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Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
Moving memoir of an anti-nazi survivor
Paul Simon reviews Gone to Ground by Marie Jalowicz Simon (Profile Books, £14.99)
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it
JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
An immersive, participatory display by a queer Australian Aboriginal performer, and a rebellious unravelling of traditional Scottish dance
Marie Jalowicz Simon was a “U-boat” — the name given to those enemies of the nazis, mainly Jews, who went underground rather than face the mechanised death of the concentration camps.
Her clear-eyed memoir, after a brief description of early childhood and family circumstances, moves on to her time as a forced labourer in the Spandau factory of the Siemens company.
Establishing a theme that runs throughout this extraordinary account, wonderfully translated by Anthea Bell, Simon recalls not only her own will to survive but the collective spirit of solidarity and resistance of those facing humiliation, exposure and death.
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ALEX HALL welcomes a history of the Bund, and its emphatic demand for working-class solidarity across racial and ethnic difference
DOMINIC O’KEY recommends Arundhati Roy’s study of troubled mother/daughter relations
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
On May 16 1944, Romani families in Auschwitz-Birkenau armed themselves with stones, tools, and sheer collective will, forcing the SS to retreat – leaving a legacy of defiance that speaks directly to the fascisms of today, says VICTORIA HOLMES