Publicity
Inge has been included in the New York Public Library's "Books for the Teen Age 2005", an annual listing of books recommended for teen reading.
Inge has been named a finalist in the 2005 Intependent Publisher Book Awards, for Autobiography/Memoir. Competition is tough, as more than 2,000 books are submitted for consideration, and in each category there are two finalists and a winner. "Inge" appears also to be the only Holocaust-related book to win any honors. More information at www.independentpublisher.com.
Inge has been named one of nine selections of Hadassah Book Club for 2005. Hadassah, an international organization of Jewish women, has about 300,000 members worldwide, and 700 book clubs.
The Worcester Jewish Chronicle explored in-depth the psychological issues around Inge and the experiences of co-author David Gumpert.
In a recent BusinessWeek Online column, David Gumpert described the growing media reluctance to write about Holocaust works, and the resulting difficulties both "Inge" and the movie "Rosenstrasse" have had gaining publicity.
The Boston Globe described David Gumpert's personal journey to come to grips with losing his aunt, and then reconnecting to her via the researching and writing of Inge.
The Chicago Jewish News reported on Inge and how several of its main characters wound up in Chicago.
The Waltham Tribune profiled author David Gumpert and the youngest member of Inge's group, Manfred Manasse.
The Newton Tab described Inge and profiled two of Inge's friends from their teen years, Ilse and Hans Garfunkel.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune profiled Inge's sister, Leonore Gumpert, in which she discussed her sadness and regrets about the family's trauma.
The Tampa Tribune recently ran an in-depth feature article about "Inge" and Tampa-area survivor Edith Goldapper Rosenthal.
The San Francisco Chronicle ran a lengthy feature about "Inge", its authors, and two Bay Area survivors recently, in its Living section.
The Needham Times published a profile of David Gumpert and his account of how he developed "Inge" over the last decade.
Here is an article about "Inge" and its background from The Jewish Advocate.
Reviews
"Inge is one of the frankest and saddest books I have ever read about Jewish children during World War II."--Haaretz
"...a well-crafted, readable, honest, heartbreaking portrait of what his aunt endured during her childhood."
JBooks.com
Read the full review at JBooks.com
"...a suspenseful tale of courage, luck, and tragedy."
Chicago Sun-Times
"Compelling"
Booklist
"In January 1939, when Bleier was 14, her parents sent her from Darmstadt, Germany, to Brussels to live with her father's cousin. Later, she was sent to a Jewish children's home there. When the Germans bombed the city, Bleier and other children were taken to a French village, where they lived in filthy conditions in an abandoned goat barn. In 1941, the Swiss Red Cross moved her and other Jewish children to an old castle in the south of France. In January 1943, she attempted to escape to Switzerland but was caught. Her second attempt, in October 1943, was successful. Gumpert is Bleier's nephew, and this book is based on a 66-page manuscript that he found after her death in Chicago in 1983. Gumpert also found some of her personal letters, and he was able to interview many of her friends and relatives, who gave him a number of black-and-white photos (32 of them appear in^B the book). The result is a compelling account of one woman's personal Holocaust struggle."
Booklist
George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
"...The book captures the authentic voice of fear, threat, loss and grief embedded in the grit of daily life, of an individual trapped in a Poe-like room in which the crushing walls move ever closer...Beneath it all runs the quiet moral strength of those, often motivated by Christian faith, who made her survival possible."
Catholic Library World
"Poignant and powerful"
“Poignant and powerful, this memoir is the joint effort of the survivor, Inge Joseph Bleier, and her able nephew, David E. Gumpert, who successfully captures the voice and tone of his aunt and weaves the narrative in a moving work. One senses the anticipation of danger, the anguish of the unknown, and the precariousness of life on the run, along with the excitement of a girl growing into a woman, the discovery of first love, and of one’s ability to confront an all-powerful enemy. This is no romantization of the past nor of the mix blessing of survival, but an honest recollection of things past. I recommend the work highly.”
MICHAEL BERENBAUM
Director, Sigi Ziering Institute and Adjunct Professor of Theology, The University of Judaism
Former Director, The Research Institute at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
"An absorbing, unsentimental narrative"
“Unlike Anne Frank, Inge Joseph was separated from her family as a young teen and spent the war years living with children’s groups in Belgium and France a few steps ahead of the Germans. David Gumpert has transformed his aunt’s manuscript about her ordeal into an absorbing, unsentimental narrative that combines relief of survival with the melancholy of memory. This story of a Jewish girl’s efforts to reshape her fate while resisting her doom pays tribute to those who helped her stay alive without minimizing the perils of discovery that frequently threatened them. Inge’s subsequent life in America reminds readers that one may outlive the past without always escaping its painful legacy."
LAWRENCE L. LANGER
author of Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory
"A moving portrait...and a page-turner to boot"
“This is a moving portrait of a young Jewish girl’s amazing journey of survival through Nazi Europe, and it is a page-turner to boot. Equally important, it is a significant addition to the literature about the impact of the Holocaust on survivor families—on the terrible choices families had to make because they could not save all their children. While ‘Inge’ eloquently captures the triumph of will that helped children survive the horrors of the Holocaust, it is also a cautionary and sad tale about the heavy burden of guilt for children once they became adults.”
IRIS POSNER
Co-founder and President, One Thousand Children, Inc.®
Co-editor, Don’t Wave Goodbye (Praeger Greenwood, 2004)