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Half-Jew―Full Life: The Unlikely Journey of a Voluntary Jew from Nazi Persecution to the American Dream
From Berlin to the Bronx, from Holocaust survivor to American success story, this riveting, fast-paced biography traces the extraordinary life of Gary “Pips” Phillips who defied the odds at every turn. With an Aryan mother and Jewish father, Pips could have escaped much of the Holocaust’s horrors. Instead, he made a fateful decision at age 13 to become a bar mitzvah just as the Nuremberg Laws were enacted, effectively choosing to be labeled a Jew under Nazi rule. Pips’s wartime experience is marked by daring escapes, improbable rescues, and survival while hiding deep within Nazi Berlin. Captured four times, he escaped thrice, choosing to remain in Nazi custody the fourth time as there was nowhere to run in bombed-out Berlin. At his place of confinement, he met his future wife, Olga Horvath, who had been imprisoned after surviving Auschwitz and the Death March to Bergen Belsen. After their marriage in chaotic post-war Berlin, they emigrated to the USA to start a new life.
Arriving in New York with nothing, Pips rose from waiter to co-owner of the world’s largest photo agency—despite never owning a camera. Unlike Pips, Olga was unable to escape the shadow of her Holocaust experiences, and in a horrifying twist, she threw herself off the roof of their gleaming luxury high-rise after more than 50 years of marriage, leaving Pips grief-stricken, but also able to reinvent himself one more time. This cinematic life brims with chance, love, loss, resilience, and reinvention, culminating in a poignant exploration of Jewish identity, memory, and legacy. Pips’s story is a tribute to the power of choice, endurance, and the human will to belong.
Arriving in New York with nothing, Pips rose from waiter to co-owner of the world’s largest photo agency—despite never owning a camera. Unlike Pips, Olga was unable to escape the shadow of her Holocaust experiences, and in a horrifying twist, she threw herself off the roof of their gleaming luxury high-rise after more than 50 years of marriage, leaving Pips grief-stricken, but also able to reinvent himself one more time. This cinematic life brims with chance, love, loss, resilience, and reinvention, culminating in a poignant exploration of Jewish identity, memory, and legacy. Pips’s story is a tribute to the power of choice, endurance, and the human will to belong.
360 pages, Hardcover
Published January 27, 2026
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December 1, 2025
There are many moving stories centered around the Holocaust and the lives of survivors, and it is nice to see that there are talented authors, like Georgette F. Bennet, who are finding new and unique ways to tell these stories rooted in one of the 20th century’s most defining tragedies. A love story, a survival story, a tragedy informed by dark humor, Half-Jew —Full Life: The Unlikely Journey of a Voluntary Jew from Nazi Persecution to the American Dream chronicles the fascinating and harrowing real-life tale of Gary “Pips” Phillips and his wife, Olga Phillips, both resilient survivors.
Pips and his wife, Olga, were distant relatives of Bennet, but the closest of her extended family, and she had an important relationship with them, especially Pips. There is a great introduction that sets up the book beautifully, and she points out right away that two of Pips’ distinguishing traits include his notorious sense of humor and his outrageous inappropriateness. I find this is often true of tough, smart survivors, and part of what helps them endure.
As I said, Pips’ story is unique, with his mom, Marie, being what the Germans would call “Aryan,” in other words, a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. Marie marries Ernst Philipsohn, a Jewish interior architect, and it is growing up between these two cultures that forces the young boy to make important life choices about his identity, and these choices will come to define the trajectory of his life. In some ways, Pips sums it up best himself:
Hitler made me a jew.
Part One is called “Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide,” and it covers the early years before the couple’s arrival in the United States. Pips, born Gerd Phillipsohn, is an only child, arriving in 1922, and hence he spends his adolescence in the Belly of the Beast, Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He grows up in Berlin, but at first, he does not identify as Jewish, and no one knows of his ancestry. Still, things start to happen. He witnesses a brutal scene where a Jewish boy at school gets tied to a tree by his classmate and is ruthlessly kicked and beaten. Later, a near-fatal accident leads him to a fateful decision.
Pips is a member of the Jewish Bund. He attends a Jewish School. He’s witnessed and has been affected by the rising tide of antisemitism, and he feels closer to his Jewish father than his Christian mother. Thus, in September of 1935, he decides to move forward and become a Bar Mitzvah.
Needless to say, this complicates things.
Pips hides in Berlin through the end of the war, but is caught four times. He manages to escape three of those times, but in the end, after his fourth capture, he finally gives up. It is in this camp for displaced persons that he meets his future wife, Olga. We learn of Olga’s incredible story – she had already survived Auschwitz –and of how she ends up in Schulstrasse, finally meeting Pip in the DOP camp.
