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There are only so many images that can make the final edit of a book, and ultimately, for Lita & Jean, we chose to prioritize images of – surprise – Lita and Jean. But throughout their lives, the pair have been surrounded by an incredible cast of people who deserve the spotlight as well. The purpose of this blog post is to share the images and information of three of those individuals, along with photographs from Lita and Jean’s archives that they have not revealed before. 

Sarah Hinrichs reviews a lot of titles for Reedsy Discovery, but she underlines Master Wings’ new title, Lita & Jean: Memoirs of Two Generations of Military Women, as one of her few “all must read.”

Hinrichs writes that the book is not only “frustrating and heartbreaking to read,” but also a “shining light.” Lita & Jean is a great book club pick, as it covers a range of topics with candor and confidence, poking readers into introspection and setting the record and reference straight.

Below, we have pulled together several questions to help kickstart discussions on Master Wings’ newest publication:

• Do you identify more with Lita or with Jean?
• Have you ever considered joining the Armed Forces? If so, which branch of service? Why?
• What questions would you ask the authors?
• What surprised you in the book?
• How have you dealt with pressure or criticism from your family?
• Has this book changed the way you view the Catholic Church? The military? Women in the military?
• If you had to change careers today, what would your new career be?
• What do you think the main message of this book is?
• What is the worst injury you’ve had, and why was it the worst?
• If you were going to make this into a movie, who would you cast as Lita and who would play Jean?
• What was your favorite/least favorite part of the book?
• Who can you turn to for support?
• If you could follow in anyone’s footsteps, whose footsteps would you follow?
• Which chapter or moment resonated with you the most?

Learn more about Lita and Jean in their author interview, where they share the process of writing the book and their goals for readers.

If you are interested in ordering bulk copies of this book for your book club, or would like for Lita and Jean to speak at an event, please reach out via email to discuss opportunities. Feel free to contact us.

We would love to hear any of your thoughts on these topics, or any additional questions that would be a good fit for our list!

Lucy Faulds, a NetGalley reviewer, lauds Master Wings’ newest release, Lita & Jean: Memoirs of Two Generations of Military Women by Lita Tomas and Jean Marie McNamara, as the “raw, heart-felt voices of two strong inspirational women.”

Covering the entire span of their life, the authors of this memoir pull no punches to speak on the abuses of the military, family, the Catholic Church and more. Their goal is to set the record straight and provide a valuable reference on military service and treatment and offer inspiration and lessons of resilience.

Learn more about Lita & Jean and why this should be the next book on your list in our interview with them below:

What do you love most about your book?

Jean: Writing this book allowed my mother and me a chance to deepen our relationship and understand one another more.

Lita:  The memoir and writing process inspired me to research our family tree and learn more about my ancestors’ military service.

What did you learn when writing the book? Did anything surprise you?

Lita:  I think we were both surprised to learn how similar our experiences were despite the twenty-year time difference.

Jean: Throughout this process, I’ve learned how important it is to ask questions and learn as much as possible about one’s family history from living relatives. One of the remarkable things I discovered was that one of our great aunts made bathtub gin during prohibition.

There are times when your text on various personal interactions is vivid and detailed – how true to life are these accounts?

Jean:  We made a concerted effort to accurately portray every aspect of our lives. In addition to reviewing old photographs, revisiting military bases, and rereading the mountain of correspondence we’ve amassed over the years, we also contacted and reminisced with former military colleagues.

What was it like to write about the heavier topics in your memoirs? Did you rely on any forms of support or comfort to make it through?

Lita:  It was rough! My ulcers have ulcers!

Jean: Reliving the most painful experiences and rereading the memorandums I wrote to my command, asking for help and support, was difficult. Digging up our terrible memories regarding emotional and physical trauma and then attempting to describe it clearly – sharing our pain with the reader – was an intense roller coaster. I started to have terrible nightmares and had difficulty distracting myself from the physical and emotional pain. But I want to help others, so I persevered. I am grateful to have the ongoing help and support of a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, as well as my friends and family.

If you could tell your teenage self something, what would it be?

Jean: Don’t worry, it’ll all turn out.

