Sands writes with passion and intensity; he writes about his relations so movingly, succeeding in making a very... A personal family history is woven into the fate of the Jews in Poland during the most harrowing historical period of the 20th century. . And all the while Sands works in the way of artists like Filippo Lippi, who painted himself into the corner of his ‘Coronation of the Virgin’ and ‘The Funeral of Saint Stephen.’ . I certainly did learn a lot though, since the author is a lawyer and two of the main characters are lawyers, there is much legalese in here. In his brilliant, deeply moving 2016 book “East West Street,” Philippe Sands … A personal family history is woven into the fate of the Jews in Poland during the most harrowing historical period of the 20th century. Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. . . The hearings had taken a toll on the man who had been Adolf Hitler’s personal lawyer and then personal representative in German-occupied Poland, with his pink cheeks, sharp little nose, and sleeked-back hair. “A monumental achievement . . . Two of the people we follow are prominent legal scholars, each of whom was instrumental in the Nuremberg Nazi trials in 1946. . The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed. It is also a spellbinding family memoir, as the author traces the mysterious story of his grandfather, as he maneuvered through Europe in the face of Nazi atrocities. I have not forgotten. I couldn't put it down. He wanted no mention of genocide or group identity. This revolutionary new concept has placed limits on state sovereignty ever since and has meant that states are no longer free to treat their people as they wish. To see our price, add these items to your cart. Niklas sat down and leaned forward on the wooden rail. Get the latest international news and world events from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and more. . Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. . An historical narrative, this story ultimately reads like the most engrossing novel you’ve ever read. “Remarkable . .   Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. . (Prices may vary for AK and HI.). Yet they provide a unique picture of the tragedy of life as experienced by Jews in the city in those years. In 2003 he was appointed a Queen’s Counsel. Courtroom 600, still a working courtroom, was not greatly changed since the time of the trial. The Times of London, the former lawn tennis correspondent who reported each day on the trial. In this book he looks at the genesis of the crimes against humanity and genocide. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. Up until this point the state was free to act as it wished – discriminate, torture and kill. The abuse of rationalization is never justified, Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2021. Lemkin, in contrast, argued persistently for the law to encompass genocide – the extermination of racial and religious groups in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial and religious groups. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, No Import Fees Deposit & $12.28 Shipping to Poland. a riveting odyssey. . . In East West Street, the reader actually gets treated to three stories. Ultimately, Sands’s multifaceted book stands triumphantly alone. . Okay, I’ve been trying to figure out what to write in this review of Philippe Sands’ book, “The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive”. . “In a triumph of astonishing research, Sands has brilliantly woven together several family stories which lead to the great denouement at the Nuremberg tribunal. From the book EAST WEST STREET by Philippe Sands, copyright © 2016 by Philippe Sands. Powerful because of the sheer scale, sophistication and coldly calculated execution of the crimes. Not the most cheerfully titled Xmas present I have ever received. Rafael Lemkin listened to the judgment on a wireless, from a bed in an American military hospital in Paris. . “Remarkable .   The road to international law through family secrets, Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2020. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. Get in-depth analysis on current news, happenings and headlines. This leaves a rather uneven flow to the book. . I have given 5 copies of this book to close Jewish and non-Jewish friends. - No highlighting or underlining. . In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. It looks like WhatsApp is not installed on your phone. Barack Obama and his successors would be well advised to move to the top of their reading lists this account of the birth, amid the darkest conceivable shadows, of an unprecedented body of rights-based law, whose application has scarcely begun.” —Bernard-Henri Lévy, To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Ships directly from Amazon and is eligible for Prime or Super Saver (free) shipping. “A story of heroes and loss. East West Street, Philippe Sands brings all the power of his formidable intellect, his inquisitive spirit and his emotional imagination to bear on a complicated tangle of personal, legal and European history. “My father was a lawyer; he knew what he did.” complex and gripping . Sands writes with passion and intensity; he writes about his relations so movingly, succeeding in making a very readable book, despite some weighty legal