book, canada

Book Review: ‘Making Bombs for Hitler’

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Making Bombs for Hitler begins in the aftermath of raids of Ukrainians  kidnapped and transported to Nazi Germany as slave labour, known as Ostarbeiters. The main character Lida is separated from her sister Larissa and tries to survive the camp system with a keen intuition and quick wits, constantly in fear of what the fate or herself, her fellow children or her missing sister will be.

Lida is given quick wisdom in passing from a fellow slave labourer to ‘find a way to be useful, or they’ll kill you’. Lying about her young age and revealing a talent for embroidery taught by her mother (who was killed by the Nazis, while her father was killed by the Soviets) aids her in securing work in the laundry, avoiding the tragic fate of some of her companions who work in terrible conditions and regarded as sub-human. Her hard work ethic is noticed, and the few privileges it gains her shocks her German task masters as she selflessly shares them with her fellow slaves to help their deplorable conditions. As her reputation for quality and detail builds, Lida finds herself promoted to assembling weapons of destruction for the Nazis. This weighs heavily on her conscious, as she is haunted by the dilemma that her diligent work that keeps her useful (and therefore alive) contributes to stopping the people trying to liberate her.

Making Bombs for Hitler is a companion novel to Stolen Child which is centered around the story of Lida’s sister Larissa, whom are quickly separated at the beginning in this story.

I found this book to be quite enjoyable. While it boasts 170 pages, it is broken down into many digestible chapters and is written in a quick tempo that makes the book a surprisingly quick read. What is also refreshing is that the book does not go into too many details about World War 2, sparing the reader from all the names and places that could have turned the story into a boring history text. And while the book does bring into light the often overlooked plight of Ukrainians and even other nationalities (like the Poles or the Hungarians), one does not need to be too familiar with their back stories to understand their issues in this book.

Making Bombs for Hitler is available at local retailers and online at Chapters, Amazonand Google Books.

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch is the author of Dear Canada: Prisoners in the Promised Land: The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk, Spirit Lake, Quebec, 1914 and Stolen Child, which won the prestigious Crystal Kite Award and has been shortlisted for the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award and the Saskatchewan Diamond Willow Award. She has also written several picture books and in 2008 received the Order of Princess Olha from Ukrainian President Victor Yuschenko for Enough, which depicted the great Ukrainian famine that claimed millions of lives in the 1930s. Marsha lives in Brantford, Ontario. Her website is at http://www.calla.com.

 The book launches today Wednesday, March 7th, 2012: 7:30pm at UNF Community Centre – 145 Evans Ave, Etobicoke, Ontario. The author will give a brief talk, followed by Q&A. Books available for sale and autograph. Light refreshments.

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sports

Wladimir Klitschko retains belts [Article]

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Wladimir Klitschko stopped French challenger Jean-Marc Mormeck in the fourth round of a one-sided fight to retain the WBA and IBF heavyweight titles Saturday night.

The Ukrainian put down Mormeck with a left-right combination, followed by a short left. Mormeck beat the count but looked wobbly and referee Luis Pabon stopped the fight.

“His strategy was to make me tired, but I dominated,” Klitschko said.

Klitschko was credited with the 50th KO of his career, but Mormeck said he could have fought on.

“I was frustrated, I could have continued,” Mormeck said.

Klitschko floored Mormeck in the second and completely dominated the much smaller challenger. Mormeck never connected with a clean punch, although Klitschko said he had been hit with one jab.

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Good news  after the fight too, another boxing match is in the works:

Heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko announced on Saturday a much-awaited fight with Briton David Haye for the WBC crown without specifying a date or location.

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Weekend Watching: Taras Shevchenko mentioned on ‘House’ (Video)

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As I wrote about on Facebook Monday, I noticed a Shevchenko painting on the preview for that night’s ‘House’ episode, where his Ukrainian “wife” was returning to get her green card to stay in the country. While I cringed at the thought of a stereotypical mail-order bride type plot, I was happily surprised by the outcome including this tidbit:

House even said ‘Ukraine’ without the ‘the’, but pronounced the capital Kiev. Oh well, still pretty good though!