What are you currently reading or watching that you would recommend?

Lita: Recently, I started rewatching Grey’s Anatomy.

Jean:  My interests vary and I’m reading something new every day!  Check out our Instagram feed (@tank.hill) and our Pinterest page (@tomasmcnamara0033) for my latest recommendations!

Who would you like to see read your book?

Lita:  New recruits.

Jean: It would be amazing to see women, mothers and daughters, veterans, those curious about life in the military and those interested in military history reading our memoir. I have a lovely dream that I’ll stumble across someone reading it in the wild: at a coffee shop, on the train, or at the park.

What do you hope readers will take away from Lita & Jean?

Lita: The need to advocate for yourself!

Jean:  Don’t “give up” on individuals with a chronic illness! Keep inviting them to events and, when possible, modify plans, so they are inclusive. Check in with those who are depressed, and if you are depressed, please get help.

Lita & Jean’s memoir will be released on March 29. Pre-order your copy on our website today!

It took six years to restore and rehabilitate the Monroe Building, a labor of exacting love that is covered in colorful detail in Master Wings’ early publication, The Monroe Building: A Chicago Masterpiece Rediscovered.

“I can’t tell you how many tradesmen came up to me and thanked me for the work,” said Peder Dahlberg, who oversaw the restoration process of the Monroe Building. “They didn’t just thank me for getting the job. They thanked me because it gave them a chance to work at the top of their abilities.”

The book is available for purchase here, and you can read a recent review on the title here.

But once you’ve read the book and stepped outside the Monroe Building, what should you look at next? Below are a few ‘next-door’ titles we suggest:

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1. Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago by Blair Kamin

ISBN: 9780226423227

Link: https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/46401587

For more than a decade, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin has been writing fiery, intelligent essays on the state of contemporary architecture. His subjects range from high-rises to highways, parks to public housing, Frank Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry. Why Architecture Matters collects the best of Kamin’s acclaimed columns, offering both a look at America’s foremost architectural city and a taste of Kamin’s penetrating, witty style of critique.

2. A History of American Architecture: Buildings in their Cultural and Technological Context by Mark Gelernter

ISBN: 9781584651369

Link: https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/607259269

This book explores the history of American architecture from prehistoric times to the present, explaining why characteristic architectural forms arose at particular times and in particular places. It’s a collection of intellectual as well as architectural history, and between the hundreds of included illustrations Gelernter builds an effective and manageable framework for the towering subject of American architecture.

3. A History of Architecture in 100 Buildings by Dan Cruickshank

ISBN: 9781770855991

Link: https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/920542390

Journeying across the world, from Syria to Shrewsbury, Sudan to Southern Spain, Dan Cruickshank explores man’s most impressive creations. Structured by theme, this book surveys civilization through the pioneers, visionaries, follies, ancients, rhetoric, scale, survivals and revivals of its greatest constructions. Together, the stories in this beautifully illustrated book offer a stupendous global cultural history – a history that is full of mystery and ripe for rediscovery.

4. Chicago 1890: The Skyscraper and the Modern City by Joanna Merwood-Salisbury

ISBN: 9780226520780

Link: https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/232656339

Chicago’s first skyscrapers, constructed in the 1880s and ’90s, are famous for projecting the image of the modern city around the world. But what did they mean at home, to the Chicagoans who designed and built them, worked inside their walls, and gazed up at their facades? Answering this multifaceted question, this book reveals that early skyscrapers offered hotly debated solutions to the city’s toughest problems and, in the process, fostered an urban culture that spread across the country.

5. Constructing Chicago by Daniel M. Bluestone

ISBN: 9780300057508

Link: https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/23462143

Combining architectural history and cultural analysis, Daniel M. Bluestone explores the creation of Chicago’s architectural landscape. He finds that the structure of the city was influenced as much by the moral, cultural and aesthetic aspirations of its local elite, as by the forces of commerce and capital.

Bonus:  Chicago’s Loop: a new walking tour with Geoffrey Baer

OCLC #: 769236396

Link: https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/769236396

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All of these titles and many more, including film and podcasts, are available for members to borrow at The Pritzker Military Museum and Library. Visit this link for more information!

