Review by Booklist Review
An evocative picture does more than replace the proverbial number of words; it can also inspire action. In 2009, Lower (Hitler's Furies, 2013) was given an unusual photograph: a WWII-era action shot of Nazis committing a massacre. The image conjured questions, and a quest: Where did this crime take place, who were the women and children killed, and most importantly, could she identify the murderers--and, if they were still alive, could they be brought to justice? The site was identified as a small Ukrainian village, and Lower traveled to speak to people still alive who could fill in details missing from the astonishingly complete records left by the Nazis and the Soviets who followed. She eventually found the ravine and, with the assistance of a network of Holocaust investigators, was able to decipher what she calls the "topographical mayhem" that exists to this day. The Ravine is a researcher's story, with fully a third of the book devoted to documentation. The measured, direct narrative style does not diminish the impact of this remarkable story, worthy of a place in any library's collection.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Historian Lower (Hitler's Furies) delivers a disturbing and meticulously researched account of the genocide of Ukrainian Jews during WWII. Between July and October 1941, Lower notes, more than 50,000 men, women, and children were murdered in mass shootings in Ukraine and Belarus. She focuses her study on a rare photograph depicting the moment Nazi and Ukrainian officers shot a young boy and his mother at the edge of a ravine near Miropol, Ukraine. In her quest to identify the victims and perpetrators, Lower presents recent research on the scale of collaboration between local officials and Nazi forces, and concludes police officers and town constables in small villages throughout Eastern Europe "committed murder against their neighbors." She initially assumed the photographer was a collaborator, but later discovered he had been denounced by Nazi authorities and might have taken the photo as an act of passive resistance. Despite traveling to Miropol and interviewing elderly residents, Lower is unable to identify the mother and child in the picture. Still, her search uncovers a wealth of information related to WWII in Ukraine and makes a persuasive case for how historical scholarship can "help turn the wheels of justice." This harrowing chronicle casts the Holocaust in a stark new light. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In August 2009, a shocking photo was presented to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. A woman's execution, face obscured by rifle smoke, falling forward while dropping a small child, her other hand still gripping that of a kneeling toddler. The photo dated from 1941 in Miropol, Ukraine, was unique because the executors' faces were visible. Holocaust scholar Lower (history, Claremont McKenna Coll.; Hitler's Furies) was compelled to identify everyone in the photograph in an attempt to prove how a single story welds "power to hold our attention, reveal a wealth of information about the Holocaust, and demand action." Successfully solving a 70-year-old murder seemed improbable, yet Lower named the photographer, several perpetrators already prosecuted for war-era crimes, and the likely identities of the victims. Lower combed archives throughout Europe, the United States, and Israel in her quest for justice. Her research also contributed to the broader history of Ukrainian genocide, which remains underdeveloped. The personal narratives and photographs throughout are rich with heartbreaking detail into lives lost and the severe persecution of Ukrainian Jews. VERDICT No comparable title exists that focuses exclusively on the mysterious background behind one single photo, making this compelling history an essential read for World War II enthusiasts.--Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The author of Hitler's Furies returns with an account of how a disturbing Holocaust photograph turned into a humanitarian research project. In 2009, Lower, the director of the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College, was on a mission to find documentation that would bring Bernhard Frank, "the highest-ranking SS officer known to be alive in Germany at that time," to justice. During her research, she came across a photo showing a group of men executing a woman and a boy "at the edge of a ravine." That discovery became the focal point for a seven-year investigative odyssey dedicated to tracking down and identifying the shooters as well as the photographer and, more importantly, the victims. Lower traveled to the scene of the crime, a forest on the outskirts of a Ukrainian town called Miropol. Research in Germany led her to ascertain that the victims "were the remnant of a [Jewish] community being destroyed after the first wave of [Nazi] killings in the summer of 1941." Based on "hundreds of testimonies of Germans, Slovakians, and Ukrainians [who] passed through or resided in Miropol, and of the one Jewish survivor," writes the author, "I was able to reconstruct events just before, during, and after the photograph was taken." She later discovered that the photographer was a member of the Slovakian resistance and that the perpetrators were Ukrainian policemen who collaborated with the Nazis and met harsh fates. The author's expansive research in Soviet archives and Jewish genealogical databases led her to identify and interview possible family members who had managed to escape the Holocaust. The profundity of Lower's commitment to justice is both admirable and evident. Meticulously researched and thoughtfully written, her book is a testimonial to the power of countering ignorance with education and the importance of restoring the dignity of personhood to those erased by genocide. An intelligent and restoratively compassionate historical excavation. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