references. London Review of Books A fusion of personal and professional interest, with Sands delving into his family’s cordoned-off past to unearth concealed truths and trace the circumstances that led to the birth of his chosen field of humanitarian law. It raises the question whether, in the darkest corners of our minds, we all may really believe that some humans have a greater right than some others, to exist on this planet. . However, the style of writing is rather choppy, making it difficult at times to stay interested in what you are reading. Powerful because the subject of establishing international law of crimes against humanity and genocide is so important. Financial Times On that long journey, he carried a number of valises, each crammed with documents, among them many decrees signed by Frank. remarkable.” —John Tirman, .   .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look. . Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! This powerful account of race and racism is set in apartheid-era South Africa. . .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. In a gripping account of the trial (supported by some remarkable photographs), Sands notes that it was “the first time in human history that the leaders of a state were put on trial before an international court for crimes against humanity and genocide, two new crimes.” There is much fascinating legal detail in the book, and the hero is the great Cambridge Law Professor, Hersch Lauterpacht, the father of modern human rights whose own family perished in Poland. “Sands proceeds in the manner of certain historians . engaging. The origins of the “crimes against humanity“ and “genocide“ phrases are so interesting, and the background from Sands’s research is amazing. . vivid . East West Street weaves lives together in a kind of collective biography of a generation . I wanted more and will definitely research more into this period. The last time Niklas had been in this part of the building was in September 1946. . . remarkable . This is a history that is both personal and universal. Indeed, they come across as rather ordinary people---amoral and unreflective, much less introspective. It left you hungry for more insight into their thinking as the momentous events of the 1930s and 40s unfolded around them. . The surprise is that even when charting the complexities of law, Sands’s writing has the intrigue, verve and material density of a first-rate thriller. Back in 1946, the route from the cells required each of the twenty-one defendants to travel up a small elevator that led directly to the courtroom, a contraption that Niklas and I were keen to see. Almost all members of both families were killed during the Holocaust. .orange-text-color {color: #FE971E;} Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip. At the other end of the street, Hersh Lauterpacht was born. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. In this book he looks at the genesis of the crimes against humanity and... Phillipe Sands is a lawyer and scholar. . . . . a profoundly personal account of the origins of crimes against humanity and genocide, told with love, anger and precision.” —John le Carré See world news photos and videos at ABCNews.com Lauterpacht put the term ‘crimes against humanity’ – "three words" which, as Sands puts it, "describe the murder of four million Jews and Poles on the territory of Poland” - into the Nuremburg trial. .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more. A large part of his family was murdered in the holocaust. . . “In He had worked tirelessly to get the crime of genocide into Frank’s trial, but on this last day of the trial he was too unwell to attend. The Spectator Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! He feared group identity create a sharp backlash and poorly drafted laws would have unintended consequences. New York Times Book Review (cover review) . Parallel with his personal story is that of two lawyers who, in one of the many coincidences that characterise the book, came from the same part of the world as his family and who, each in his own way, contributed to the vocabulary of international law. Philippe Sands is a British and French lawyer at Matrix Chambers, and Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London. Sands’s book is so well constructed and gives an excellent view into WWII and its effect on Ukraine, though it shows a broad international scope and settings. Impressive is Sands' thoughtful illumination of the magnitude of the revolutionary protection of the "individual" over the interests of the "state, " in describing the writings of one of his principal subjects, Professor Hersch Lauterpacht of Cambridge. He believed the law must reflect true motive and real intent. A public prosecutor and then a lawyer in Warsaw, he fled Poland in 1939, when the war broke out, and eventually reached America. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. Mine were, immigrated in the late 1890's: If not, there is a very good chance my parents nor I would have been alive to read the book. This is a well-written, meticulously researched book, but it yields a rather superficial portrait of Nazi power couple Otto and Charlotte Wachter. . Please try your request again later. We sat together in a small cell, like the one in which his father spent the better part of a year. East West Street is a street in Zolkiew , now Ukraine, on one end of which lived Leon Buchholz, Philippe Sands’ grandfathers. Sands’s greatest achievement is the way he moves between his family story and the lives of Lauterpacht and Lemkin and how he brings their complex work to life.   