BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND DEEP BLUE SEA

Book Review

"This book is an amazing first hand recollection of life during world war II. The author eloquently buckles you into the front seat of a moving adventure and international journey. I came away with a real taste of what life was like during this period. This book is a bitter sweet adventure and love story all wrapped up into a biography. Very well done."


"Wonder what it was like to be a child and caught between the German and Russian war machines during World War II? How did you eat? Where did you live? How did you pay for anything? This blow by blow account of just such a journey will keep you turning pages until he lands in the USA."


"Most books set during the holocaust are, understandably, very sad and depressing. This one, however, is a totally fresh perspective because to a young boy, much of what happened on his journey from his home in Poland to a Russian gulag was an adventure. It is a very interesting story that is well told - a fast read!"


"Emil Steinberger has crafted an interesting and gripping account of how he and his family of Polish Jews survived and overcame great adversity after the Nazi invasion of Poland. The story is from the point of view of a young boy coming of age during the cataclismic events of World War II. The story recounts how the Steinberger clan fled Poland and went to the east, and then how they survived in a brutal Russian sytem that had them in a goulag and then trasported to the eastern Caucasus. After the war, the family returned to Germany and became embroiled in the difficult post-war recovery. The story also includes Steinberger's interesting perspectives on the events leading to the formation of the State of Israel. Steinberger interweaves these dramatic events with his coming of age and his growing love for Ania. This story ends with his emigration to the United States where he subsequently embarked on a medical education and a career in academic medicine. I look forward to his next book which will focus on this stage of his life."