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Klitschko cruises after Chisora spits dummy: Unsavoury antics by challenger fail to hinder superiority of world champion [Article]

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No surprise here, as Vitali Klitschko defeated Chisora, sweet revenge from being spit in the face a night before – but disappointingly it wasn’t by KO:

After the slap, we expected the slaughter. But it didn’t quite turn out that way, even though Dereck Chisora was predictably beaten by the Ukrainian giant Vitali Klitschko in Munich last night.

The 40-year-old champion held on to his World Boxing Council title with a unanimous points decision, Chisora becoming only the fourth man to take him the distance in 46 fights. It was a clear-cut victory by 118-110, 118-110 and 119-111 on the cards of the judges but at least Del Boy proved he was no pugilistic plonker. He gave it a go but ultimately lacked the class and clout of Klitschko.

It was the gutsy performance of a warrior who at least in some way redeemed himself for the ridiculous scenes which had preceded the bout. Chisora had warned Klitschko he would be wild and unpredictable and at times he was. He was certainly fit and fast, and possibly gave Klitschko his most arduous night since Lennox Lewis nine years ago.

Although no blood was spilled during the contest there was plenty of bad blood beforehand and this continued right up to the bell and even after it. Yet the wide points
The World heavyweight championship has become something of a family fiefdom with brother Wladimir holding four other titles, which he defends against Jean-Marc Mormeck in Düsseldorf on 3 March.margin, a difference of eight rounds according to the three judges, indicated Klitschko’s superiority, if at times he began to look his 40 years.

Read the rest of the article

 

sports

Chisora slaps Vitali Klitschko at weigh-in for Saturday’s world title fight [Article]

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Saturday’s boxing bout on Saturday just got more interesting:

Dereck Chisora ignited his weigh-in with the WBC heavyweight world champion Vitali Klitschko by slapping the title holder’s face hard during their staredown. Klitschko was visibly infuriated as the pair were pulled apart. Earlier, Chisora had vowed to “shock the world” by snatching the WBC title in Munich. The 28-year-old Londoner challenges Klitschko in Germany this weekend despite two high-profile losses in his past three fights.

 

Chisora has already seen two clashes with Klitschko’s brother Wladimir scuppered by the Ukrainian’s injury withdrawals. He was scheduled to fight the 35-year-old for the IBF and WBO belts in December 2010 before a stomach injury forced the champion to pull out. The rescheduled bout in April last year also fell through, with Klitschko blaming a problematic rehabilitation.

 

Wladimir went on to beat David Haye instead, as Chisora remained at domestic level and lost his British and Commonwealth titles to Tyson Fury. Although he went some way to redeeming himself with a career-best performance against the Finnish boxer Robert Helenius before Christmas, a controversial split decision ultimately saw him suffer a second career defeat. The Zimbabwe-born Briton therefore takes on long-reigning heavyweight king Klitschko as a huge outsider, with some bookmakers pricing him as generously as 10-1 to dethrone the champion in his adopted homeland.

What probably infuriates Chisora is that Klitschko seems more concerned about trying to schedule a fight with the elusive David Haye:

When not pretending to be worried about Chisora or any of the other anonymous pretenders queueing up for a shot at his title, Klitschko needs little encouragement to talk about the once-loud, now missing-in-celebland Hayemaker, who surrendered his WBA quarter of the world title to Vitali’s baby brother, Wladimir, in Hamburg last July.

…

“David Haye is so unpredictable,” Klitschko says. “We tried to make a deal and I hope the fight comes through, but right now we are miles apart from making the contract. I hope that after Dereck Chisora, David Haye changes his mind and I can give him a chance to fight for a world title.”

While the aspiring politician is no one-dimensional stumble-bum pug, Klitschko struggles to understand how a ticket-selling antagonist nine years his junior could walk away from such a compelling life. The inference he draws is that Haye is not suited to the calling – an attitude Wladimir entertained in his early, fragile days in the business.

“Every fighter has a dream to fight for the world title,” Vitaly says. “Every time, I say to David Haye: ‘Please fight me. Please fight for the world title, it’s the most prestigious title in the world.’ If he doesn’t want to do that, OK, [but] he always tries to find excuses why fights do not happen.”

I’m not exactly sure if this fight will air on PPV. In the States it will air on the new movie channel Epix and on EpixHD.com. I haven’t seen it listed on any our PPV channels. If you have more info, please drop me a line.

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