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Title:City of Life, City of Death : Memories of Riga
Author:Max Michelson
ISBN:0870817884 : 9780870817885
Illustrations:34 b/w photos, 2 line drawings, 2 maps
Format:Paperback
Size:155x230mm
Pages:171
Weight: .3 Kg.
Published:University Press of Colorado - September 2004
List Price: 12.99 Pounds Sterling
Availability:In Print
Subjects:True stories: Second World War: The Holocaust


A stirring and haunting personal account of the Soviet and German occupations of Latvia and of the Holocaust. Michelson had a serene boyhood in an upper middle-class Jewish family in Riga, Latvia – at least until 1940, when the fifteen-year old Michelson witnessed the annexation of Latvia by the Soviet Union. Private properties were nationalised, and Stalin's terror spread to Soviet Latvia. Soon after, Michelson's family was torn apart by the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. He quickly lost his entire family, while witnessing the unspeakable brutalities of war and genocide. Michelson's memoir is an ode to his lost family.

Part One: Growing Up Jewish in Prewar Latvia; Part Two: The War and Post-War Years.

"With each memoir by a survivor, Riga's tragic fate becomes better known. Thus Max Michelson's book, filled with poignant and moving episodes, deserves to be read by anyone wishing to learn more about the life and death of a Jewish community which included the great historian Shimon Dubnov. But it is also a story of courage and rebirth of a young man who wants to find meaning in his survival..." -- Elie Wiesel. "Through the prism of his own experiences, Michelson provides a wonderful glimpse into Eastern European life both before and during the Nazi occupation of Latvia..." -- Julie D Freeman, SUNY-Oneonta.