In a 1956 letter, sent forty-two years after her house was built, Anna Bach continued to extend architect Frank Lloyd Wright her “richest blessings” in gratitude for it. It was, she described, “not only a livable house but a loveable home.”

And now, sixty-three years after that letter and 105 years after the home was built, author Robert Hartnett offers his own blessings and analysis.

Master Wings’ 2019 title, Frank Lloyd Wright’s $10,000 Home: History, Design, and Restoration of the Bach House, details with heavy imagery both the creation and renewal process.

Author Bob Hartnett sat down with us and answered a few questions on the title. Learn more about his creative process and why you should add this book to your reading list:

1. If you could ask Frank Lloyd Wright one question, what would it be?

I would like to ask Frank Lloyd Wright what he thought were the major influences on his architecture. Many people have said that Wright was influenced by five major themes, including: (1) Louis Sullivan, (2) nature, (3) the Frobel Blocks, (4) Japanese Art Prints, and (5) music. I would like to know if Wright would agree with the items listed here, or if he would have a completely different list, or if he would even have a list at all.

2. Are there any other architects or buildings that you are interested in? Why?

I have been interested in both Louis Sullivan’s work and Henry Hobson Richardson. Both men had an influence on Wright’s early work. I have liked Sullivan’s work for his interpretation of natural elements in his designs. Richardson’s work, which has become known as Richardson Romanesque, also has such an interesting and dominating look.

3. Did anything surprise or particularly impress you when researching?

I would say one of the things I found most surprising and rewarding was how forthcoming and helpful all the people I interviewed for the book were. I spoke with people from Oregon to Massachusetts, and each person I spoke with was supportive and willing to share their time and experience with me.

4. What are you reading or watching currently?

During the quarantine, I have kept busy watching some different television series. Very recently, I started watching the movie series (don’t laugh) The Hobbit, and I plan on following that up with the rest of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The two books I have read most recently were Mind Hunter by John E Douglas and Mark Olshaker, which was about the creation of the FBI’s behavior analysis unit, and I Hear You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, which is the story of Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran’s life as a MAFIA hitman, and his involvement in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

5. What is your writing process like?

I try to start with an outline of sorts, and then begin to research the topic I have chosen. I have several books on Frank Lloyd Wright in my personal library, so that is where I began to flesh out the story I am trying to convey. Sometimes this can be difficult, because I will find out that what I found in one book is contradicted by another author. In my writing, I work to get conformation from multiple sources before using a particular fact.

6. What was the hardest part of the project?

I would say that one of the hardest things to deal with is the amount of misinformation there is in the “Wright World.” Often, something will be written down that was taken out of context to make an author’s point, and then that statement gets repeated by others until it is taken as a fact, when it might not actually be completely true. When I have come across items like this, I must always ask myself, “What makes you an expert?” I do not have a degree in art, architecture, or even journalism, but I do work to be a detailed researcher.

7. Why should people read this book?

I think anyone who has an interest in Wright’s architecture would enjoy this book. One of the chapters I am most proud of is the chapter on Wright’s use of elements from Japanese architecture in this mid-western home. I think people who read this chapter in the context of the Bach House will then be able to transfer the principles I have pointed out to other work Wright had done. I also think that the book provides a good account of Wright’s 1910 – 1915 career.

Click here to order your copy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s $10,000 Home: History, Design, and Restoration of the Bach House today!

Check out this new review of one of our first titles, The Monroe Building: A Chicago Masterpiece Rediscovered. Just like the building the book is about, this large coffee table volume continues to captivate and inspire long after its creation.

The author of this review is Heidi Ruehle, who is currently the Executive Director at Unity Temple Restoration Foundation.

Unity Temple, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is a National Historic Landmark and part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. If you’re interested in learning more about Frank Lloyd Wright’s works, you can peruse Unity Temple Restoration Foundation’s website or our other architecture title, Frank Lloyd Wright’s $10,000 Home.

