This book was donated to BookCrossing by Aspenwood, an assisted living facility in Silver Spring, Maryland.

I just read another copy of this book. Here's what I wrote:

This is the most chilling book that I have read in many years. Perhaps, had I not read this book within the first week of the election of Donald Trump to the office of president of the United States, it might not have had the same impact on me. I've always been curious about the "disappeared" Jews of Argentina since the years 1972-1973 when I met young Argentine dissidents when I was a volunteer nurse in Israel. Years afterward, I was horrified by Nathan Englander's novel about this subject, "A Ministry for Special Cases" because I never really stopped to ponder what could have happened to the "disappeared".

The author of this memoir, Jacobo Timerman, was a Soviet-born Jewish long-time journalist and publisher of the Argentine newspaper La Opinion. With the overthrow of power by a military junta in Argentina, the government swung from extreme Left to extreme Right. Timerman was taken prisoner without knowledge of why he had been arrested, tortured repeatedly and kept in prison for two years before he was stripped of his Argentine citizenship and expelled from that country.

There were so many lines in this memoir that shook me up that, by the time I had recorded them all for myself, it seemed as if I had written down half of the book. Timerman deals with many questions about totalitarianism. He talks about the repression of news, the use of torture, the extreme hatred concentrated on prisoners who are Jewish, the false idea of a Jewish "global conspiracy", the silence of fellow Jews, the hatred directed at Jews through acts of anti-Semitism (my own grandson's Jewish preschool at our local Jewish Community Center had a bomb threat this month), the fear of Zionism and Israel (my dearest family are kibbutz members), and eliminating the "enemy".

Maybe I would not feel so threatened by this had I not lost my maternal grandparents in the crematoria of Nazi Europe. However, what happened in Argentina did not take place in the 1930's. It took place less than fifty years ago, during my own lifetime, in yet another country with a large Jewish population, that of Argentina. Come 2017, and my own country, the United States of America, now has a president who is preaching hatred and the fear of others. I am truly terrified.

"The ideology motivating the Argentine military stems more from a notion of the world they reject than from a world they would like to attain. They would be unable to pinpoint or outline the reality they care to see materialize in Argentina, but could quickly describe what it is they hate. If asked what they want, their answer will be: A decent country, respectful of family life and patriotism. But ask them what they don't want, and then you'll be able to understand their view of the world and the difficulties they encounter when they must govern in accordance with such hatreds. On the other hand, as in every totalitarian mind, hatreds are transformed into fantasies and conform to a view of the world that matches these fantasies, and these very fantasies lead to the development of their operational tactics."

"For a totalitarian mind, there are no existing contradictions to justify a pluralistic, tolerant society. Nothing exists but enemies or friends."

"They could never explain what it was they wished to construct, but were always categorical in terms of what they wished to annihilate."

"Everything that happened once can happen again."

I now have to find this copy of the book so I can help it travel.

I found this book on a bookshelf upstairs in my house. Now it's ready to travel! :)

Enjoy the book!

Caught!

Thank you for returning this book to the Little Free Library of Twinbrook (#7720). I'll be saving it to go out for Round #2.

Going out for Round #2...

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Hello and welcome to BookCrossing ... where we make the whole world a
library!

Now that you've "caught" this book, it is yours to do with as you like. Read it, keep it, or give it away. It's your choice!

I'd love if you'd enter a note here on BookCrossing about this book -- where you found it, how you like it, and/or where you release it. If you join BookCrossing (free and fun), kindly list me, SqueakyChu , or any other journaler on this thread as your referring person. Thank you so much.

Enjoy the book!

I selected this book from the Little Free Library of Twinbrook (#7720) to travel elsewhere...

Hello and welcome to BookCrossing ... where we make the whole world a
library!

Now that you've "caught" this book, it is yours to do with as you like. Read it, keep it, or give it away. It's your choice!

I'd love if you'd enter a note here on BookCrossing about this book -- where you found it, how you like it, and/or where you release it. If you join BookCrossing (free and fun), kindly list me, SqueakyChu , or any other journaler on this thread as your referring person. Thank you so much.

Enjoy the book!