Category Archives: Books and Reading

Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl

Judith Kerr had to flee Nazi Germany as a child because her family was Jewish and her father, a famous writer, criticized the Nazis. In Germany, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl) is probably her most famous book and often required reading in schools. Even though it’s been 30 years since I read it, I remember many details of her story vividly.

New Statesman: My father and other animals. “Judith Kerr’s dad, Alfred, was an outspoken German critic who railed against Hitler – but he had a soft spot for baby seals.”

BBC: Judith Kerr and the story behind The Tiger Who Came To Tea. “Author Judith Kerr is famous for her children’s books, but behind the sweetness of works such as The Tiger Who Came To Tea lies a past set against the horror of Nazi Germany.”

iNews: Judith Kerr: ‘Will I ever bring back Mog? No, I killed her’.

“Beginning an interview by thrusting your phone in your subject’s face and insisting they scroll through pictures of your cats is not generally considered best practice.

There are exceptions, however. Within moments of stepping into Judith Kerr’s home I’ve whipped out my iPhone and, like an excited child, am demanding the picture book author “look at my cats!“
[…]
“Oh, yes please,“ she says solemnly, taking my phone. “This is absolutely essential.“ “

The Guardian: Judith Kerr: ‘I’m still surprised at the success of The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. “The creator of Mog on learning how to draw a tiger at the zoo, heeding the advice of her cat and still working at 94.”

Radio Times: When Mark Gatiss came to tea with Judith Kerr. “Mark Gatiss visits childhood hero and author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea, to chat children’s books, family and sci-fi.”

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Ecology meets Art

“Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology”. He was heavily influenced by Alexander von Humboldt, about whom I recently read a book called The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf (highly recommended, by the way).

Haeckel is most well-known for his incredibly detailed and beautiful drawings of radiolarians and other Kunstformen der Natur (art forms in nature). Recently, a new book with his drawings was published:

The Guardian: Ernst Haeckel: the art of evolution – in pictures.

“The influential evolutionary scientist, who coined such terms as ‘stem cell’ and ‘ecology’, was also a virtuoso illustrator. The editor of a new book celebrating this work introduces some highlights.”

Creative Review: Feast your eyes on the art of Ernst Haeckel. “A new book from Taschen compiles 450 drawings, watercolours and sketches of living organisms by artist and biologist Ernst Haeckel.”

The book is fairly costly, but if you prefer a cheaper, sort of do-it-yourself version, there’s always the Art Forms in Nature: Coloring Book. ;-)

Und für Menschen, die der deutschen Sprache mächtig sind, existiert eine HTML-Version von Kunstformen der Natur (vollständige elektronische Faksimile-Ausgabe). Dort kann man sich einzelne Tafeln anschauen oder zum Ausdrucken herunterladen. Es gibt auch eine tar-Datei mit allen Tafeln (16MB) sowie das komplette Buch als PDF (272MB).

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“There is no statute of limitation on the truth.”

The Guardian: Ex-FBI agent opens cold case review into who betrayed Anne Frank. “Vince Pankoke and his team will use new techniques to analyse large amounts of data to solve mystery of diarist’s capture.”

“A retired FBI agent has launched a cold case review into identifying those who may have betrayed the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family to the Gestapo in 1944.

Investigative techniques developed in the past decade, including the crunching of big data to uncover leads, are to be used by a team of 19 forensic experts led by Vince Pankoke.

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has made available its archives and welcomed the initiative, which is being filmed and chronicled online, as the investigators, including historians, psychological profilers and former police detectives, work through the evidence.

The cold case review team has supervised a reconstruction, using actors, of the day of the Frank family’s arrest. One of the founding fathers of the FBI’s behavioural science unit, Roger Depue, is analysing contemporary witness statements and interviews.”

The New York Times: Ultimate Cold Case: Who Betrayed Anne Frank?

“A former FBI agent is heading up a cold case team more than 70 years after Nazi occupation police stormed the secret Amsterdam canal house annex where Anne Frank was hiding and sent her to her death in a concentration camp.

Suspicions that someone betrayed the Frank family are not new, but the latest attempt will seek out new connections in the case of the Jewish girl whose diary has captivated millions of readers worldwide.

Retired agent Vincent Pankoke said he had high hopes of solving one of the biggest World War Two mysteries in the Netherlands with the help of Big Data and modern policing techniques.”

The Washington Post: Who betrayed Anne Frank? Artificial intelligence could finally solve the mystery..

“For nearly 75 years, some of the greatest investigative minds have tried to figure out who tipped off the Nazis about Anne Frank and the seven other Jews who were hiding behind a movable bookcase in Amsterdam.

Now, a former FBI investigator working with a production company hopes the decades-old mystery can be solved with the help of a new mind — an artificial one.”

The effort is crowd-funded, see Cold Case Dairy for more information.