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The Monroe Building: A Chicago Masterpiece Rediscovered, is not just a book about the glorious rehabilitation of a prominent, early Chicago skyscraper, it also delves into the history of the numerous players who brought the building to life.

The most notable figure in the Monroe Building’s rebirth, owner Jennifer N. Pritzker, demonstrates her passion for architectural preservation while upholding her commitment to the long-term economic value of the building. It appears no detail was overlooked in the painstaking process of restoring and reproducing original design elements that were damaged, destroyed, or merely forgotten. Pritzker has gifted Chicago with an extraordinary example of the city’s architectural prominence and resiliency.

Authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams devote the first half of the book to weaving together the personalities and relationships of the developers Peter and Shepherd Brooks, architects Holabird & Roche, building manager Owen Aldis, notable tenants, and other relevant contributors. The authors engage readers with historical photos and interesting accounts of the building’s contractors, craftsmen, and even architectural critics of their time.

Part II is dedicated to the comprehensive restoration and rehabilitation of the Monroe Building, filling the pages with the contemporary photos of Alexander Vertikoff. His eye for detail and composition helps readers fully realize the beauty and elegance of the building in relation to its imposing neighbors. Vertikoff’s thoughtful photography reveals the Monroe Building’s remarkable craftsmanship and complex materials, inviting readers to experience the building from points of view not readily available to bystanders at street level.

The Monroe Building was an absolute pleasure to read, fostering a newfound appreciation for a building designed to embrace the past, predict the future, and stand the test of time.

Review by Heidi Ruehle, Executive Director, Unity Temple Restoration Foundation

The Other Side of the Wire by Harold Coyle offers a plethora of resources for diverse parties. Aside from the comprehensive appendix full of historical context within the novel itself, its publishing company Master Wings Publishing has also worked to provide resources online. Check out a reading discussion group questions here, an analysis of the cover design here, or an author interview here.

Below is our next contribution: a curated pulled passage followed by reading comprehension questions suited for and created conscious of the requirements and the question types present in the SAT.

As per the SAT standards, these questions and text selection offer best application in the range in level from grades nine to ten to postsecondary entry levels.

This practice test can be used for free and includes an extensive answer key with explanations and details on question types.

If you would like a pdf or other version of this template, please reach out to us.

We would love to hear from you if this worked in your classroom for your own practice – and if you’re gripped and want to read more of Hannah’s story, The Other Side of the Wire is available for purchase here.

Directions:

Each passage or pair of passages below is followed by a number of questions. After reading each passage or pair, choose the best answer to each question based on what is stated or implied in the passage or passages and in any accompanying graphics (such as a table or graph).

Questions 1 – 4 are based on the following passage.

LITERARY NARRATIVE: This passage is presented from the novel The Other Side of the Wire by Harold Coyle (©2020 by Master Wings Publishing)

1. Over the course of the passage, the main focus of the narrative shifts from the

A) reservations a character has about the present to the concerns a character has about the future.

B) willingness of a character to challenge surroundings to fear of disruption of expectations.

C) role of a character in immediate environment to a different external role expected of the character.

D) positive values a character attaches to family to a rejection of that sort of hierarchy in favor of personal accomplishment.

Content: Rhetoric (big picture/main idea)                  Key: A

Objective: You must describe the overall structure of a text.

Explanation: Choice A is the best answer. There are a couple of reservations detailed in the beginning of the passage, specifically about Riese (line 14) and Hannah’s rocky relationship with other members of the household (lines 25- 26). Hannah’s conversation with the cook about these current concerns leads her to extrapolate expectations and fears of the future, and she demonstrates “despair” (line 40) and is “troubled” (line 49).

Choice B is incorrect because while Hannah does fear the expectations set for her, as shown in her presentation as a “troubled girl” (lines 49-50), she does not show a strong effort to challenge her surroundings at the beginning of the narrative. Although Hannah is confused by her father’s choice in orderly, she explicitly “didn’t bother to ask” questions, something that is depicted as a regular practice of hers (line 17).

Choice C is incorrect because while Hannah is told to expect a future where she will run a household and have a family of her own (lines 45 – 49), she is already playing a similar role of maintaining a “warm, safe home” in her current situation as noted by the narrative (lines 35 – 39). Hannah’s current situation and expected future situation are expected to be same.