For example, the extraordinary story of Elsie Tilney of Norwich who, working in the French resistance, travelled to Vienna where Philippe’s desperate grandmother handed a baby, Philippe’s mother, to her to avoid transportation to the death camps. Or the story of Philippe Sands’ investigations with Nicolas Frank, son of the butcher of Poland, who was horrified by the actions of his father who he totally rejected whilst openly acknowledging his ancestry. . You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges, Or get 4-5 business-day shipping on this item for $5.99 This is ironic since the source material is a rich trove of Wachter diaries, personal correspondence, and other primary documents, much of which had not been published before. . In this page-turning work of non-fiction Philippe Sands combines a personal memoir with a legal and political history. Select a location to see product availability, [{"displayPrice":"$18.99","priceAmount":18.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"18","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"FOGrpEmULISCvO63tFyHZ8r5o4aVoEsZIevmdtmrsjYCcAmoDGY7SbD%2Bvp9EkjEDk1DeWHX5mfGh6EpHpNgB1u3teOZ%2FLSyrkhgDHAAuyQ4pjvp4mpAwHhxxwoL6bsPt4aWu8oxxhx0RVrBF1a1VVg%3D%3D","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$17.09","priceAmount":17.09,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"17","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"09","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"uop5JRBdXOrA1hzdNzepxoVnFdXPIh5btD15jWgZM5gu7OpvHZN2Hxe66VqlwgKQfB4SIrdmFZLiF64oJCrVa%2BTfcn%2FRRbQQQoiOlXC9IJ2MHam9AGFxNZOwXGfCxtclqs6Y6SubiovgDUs%2B0TKUCGIjVkp135UThuf4xV8jAA%2F5Z14bA%2B5pYbEgIcRtR3kl","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]. moving and powerful.” —Mark Mazower, We need this Account Information to register you. Jewish Daily Forward   Sands tells it not just as history but as a family memoir, a detective thriller and a meditation on the power of memory . But in the case of Otto von Wachter, governor of the Polish area around Kraków, he got as far as Rome before dying in 1949 of an infection of some sort, presumably caught from swimming in fetid waters. . A profound and profoundly important book—a moving personal detective story, an uncovering of secret pasts, and a book that explores the creation and development of world-changing legal concepts that came about as a result of the unprecedented atrocities of Hitler’s Third Reich. A large part of his family was murdered in the holocaust. . Written with novelistic skill, its prose effortlessly poised, its tone perfectly judged, the book teems with life and high drama . Please use a different way to share. Exceptionally well researched. I n his much-celebrated 2016 memoir, East West Street, Philippe Sands deftly wove together the story of a personal quest to uncover family secrets in … .orange-text-color {color: #FE971E;} Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip. Sixty-eight years later I visited courtroom 600 in the company of Hans Frank’s son Niklas, who was a small boy when that promise was made. . I have given 5 copies of... Incredibly researched, well written and will tear your heart out if your grandparents are from the general area. . East West Street a machine of power and beauty that should not be ignored by anyone in the United States or elsewhere who would believe that there are irreparable crimes whose adjudication should not stop at the border. He spoke gently and firmly. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. The book’s title doesn’t exactly square with what I’d always thought the post-WW2 ratlines were, which were escape routes out of Europe for Nazis to settle in South America or some Middle-East countries. . In Sands’s history, as in all great novels, we encounter characters who, though seemingly secondary, are essential to the plot . It takes the form of a memoir, one that is fearsomely honest and engaging, in … Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2021. . . . These trials were the birth of international law as we know it today, and the first time in recorded history where the leaders of a nation were held accountable for for crimes committed against their own people. Thoughtful, and compassionate, and important.” —Daniel Hahn, —Michael Chabon, author of Please try again. The author is methodical in his unwrapping of that terrible time in the history of Poland, its people and its aggressors. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. . Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice . This is the best kind of intellectual history . . New Statesman Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. . He called it “genocide.” Unlike Lauterpacht, with his focus on crimes against humanity, which aimed at the protection of individuals, he was more concerned with the protection of groups. A little after three o’clock in the afternoon, the wooden door behind the defendant’s dock slid open and Hans Frank entered court- room 600. The book culminates in his trial, together with two dozen other leading Nazis, at Nuremberg in November 1946-47.