Gift of Darkness: Growing Up in Occupied Amsterdam, by Craig K. Comstock
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Gift of Darkness: Growing Up in Occupied Amsterdam, by Craig K. Comstock
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"Gift of Darkness" tells the story of a boy who, like Anne Frank, lived in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Unlike Anne, he was not taken into early hiding, but was able to move around the city, even to help serve its Jewish community, and observe first-hand the ominous things that were happening. Robbert Van Santen lived each day not knowing how or when the war would end, not being sure that he would survive, not imagining that as an elder he would articulate his experiences to an American author. To put one of Mary Oliver's poetic phrases in a new context, his story is "a box full of darkness," but in the telling he offers the author and the reader the gift of stepping into his shoes and thus the satisfaction of coming to understand a teenager's challenging life. What did Robbert do afterward? He sought "to find joy in life despite what happened. Not instead of the memories, but as a response to them."
Gift of Darkness: Growing Up in Occupied Amsterdam, by Craig K. Comstock- Amazon Sales Rank: #1578694 in Books
- Published on: 2015-11-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .47" w x 6.00" l, .62 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 206 pages
Review Kirkus Review "A heart-rending biography of a [Jewish] teenager who lived under Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.... A moving, inspiring account of the indomitability of the human spirit." See the full review at: kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/craig-k-comstock/gift-of-darkness/ "Comstock has performed a valuable service in putting these vivid, close-up memories on the record. It is almost unimaginable that all of this happened, miraculous that this young eyewitness survived, and we can be grateful that the author encouraged him to tell the tale." - Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains and To End All Wars, finalist for the National Book Award"A brilliant initiation into empathy, Gift of Darkness lets us slip into the shoes of a teenager witnessing the Nazi occupation of his country. Instead of simply learning about what happened, we share step by step the uncertainty of living when we don't know how things will turn out. Just like real life. Instead of sleep-walking, we get an opportunity to feel." -Liza Ingrasci, President, the Hoffman Institute"Comstock is one of those thoughtful moral voices we all need to hear. Early in his life he urged JFK to propose the idea that became the Peace Corps. He is also a powerful writer ... Gift of Darkness is a strong and moving portrait of how ordinary daily life interacts with extraordinary human brutality, and how people struggle to retain their moral core in circumstances that no human should have to face." - Paul Rogat Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear"This book sensitively deals with heart-wrenching examples of what happens when people denigrate others. Through the real-life experiences of one Amsterdam teenager, Comstock brilliantly reveals the hidden costs of prejudice and how, by developing compassion, human beings can move in constructive directions." -Sharon Tennison, pioneer citizen diplomat in Russia and author of The Power of Impossible Ideas:Ordinary Citizens' Extraordinary Efforts to Avert International Crises"The author has effectively (and poetically) captured the poignancy of a young, frightened human being facing the unthinkable, the unimaginable possibility of what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil,” and attempting to cope with the disjunction this creates in the psyche. Like the frog in the gradually hotter pan of eventually boiling water, the protagonist doesn’t fully realize what is happening and cannot respond “normally.” Isn’t this eerily true of so many of us during times of increasing violence, negation, and demonization? Gift of Darkness strikes me as a prescient wake-up call for our time."--Vicki Noble, Author of Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess and Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World"Tender, discerning, and beautifully told, Gift of Darkness describes the adolescence of a Jewish boy coming of age during the Nazi war. A great inspiration. I recommend this book." --Margot Anand, Author, The Art of Sexual Ecstasy"Before you know it, Comstock’s gripping book has slipped you into the slowly terrifying darkness of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, told in large part through the adolescent eyes of Robbert." --Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D., author, Advanced Spiritual Intimacy and Words From the Soul: Time, East/West Spirituality, and Psychotherapeutic Narrative
About the Author Craig K. Comstock has worked mainly with private clients as a “book creation coach” and also, for five years, as director of the Ark Foundation, seeking ways to end the Cold War. A graduate of Harvard College, he was the features editor of the Crimson and winner of the Frank Knox fellowship for study abroad. After graduate work at Stanford University on “social imagination,” he became co-director of the William James Center for Adult Development at the Wright Institute in Berkeley. Following a childhood in the New York City suburbs and an adulthood largely in the San Francisco Bay Area, he now lives with his wife in southern Oregon. The author or named editor of several books, Craig is now revising a draft about amazing people, some of whom he met in his forties and who illustrate the process of enlarging one’s comfort zone.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Tale of Two Stories By Karen W. I read Gift oif Darkness expecting a sort of nonfiction thriller or exciting piece of biography. The book delivered that, in the form of a vivid and suspenseful story of life for a teenage Jew during the Nazi occupation of his native city. Like the subject’s schoolmate Anne Frank, three-quarters of Jews in the Netherlands were killed. That was the “darkness” of the title. So what is the “gift”? The book tells about the friendship, half a century later, between the subject and a US writer working to take in an experience very different from his own world. The author not only pieces together a story of long ago, based on many interviews and on visits to Amsterdam, but also resists assuring the subject, “I know exactly how you felt.” Instead, he leads us through the process of dealing with the aftermath of trauma, a theme explored in the Foreword by Frances Weller, a psychotherapist and expert of grief. Readers who want to treat themselves to a thrilling story can focus on most of chapters 3-8 plus 10-11 and 13-15. Those who, like me, are fascinated by the process of getting the story can also welcome chapter 9, plus 1-2 and parts of others. The book invites us into two interwoven accounts, and I don’t know which is more valuable. By the way, the 1940s history is told in the present tense, as if we are there. The account of the occupation years is a tribute both to the subject and to the writer, who through his artistry, converts a mountain of facts into a narrative told with breath-taking immediacy in the present tense.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Dark memories, sensitively handled By Roger Mueller I felt ushered into a world of darkness by the author, Craig Comstock, whose sensitive and empathic interviewing of Robbert gradually led me into the sickness and horror that became routine during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. Comstock's inclusion of verbatim dialogue between him and Robbert gives a feeling of immediacy to the biography. I could picture the two of them in Amsterdam and in San Francisco, unwinding the tangled web of painful memories. Comstock's own reflections on the encounters with Robbert also helped me appreciate the relevance to our world today and its "dark stories."
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. I devoured this book then went back and read it ... By Asha I devoured this book then went back and read it again. This book is so much more than a thriller, though it is that as well. It is exquisitely crafted and creatively written in the present tense while presenting an eye-opening and to me a very different story of the Nazi occupation in Holland. It is a drama that unfolds through revelatory story the calculated destruction of a people and a boy that survives.
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