Description
About the Author
RICHARD RASHKE is a lecturer and author of non-fiction books including The Killing of Karen Silkwood. He is featured in the award-winning international television series Nazi Hunters. His works have been translated into eleven languages and have been the subject of movies for screen and television. A produced screenwriter and playwright, his work has appeared on network television and off-Broadway. He is also an alto sax player and composer. His latest composition, Crane Wife, a family musical based on a Japanese folktale, was performed at the Kennedy Center, and his play, Dear Esther, based on a Sobibor prisoner, was the first play performed at the United States Holocaust Museum. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Reviews
"A richly researched, gripping narrative about war, suffering, survival, corruption, injustice and morality." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred
"Useful Enemies is a remarkable and riveting account of how good people in a great nation can do very bad things and fail to do good things. This is a terrifying account of the triumph of injustice in the false name of pragmatism and in the immoral service of bigotry." -- Alan Dershowitz
"WWII isn't over for everyone-in May 2011, John Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine and "former American citizen," was convicted of war crimes for his role as a guard at the Sobibor concentration camp. Rashke (Escape from Sobibor) uses Demjanjuk's story to explore the troubling implications of U.S. immigration patterns after WWII; the author contends that the United States knowingly accepted Nazis while simultaneously denying entry to Holocaust survivors, a trend motivated by a political agenda concerned with monitoring Europe in the postwar period and during the cold war. As evidenced by the particulars of Demjanjuk's case-which included numerous trials in various countries, possibly forged identity papers, and extradition deadlock-the narrative is riddled with political intrigue. While the immediate ethical and political ramifications of his argument are fascinating, one of the most interesting aspects of Rashke's investigation is how it complicates the idea of a survivor: was Demjanjuk, who lived a quiet life in Cleveland following the war, also a survivor of the Nazis, different from the men and women whose killings he oversaw only by degree? The answer, as Rashke points out, requires untangling 'historical forces, moral behaviors, legal issues,' and more, and it's a riveting read." -- Publisher's Weekly
Book Information
ISBN 9781883285517
Author Richard Rashke
Format Hardback
Page Count 621
Imprint Delphinium Books, Inc
Publisher Delphinium Books, Inc
Dimensions(mm) 238mm * 165mm * 49mm