Yet, they still have another adventure before them, a life in America following the liberation of the camps at the end of the war. There is a lot more to unpack, some success stories, and some other parts that are frankly quite dark. As Art Spiegelman so brilliantly showed us in Maus, trauma, especially holocaust trauma, follows survivors, like a shadow, and it can have crippling effects on the rest of a person’s life. There is a reason why the Holocaust provides us with such rich source material: this is human experience at its most extreme, and it is during these moments and in these exceptional circumstances that we see what human beings are capable of, both in terms of moral courage and survival, like that of Pip and Olga, and in terms of the sadistic depravity visited upon us by the likes of the Mengeles and the Goebbels, the Mussolinis and the Pinochets that this world regularly produces.
Books like Bennett’s Half-Jew —Full Life prove to us that lessons about strength, tragedy, loss, and survival still find fertile soil in the remembering of one of the most tragic genocides of the 20th century.
Pips and his wife, Olga, were distant relatives of Bennet, but the closest of her extended family, and she had an important relationship with them, especially Pips. There is a great introduction that sets up the book beautifully, and she points out right away that two of Pips’ distinguishing traits include his notorious sense of humor and his outrageous inappropriateness. I find this is often true of tough, smart survivors, and part of what helps them endure.
As I said, Pips’ story is unique, with his mom, Marie, being what the Germans would call “Aryan,” in other words, a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. Marie marries Ernst Philipsohn, a Jewish interior architect, and it is growing up between these two cultures that forces the young boy to make important life choices about his identity, and these choices will come to define the trajectory of his life. In some ways, Pips sums it up best himself:
Hitler made me a jew.
Part One is called “Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide,” and it covers the early years before the couple’s arrival in the United States. Pips, born Gerd Phillipsohn, is an only child, arriving in 1922, and hence he spends his adolescence in the Belly of the Beast, Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He grows up in Berlin, but at first, he does not identify as Jewish, and no one knows of his ancestry. Still, things start to happen. He witnesses a brutal scene where a Jewish boy at school gets tied to a tree by his classmate and is ruthlessly kicked and beaten. Later, a near-fatal accident leads him to a fateful decision.
Pips is a member of the Jewish Bund. He attends a Jewish School. He’s witnessed and has been affected by the rising tide of antisemitism, and he feels closer to his Jewish father than his Christian mother. Thus, in September of 1935, he decides to move forward and become a Bar Mitzvah.
Needless to say, this complicates things.
Pips hides in Berlin through the end of the war, but is caught four times. He manages to escape three of those times, but in the end, after his fourth capture, he finally gives up. It is in this camp for displaced persons that he meets his future wife, Olga. We learn of Olga’s incredible story – she had already survived Auschwitz –and of how she ends up in Schulstrasse, finally meeting Pip in the DOP camp.
Yet, they still have another adventure before them, a life in America following the liberation of the camps at the end of the war. There is a lot more to unpack, some success stories, and some other parts that are frankly quite dark. As Art Spiegelman so brilliantly showed us in Maus, trauma, especially holocaust trauma, follows survivors, like a shadow, and it can have crippling effects on the rest of a person’s life. There is a reason why the Holocaust provides us with such rich source material: this is human experience at its most extreme, and it is during these moments and in these exceptional circumstances that we see what human beings are capable of, both in terms of moral courage and survival, like that of Pip and Olga, and in terms of the sadistic depravity visited upon us by the likes of the Mengeles and the Goebbels, the Mussolinis and the Pinochets that this world regularly produces.
Books like Bennett’s Half-Jew —Full Life prove to us that lessons about strength, tragedy, loss, and survival still find fertile soil in the remembering of one of the most tragic genocides of the 20th century.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Review of a NetGalley Arc in exchange for my honest review!
I hate to say that I left this book disappointed, especially given the topic, but parts of it left a bad taste in my mouth, honestly.
I found Pips Phillips to not be likeable and what I mean by that is he remains a little... entitled and apathetic seeming for the duration of the war. He voluntarily has a bar mitzvah at the beginning of Hitler's reign (he had an Aryan mother and Jewish father, he said he wanted a bar mitzvah because it meant he got a bicycle) and spends the entirety of the war as a teen or young adult. I chalked this up to the naivety of a young boy, seemed reasonable. However, this attitude never really seems to be something that Pips grows out of.
He was in and out of German imprisonment and honestly spent a decent amount of time talking about how he looked out for himself (does mention feeling guilt and some of this is self-preservation, which I will not pretend to have experienced or understand), didn't worry too much about the persecution of those around him at times and was always looking to get laid by the nurses at the hospital. When discussing his first love, we encounter how he got her pregnant twice, solicited illegal abortions twice and didn't support her effectively. When he marries Olga, his wife, who survived Auschwitz and was liberated at 18, he discusses how she was a virgin and they slept together "but he didn't rape her." She also becomes pregnant, and he procures another abortion, sending her into a deeper depression than she was already experiencing upon the trauma of surviving a death camp. We find out later that she dies by suicide after they achieve part of the American Dream.