Choice D is incorrect because while Hannah does seem unsatisfied with the idea of a future defined by her role as a caretaker, (lines 50 – 51), at no point does she explicitly reject her family or express a concrete decision of terms of new priorities for her future.

2. In the context of the passage, the author’s use of the phrase “such a worm of a man” (paragraph 1) is primarily meant to convey the idea that:

A) Hannah is not attracted to Riese.

B) Riese is a lowly creature dominated by others.

C) Riese is disliked by his peers.

D) Riese is incompetent and unable to complete his responsibilities.

Content: Rhetoric (function question)                        Key: B

Objective: You must determine the main rhetorical effect of the author’s choice of words.

Explanation: Choice B is the best answer. Riese acted after just a “frown while glancing in his direction,” (line 13) and it is openly stated that Hannah terrifies and intimates him. (line 22, line 27). He is an underling (line 5) and responsible in this passage for taking care of the dirty laundry (line 17) which is historically not a prominent position.

Choice A is incorrect because although Hannah does seem “troubled” (line 49) at the prediction that she will end up with a man like Horst (line 46), this line is in reference to Riese and Hannah’s romantic feelings toward Riese are not mentioned in the passage.

Choice C is incorrect because while Hannah’s distaste for Riese is made clear, there is no reference to how others feel toward Riese. If anything, the fact that he holds his position and was spending time recreationally in Hannah’s home implies that Riese is thought of positively by others.

Choice D is incorrect because while Riese does spring into action upon Hannah’s suggestion, (lines 16-20), he has not failed at his task. He may be slightly behind or delayed, but he does seem to be capable and active.

3. The descriptions in the final paragraphs indicate that what Hannah has in conflict with Frau Sander is her

A) expectations for the future.

B) ability to frighten others.

C) optimism for the future.

D) love for her family.

Content: Information and Ideas (detail question)       Key: C

Objective: You must characterize the relationship between two individuals in the passage

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer. Frau Sander is smiling (line 44) but Hannah is troubled (line 49) and feeling “desperation” (40).

Choice A is a tempting answer, but it is incorrect because while Hannah is not excited about the future, she does believe that Frau Sander is not incorrect in her predictions. They both have the same expectations.

Choice B is incorrect because while Hannah is able to intimidate Riese where Frau Sander is not, Frau Sander’s prediction for Hannah’s future despite her good intentions does upset Hannah. They both have frightened someone in this passage.

Choice D is incorrect because although Hannah is worried about a future focused solely on family, she does care for her family (lines 35-36) and works to provide them with a warm, safe home just as Frau Sander does. Consider Frau Sander “humming” as she prepares a meal (line 3).

4. As used in line 8, the word “ersatz” most nearly means

A) traditional.

B) old.

C) inferior.

D) cheap.

Content: Rhetoric (vocabulary in context)                 Key: C

Objective: You must determine the meaning of a word in the context in which it appears.

Explanation: Choice C is the best answer because the context makes clear that “ersatz” was in contrast to something someone was “enjoying” (line 7), something “real” (line 7), and something one had to “settle for” (line 9).

Choice A is incorrect because although ersatz is an old word that rose to prominence during WWI, at no point in the relevant sentence does it refer to or imply that the opposite coffee is modern.

Choice B is incorrect in a similar fashion to Choice A. The opposite of “real” (real 7) and enjoyable (line 7) is not old.

Choice D is incorrect because while it may be implied by the narrative that Hannah lives a comfortable and wealthy life, it is not explicitly stated nor tied to the household’s choice in coffee. There is no reason to think that the coffee is expensive, though it does seem exclusive.

In the publishing world, a book cover is a critical component to success. Compelling design makes a strong first impression before the audience even reads a single word. It sets the mood and takes the first swing at a sales pitch. The cover’s overall purpose is to give away just enough to persuade the reader and capture the story inside, without revealing too much.

There are overt themes to Harold Coyle’s newest work of historical fiction, The Other Side of the Wire, like World War II and coming-of-age, but there are quieter points of investigation as well that are still prominent and important: ideas like identity, isolation, and innocence. When designing and selecting a cover for this recent Master Wings Publishing release, it was important that the final choice would as much as possible represent the full picture of the novel. This was, in the end, why the final cover was chosen over other options. As the author Harold Coyle explains, it “comes closest to reflecting all the themes of the story.”

Below you can see a few initial drafts for the cover that were not selected. While they are all striking, and definitively demonstrate an understanding of the text, we decided the final cover of the child standing alone, peering through a fence, pulls sentiment more strongly than the smoke and flags of draft one, for example, and illustrates the searching and role of the novel’s main character better than the face-on appearance of the second option. We wanted the audience to know upon simply viewing the cover that this was a book about a child, set in World War II, striving for identity and justice in a large and oppressive world. Cover one gives us no depiction of the protagonist, potentially leading a causal viewer to think it was a maneuver and military heavy title, and the protagonist on cover two sits far more strongly, largely, and passively than the actual main character behaves.

Which cover do you like best? Why? Do you agree with our decision?

The book is available for purchase here. For some other discussion points and investigation of themes check out our list of discussion questions here.

When educator Tiffany P. picked up The Other Side of the Wire, she could not put it down. “I read it in one night because it was so gripping,” she wrote. “I felt like I was there, in that point in history.”

Harold Coyle’s latest work is a thought-provoking, historical fiction book that not only tells an empathetic, coming of age transgender story, but also delivers on Coyle’s thorough research of the WWII time period.

Recent Master Wings Publishing release, The Other Side of the Wire, is a great book club pick, as it explores a wide range of subjects that inspire not only internal introspection of themes and expectations but also an external exploration of both the past and present. Below, we have pulled together several questions to help kickstart discussions on the title.

Caution: some oblique spoilers follow.

Focus on individuals:

1. How did your opinion of the characters change as the book progressed?
2. Were you ever mad or frustrated with Hannah, the main character? Why?
3. Consider Hannah’s relationship with Wolfgang and Siegfried. Is she a good sister? What makes a good sibling?
4. When growing up, Hannah and her friends nickname a hated teacher “the Blonde Cow.” What cruel nicknames have you encountered in your own life? Were they deserved?
5. Throughout the novel, Hannah repeatedly insists that “luck has nothing to do with this or anything else I do.” Do you believe in luck? Do you think Hannah is lucky?

Focus on family:

6. Have you ever disagreed with your parents/ family? What about and why?
7. Hannah’s biological and adopted family tried to shield her from the reality of the world. Did your family ever keep difficult truths from you? How did you feel when you found out the truth? To what extent is this kind of action acceptable?
8. Do you see family, like Ernst Richter did, as an escape isolated from the rest of the world?
9. Hannah reacted very differently to losing her biological father as she did to losing Lena Richter. Why were these responses different? Have you ever lost someone close to you? How did you react?
10. Hannah is pressured to consider Peter Bauer and then Horst Fischer as acceptable matches. Have you ever experienced similar romantic pressures from your family? How did you react?

Focus on community:

11. Have you ever been willfully ignorant, as Hannah was? Was there a tipping point where you could no longer ignore things?
12. Do you feel pressured by the public’s perception of your gender to play a certain role?
13. When Hannah meets her idol, Madam Delome, it does not at all go as she expected. Have you ever met someone you admired/ a celebrity? How was the experience? Did they live up to your expectations?
14. What scene has stuck with you the most, and why?
15. What surprised you the most about the book? Did you learn any new historical information? Were you inspired to investigate any topic in further detail?

To see how the author, Harold Coyle, answered some questions of their own check out this interview.

If you are interested in ordering bulk copies of this book for your book club, reach out via email to discuss discount opportunities.

We would love to hear any of your thoughts on these questions—feel free to comment on this post or find us on social media.

Master Wings Publishing recently released The Other Side of the Wire by Harold Coyle, a thought-provoking fictional novel that not only tells an empathetic transgender story, but also delivers on Coyle’s thorough research of the time period.

The book is available for purchase here.

