Silent Battlefields

by Hugh Rosen

Selig Kruger, once a dedicated Hitler Youth and committed Nazi soldier, confronts his past when he meets Eva, the woman whose life he spared nearly thirty years ago. "She remembered learning from the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595347738
• ISBN13: 9780595347735
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Good Read!

Mr. Rosen's novel, Silent Battlefield, read like a dream. His words were like a gentle spring flowing out so eloquently and effortlessly. You feel so immersed in the novel, actually seeing, feeling, and being a silent participant wondering about what tomorrow will bring. His keen observation of human behavior and inner thought processes was so well described in this novel. Consequently, this novel draws you in so that you can relate to all the characters, their mental anguishes, and inter-actions with each other, yet realizing that each character is uniquely different. I very much enjoyed watching the unfolding of each character's life story from their particular circumstances as they matured into self-fulfilled persons. In that process, you see their pains, struggles, and coming to terms with who they are. In short, there is a lesson here about life, about good and evil, and about the reality that a person's private actions do matter in becoming your own person.

The best of both

Rarely do you find a novel that so closely approximates what you'd expect to hear from the personal experiences of Holocaust survivors. Rosen captured their essence so beautifully and even created a Nazi character that you could sympathize with, root for which may be hard to believe if you are a Jew. On the one hand his plot seems beyond belief, that two people whose pathes have crossed in a world gone mad, could come together across an ocean. Yet it is always the seemingly impossible that can be spellbinding and horrifying at the same time. How such an encounter could turn out so differently is credit to a writer with imagination to go beyone the stereotypical Holocaust stories and create a hauntingly poignant tale. Don't miss it if you're a Holocaust "junkie" like me.

Silent Battlefields: The battle within each of us.

This is a gripping novel that keeps you engaged until the last page. The "battlefield" surrounds you as you connect with real people in their personal strugges with good versus evil, hate vesus love,and societies judgements versus self judgement. There are happy lovers and sad lovers in this book but we can identify with all of them. While the Holocaust is the fire that ignites this tale, Rosen leads his characers through it to today's world -and we follow. a most satisfying read

A moving story intelligently written

Among the delights in reading "Silent Battlefields," are the deeply human connections one makes with this novel's sensitively developed characters. It is difficult to comprehend how this can be Hugh Rosen's first novel when taking into consideration the sagacious craftsmanship with which he reveals to his readers the inner souls of his characters while guiding us through multiple, intertwining levels of their truly moving and eloquently told life stories. This is a novel that never gets bogged down in unnecessary exposition. Instead, readers will find themselves moving through intriguing situations and thought-provoking episodes from beginning to the novel's end. I found myself marveling at the many twists and turns of this multi-layered story, and impressed by an ever expanding awareness of how each character's inner-most struggles are so carefully revealed at just the right moments within the tapestry of very believable conflicts each character presents. The book is aptly named because it is not about a very loud WWII, nor is it specifically about the horrors of The Holocaust. However, these tragic historical realities do serve as the backdrop upon which the characters in this novel play out their personal struggles to define their lives with each other and to find within themselves the courage to make the choices so essential in their respective lives. For me, "Silent Battlefields" refers to the battlefields we experience within our own psyche when engaged in desperate private struggles to break free of thought and behavior patterns that no longer seem to work in the face of ever-changing life challenges. Because we all can relate to the existence of our own "silent battlefields," the struggles and triumphs presented in this exquisite novel make for an irresistible read.

You will have trouble putting this book down.

This is no ordinary work of fiction. On one level it is the mesmerizing tale of three generations of people whose lives were shaped directly or indirectly by the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. On another level, it is an eloquently written piece of literature which compels the reader to grapple with the darker side of humanness as it delves into concepts such as war, hate, loyalty, prejudice, guilt, and death. On yet a third level it is an inspiring, albeit explosive, story of forbidden love, sacrifice, hope and forgiveness. "Silent Battlefields" contains profound moral teachings. Among them is the reality that if we assume that we understand an individual's character, motivation or intention because we know the predominate ideology of their homeland-we will be mistaken. Countries are made up of people, but people are not necessarily the product of their countries. Although this book contains a good deal of tension, it also consists of cheery banter and good humor among several of its characters. This unique novel will leave the reader with strong feelings and much to think about.