Stalingrad. The real Lily disappeared in combat in August 1943, and the facts of her life are slim, but they have inspired Lilian Nattel's indelible portrait of a courageous young woman driven by family secrets to become an unlikely war hero. Nattel takes another big leap, asking the compelling question: what if Lily survived that crash and became a prisoner of the Germans? Lily lives in a world of horrifying risk, where the stakes are high in the air, but also on the ground. In the Soviet system, everyone is an informer, even your best friend. Lily lives in constant fear that she will be found out, as a Jew and as the daughter of a dissident, and either grounded or executed. When she ends up a German prisoner, the need for deception becomes even more desperate. Girl At the Edge of Sky is a masterwork of the imagination, bringing us deep into the precarious life of a remarkable woman who lies to fight for the country that would disown her, and then lies to survive the enemy that would annihilate her."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Litvyak, Lidiya Vladimirovna, 1921-1943; Family secrets; Fighter pilots; Women air pilots; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The Ward uncovered : the archaeology of everyday life / by Lorinc, John,1963-editor.; McClelland, Michael,1951-editor.; Taylor, Tatum,editor.; Martelle, Holly,1969-editor.;
Includes bibliographical references."An archaeological dig uncovers the secret history of Toronto's long-forgotten first immigrant neighbourhood. In early 2015, a team of archaeologists began digging test trenches on a non-descript parking lot next to Toronto City Hall--a site designated to become a major new court house. What they discovered was the rich buried history of an enclave that was part of The Ward-- that dense, poor, but vibrant 'arrival city' that took shape between the 1840s and the 1950s. Home to waves of immigrants and refugees--Irish, African-Americans, Italians, eastern European Jews, and Chinese--The Ward was stigmatized for decades by Toronto's politicians and residents, and eventually razed to make way for New City Hall. The archaeologists who excavated the lot, led by co-editor Holly Martelle, discovered almost half a million artifacts--a spectacular collection of household items, tools, toys, shoes, musical instruments, bottles, industrial objects, food scraps, luxury items, and even a pre-contact Indigenous projectile point. Martelle's team also unearthed the foundations of a nineteenth-century Black church, a Russian synagogue, early-twentieth-century factories, cisterns, privies, wooden drains, and even row houses built by formerly enslaved African Americans. Following on the heels of the immensely popular The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto's First Immigrant Neighbourhood, which told the stories of some of the people who lived there, The Ward Uncovered digs up the tales of things, using these well-preserved artifacts to tell a different set of stories about life in this long-forgotten and much-maligned neighbourhood."--
Subjects: Neighborhoods; Immigrants; Excavations (Archaeology);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI