Publishers Weekly
11/30/2020
Historian Lower (Hitler’s Furies) delivers a disturbing and meticulously researched account of the genocide of Ukrainian Jews during WWII. Between July and October 1941, Lower notes, more than 50,000 men, women, and children were murdered in mass shootings in Ukraine and Belarus. She focuses her study on a rare photograph depicting the moment Nazi and Ukrainian officers shot a young boy and his mother at the edge of a ravine near Miropol, Ukraine. In her quest to identify the victims and perpetrators, Lower presents recent research on the scale of collaboration between local officials and Nazi forces, and concludes police officers and town constables in small villages throughout Eastern Europe “committed murder against their neighbors.” She initially assumed the photographer was a collaborator, but later discovered he had been denounced by Nazi authorities and might have taken the photo as an act of passive resistance. Despite traveling to Miropol and interviewing elderly residents, Lower is unable to identify the mother and child in the picture. Still, her search uncovers a wealth of information related to WWII in Ukraine and makes a persuasive case for how historical scholarship can “help turn the wheels of justice.” This harrowing chronicle casts the Holocaust in a stark new light. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Every element in the photo serves as source material for Lower [whose] investigation into an act of mass murder of individuals in the tiny Ukrainian town of Miropol in 1941 is a book of such breathtaking research, so well-constructed and written, that I read its 178 pages in two sittings—and, had I started early enough, I would have done so in one." — Jewish Currents
“Lower spent the better part of [a] decade researching the image’s story . . . she set out to hold the perpetrators accountable while restoring the deceased’s dignity and humanity—a feat she accomplished." — Smithsonian
“The book is an act of calculated justice—turning the ‘mass’ in mass murder into the families, the people who suffered. Giving them something, however small. For me, that is its power.” — Times (UK)
“One photograph. That was what it took to start Wendy Lower on an incredible journey of discovery. Using her meticulous historical skills and her gift for shoe-leather investigation, she uncovers and tells a riveting story with implications for the the past and the present. THE RAVINE is a compelling read that is micro and macro history at its very best.” — Deborah Lipstadt, author of National Jewish Book Award winner History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier and Antisemitism: Here and Now
“The Ravine reads like a compelling detective novel.” — Times Literary Supplement
“An elegantly structured book . . . looks at a photograph that many refuse to face." — Tablet
“Through her international investigation into a single photograph of the shooting of a Jewish family, Wendy Lower presents the Holocaust on the level of personal crime, uncovering the identities and stories of the victims, including the Jewish child, the killers, the neighbors, and the photographer. Seventy years after the crime, Lower, a historian dedicated to unveiling truths, solves what would otherwise have remained a ‘cold case.’ Her story is breathtaking.” — Father Patrick Desbois, author of National Jewish Book Award winner The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews
“An important and moving contribution to Holocaust literature. The Ravine demonstrates how meticulous research, seventy years after the murder captured in the photograph took place, can lift the veil of anonymity from both victims and perpetrators." — Jan T. Gross, author of National Book Award finalist Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland and Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz
“The profundity of Lower’s commitment to justice is both admirable and evident. Meticulously researched and thoughtfully written, her book is a testimonial to the power of countering ignorance with education and the importance of restoring the dignity of personhood to those erased by genocide. An intelligent and restoratively compassionate historical excavation.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Meticulously researched . . . [Lower’s] search uncovers a wealth of information related to WWII in Ukraine and makes a persuasive case for how historical scholarship can ‘help turn the wheels of justice.’ This harrowing chronicle casts the Holocaust in a stark new light.” — Publishers Weekly
Times (UK)
The book is an act of calculated justice—turning the ‘mass’ in mass murder into the families, the people who suffered. Giving them something, however small. For me, that is its power.”
Father Patrick Desbois
Through her international investigation into a single photograph of the shooting of a Jewish family, Wendy Lower presents the Holocaust on the level of personal crime, uncovering the identities and stories of the victims, including the Jewish child, the killers, the neighbors, and the photographer. Seventy years after the crime, Lower, a historian dedicated to unveiling truths, solves what would otherwise have remained a ‘cold case.’ Her story is breathtaking.
Smithsonian
Lower spent the better part of [a] decade researching the image’s story . . . she set out to hold the perpetrators accountable while restoring the deceased’s dignity and humanity—a feat she accomplished."
Deborah Lipstadt
One photograph. That was what it took to start Wendy Lower on an incredible journey of discovery. Using her meticulous historical skills and her gift for shoe-leather investigation, she uncovers and tells a riveting story with implications for the the past and the present. THE RAVINE is a compelling read that is micro and macro history at its very best.
Jan T. Gross
An important and moving contribution to Holocaust literature. The Ravine demonstrates how meticulous research, seventy years after the murder captured in the photograph took place, can lift the veil of anonymity from both victims and perpetrators."
Tablet
An elegantly structured book . . . looks at a photograph that many refuse to face."
Jewish Currents
Every element in the photo serves as source material for Lower [whose] investigation into an act of mass murder of individuals in the tiny Ukrainian town of Miropol in 1941 is a book of such breathtaking research, so well-constructed and written, that I read its 178 pages in two sittings—and, had I started early enough, I would have done so in one."
Times Literary Supplement
The Ravine reads like a compelling detective novel.
Library Journal
★ 12/01/2020
In August 2009, a shocking photo was presented to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. A woman's execution, face obscured by rifle smoke, falling forward while dropping a small child, her other hand still gripping that of a kneeling toddler. The photo dated from 1941 in Miropol, Ukraine, was unique because the executors' faces were visible. Holocaust scholar Lower (history, Claremont McKenna Coll.; Hitler's Furies) was compelled to identify everyone in the photograph in an attempt to prove how a single story welds "power to hold our attention, reveal a wealth of information about the Holocaust, and demand action." Successfully solving a 70-year-old murder seemed improbable, yet Lower named the photographer, several perpetrators already prosecuted for war-era crimes, and the likely identities of the victims. Lower combed archives throughout Europe, the United States, and Israel in her quest for justice. Her research also contributed to the broader history of Ukrainian genocide, which remains underdeveloped. The personal narratives and photographs throughout are rich with heartbreaking detail into lives lost and the severe persecution of Ukrainian Jews. VERDICT No comparable title exists that focuses exclusively on the mysterious background behind one single photo, making this compelling history an essential read for World War II enthusiasts.—Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH
Kirkus Reviews
2020-12-08
The author of Hitler’s Furies returns with an account of how a disturbing Holocaust photograph turned into a humanitarian research project.
In 2009, Lower, the director of the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College, was on a mission to find documentation that would bring Bernhard Frank, “the highest-ranking SS officer known to be alive in Germany at that time,” to justice. During her research, she came across a photo showing a group of men executing a woman and a boy “at the edge of a ravine.” That discovery became the focal point for a seven-year investigative odyssey dedicated to tracking down and identifying the shooters as well as the photographer and, more importantly, the victims. Lower traveled to the scene of the crime, a forest on the outskirts of a Ukrainian town called Miropol. Research in Germany led her to ascertain that the victims “were the remnant of a [Jewish] community being destroyed after the first wave of [Nazi] killings in the summer of 1941.” Based on “hundreds of testimonies of Germans, Slovakians, and Ukrainians [who] passed through or resided in Miropol, and of the one Jewish survivor,” writes the author, “I was able to reconstruct events just before, during, and after the photograph was taken.” She later discovered that the photographer was a member of the Slovakian resistance and that the perpetrators were Ukrainian policemen who collaborated with the Nazis and met harsh fates. The author’s expansive research in Soviet archives and Jewish genealogical databases led her to identify and interview possible family members who had managed to escape the Holocaust. The profundity of Lower’s commitment to justice is both admirable and evident. Meticulously researched and thoughtfully written, her book is a testimonial to the power of countering ignorance with education and the importance of restoring the dignity of personhood to those erased by genocide.
An intelligent and restoratively compassionate historical excavation.