With an extensive glossary and sixteen pages of historical notes included, The Other Side of the Wire and Master Wings Publishing work hard to be a resource and spark varied interests. And beyond that, we are happy to share now five titles that provide valuable accompanying material for anyone reading The Other Side of the Wire, or for anyone interested in its subjects of WWII, coming-of-age stories, Jewish heritage, and gender identity.

1. The Mascot: Unraveling The Mystery Of My Jewish Father’s Nazi Boyhood by Mark Kurzem

ISBN: 9780452289949

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

Link: http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/85162077

When a Nazi death squad raided his Latvian village, Jewish five-year-old Alex escaped. After surviving the winter by foraging for food and stealing clothes off dead soldiers, he was discovered by a Latvian SS unit. Not knowing he was Jewish, they made him their mascot, dressing the little “corporal” in uniform and toting him from massacre to massacre.

If, after reading Hannah’s tale in The Other Side of the Wire, you wanted to know more about the struggle and conflict that comes from the effort to survive as a Jewish child amongst Nazis in WWII, Mark Kuzem’s The Mascot is the choice for you. Its publisher describes it as “a survival story, a grim fairy-tale, and a psychological drama” that “asks provocative questions about identity, complicity, and forgiveness.”

2. The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust by Edith Hahn-Beer

ISBN: 9780062378088

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

Link: http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/42027548

Edith Hahn was a law student and outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a slave labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman and went underground. With the help of a Christian friend, she emerged in Munich as Grete Denner. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite Edith’s protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity a secret. In wrenching detail, Edith recalls a life of constant, almost paralyzing fear.

It is, as Publishers Weekly notes, “important both as a personal testament and as an inspiring example of perseverance in the face of terrible adversity. Edith Hahn-Beer’s gripping memoirs offer a true glimpse of the particular internal conflict that formed the basis for The Other Side of the Wire’s characters.

3. When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation 1940-1944 by Ronald C. Rosbottom

ISBN: 9780316365987

Genre: Nonfiction

Link: http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/883357213

On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. When Paris Went Dark evokes with precision the detail of daily life in a city under occupation, and the brave people who fought against the darkness. It relies on a range of resources–memoirs, diaries, letters, archives, interviews, personal histories, flyers and posters, fiction, photographs, film, and historical studies– to produce a vivid and haunting picture.

Hannah, the main character of The Other Side of the Wire, spends some critical time in occupied Paris and this title expands on that sphere, also illuminating the context of supporting character Madame Delome. With this work, Rosbottom offers the reader a more precise understanding of a world Coyle brushes up against and several of his characters are shaped by.

4. Survival in Auschwitz and The Reawakening, Two Memoirs by Primo Levi translated by Stuart Woolf

ISBN: 9780671605414

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

Link: http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/12810204

The author describes his twenty month ordeal in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in what one Amazon reviewer describes as a text “bereft of memory’s distorting fiction yet enriched by a compassion for suffering.” Through much of The Other Side of the Wire’s text, Hannah is ignorant of the horrors around her—this is a painful but necessary account of those horrors.

5. The Brigade: An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and World War II by Howard Blum

ISBN: 9780060194864

Genre: Nonfiction

Link: http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/library/online-catalog/view/oclc/46504694

This nonfiction title recounts the activities of three men known as the Brigade, who, amidst the turmoil of post-war Europe, eliminated Nazi officers in hiding and engineered the rescue and transportation of Holocaust survivors to Palestine.

If you wanted to know more about vengeance and activity immediately following the war, a topic that The Other Side of the Wire touches briefly on in its final chapters, this is the book you should read. A carefully researched work, The Brigade adds a harrowing but triumphant accounting.

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There are many vital and important titles on this subject matter. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is a list that will help any individual better understand the period and its implications. As Coyle writes, to ignore this past “is to condemn future generations to the horrors and suffering our forebears endured.” Read Coyle’s full interview on our blog here.

All of these titles and many more, including film and podcasts, are available for members to borrow at The Pritzker Military Museum and Library, which is now carefully reopening and offering express library service. Visit this link for more information!