I kept pushing through as the author was clearly writing about a dear loved one and I wanted to care about the story and survival so much. I continuously felt discouraged by the lack of growth and awareness, though, which was kind of chalked up to just being Pips with his absurdity and inappropriate humor. This will not be a book on the topic that I recommend for reader's advisory, but I appreciate the free copy of the book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.
I hate to say that I left this book disappointed, especially given the topic, but parts of it left a bad taste in my mouth, honestly.
I found Pips Phillips to not be likeable and what I mean by that is he remains a little... entitled and apathetic seeming for the duration of the war. He voluntarily has a bar mitzvah at the beginning of Hitler's reign (he had an Aryan mother and Jewish father, he said he wanted a bar mitzvah because it meant he got a bicycle) and spends the entirety of the war as a teen or young adult. I chalked this up to the naivety of a young boy, seemed reasonable. However, this attitude never really seems to be something that Pips grows out of.
He was in and out of German imprisonment and honestly spent a decent amount of time talking about how he looked out for himself (does mention feeling guilt and some of this is self-preservation, which I will not pretend to have experienced or understand), didn't worry too much about the persecution of those around him at times and was always looking to get laid by the nurses at the hospital. When discussing his first love, we encounter how he got her pregnant twice, solicited illegal abortions twice and didn't support her effectively. When he marries Olga, his wife, who survived Auschwitz and was liberated at 18, he discusses how she was a virgin and they slept together "but he didn't rape her." She also becomes pregnant, and he procures another abortion, sending her into a deeper depression than she was already experiencing upon the trauma of surviving a death camp. We find out later that she dies by suicide after they achieve part of the American Dream.
I kept pushing through as the author was clearly writing about a dear loved one and I wanted to care about the story and survival so much. I continuously felt discouraged by the lack of growth and awareness, though, which was kind of chalked up to just being Pips with his absurdity and inappropriate humor. This will not be a book on the topic that I recommend for reader's advisory, but I appreciate the free copy of the book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you @skyhoursepub, @books.turning.brains.ajstein & @netgalley for sending me this book for review. Opinions are my own.
“From Berlin to the Bronx, from Holocaust survivor to American success story, this riveting, fast-paced biography traces the extraordinary life of Gary “Pips” Phillips who defied the odds at every turn.”
I chose to share this book today, not only on pub day, but on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This biography tells the extraordinary life of Pips, born in pre-WWII Germany to an Aryan mother and a Jewish father, who could have escaped much of the Holocaust’s brutality, but instead made a defining choice at age 13: to become bar mitzvah just as the Nuremberg Laws were enacted, sealing his identity as a Jew under Nazi rule.
What I found different about this story, from a lot of survivor stories I’ve read, is that Pips survived the war entirely in Berlin, “the heart of the Third Reich.” He wasn’t in a concentration or death camp, and he’s clear about that distinction, yet his story powerfully shows that survival took many forms, and many risks. Hiding, escaping, being captured, and ultimately staying put and surviving when there was nowhere left to run.
This book also explores:
• Jewish identity and Pips’s lifelong desire to be recognized as Jewish, including his deep connection to Israel.
• The antisemitism he and his wife faced even after immigrating to the U.S.
• His wife Olga’s haunting experiences as a Hungarian Jew who survived Auschwitz and lost her family, and how that trauma affected the rest of her life.
Pips’s story is told posthumously by his closest relative, using recordings from therapy sessions he intentionally left behind.
Half-Jew, Full Life is a meaningful contribution to Holocaust literature, and offers a powerful perspective on identity, choice, and survival.
“From Berlin to the Bronx, from Holocaust survivor to American success story, this riveting, fast-paced biography traces the extraordinary life of Gary “Pips” Phillips who defied the odds at every turn.”
I chose to share this book today, not only on pub day, but on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This biography tells the extraordinary life of Pips, born in pre-WWII Germany to an Aryan mother and a Jewish father, who could have escaped much of the Holocaust’s brutality, but instead made a defining choice at age 13: to become bar mitzvah just as the Nuremberg Laws were enacted, sealing his identity as a Jew under Nazi rule.
What I found different about this story, from a lot of survivor stories I’ve read, is that Pips survived the war entirely in Berlin, “the heart of the Third Reich.” He wasn’t in a concentration or death camp, and he’s clear about that distinction, yet his story powerfully shows that survival took many forms, and many risks. Hiding, escaping, being captured, and ultimately staying put and surviving when there was nowhere left to run.
This book also explores:
• Jewish identity and Pips’s lifelong desire to be recognized as Jewish, including his deep connection to Israel.
• The antisemitism he and his wife faced even after immigrating to the U.S.
• His wife Olga’s haunting experiences as a Hungarian Jew who survived Auschwitz and lost her family, and how that trauma affected the rest of her life.
Pips’s story is told posthumously by his closest relative, using recordings from therapy sessions he intentionally left behind.
Half-Jew, Full Life is a meaningful contribution to Holocaust literature, and offers a powerful perspective on identity, choice, and survival.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews