Description
Book SynopsisThe Washington Post Notable Non-Fiction of 2013
On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht comes this untold story of a teenager whose act of defiance would have dire international consequences.
Trade Review"Kirsch expertly picks through the murky details to shed new light on the historical significance. A compelling study." -- Kirkus Reviews
"In his well-crafted study… Jonathan Kirsch manages to put some meat on the skinny frame of his protagonist and also to put a human face on his victim. In so doing, Kirsch has made a valuable contribution to our understanding of Kristallnacht, whose 75th anniversary falls this year." -- David Clay Large - Los Angeles Times
"No novelist could invent a story with as many twists of history and character as the one Jonathan Kirsch tells about Herschel Grynszpan…
The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan illuminates the countless short and tragic lives of eastern European Jews running for shelter in the terrible days leading up to World War II." -- Alice Kaplan, author of The Collaborator and Dreaming in French
"With a storyteller’s touch and a lawyer’s insight, Kirsch elevates this tragic tale and makes it read like a legal and moral thriller." -- Thane Rosenbaum, author of Payback: The Case for Revenge and The Myth of Moral Justice
"Herschel Grynszpan wanted nothing more than to be remembered for his rash, heroic actions. In Kirsch, he has finally found an objective, yet passionate, chronicler." -- Ronald C. Rosbottom, professor of French and European studies, Amherst College
"On Nov. 7, 1938, a troubled Jewish teenager walked into an embassy in Paris, got in to see a low-level Nazi attache and shot him dead—a killing that gave Hitler a pretext for the savage, anti-Semitic orgy of Kristallnacht." -- Scott Martelle - Washington Post
