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The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe
In this “necessary and beautifully told story of struggle, compassion and serendipity” (Forbes), the publisher of DC Comics comes to the rescue of a family trying to flee Nazi Berlin, their lives linking up with a dazzling cast of 20th-century icons, all eagerly pursuing the American Dream.
Family lore had it that Bonnie Siegler’s grandfather crossed paths in Midtown Manhattan late one night in 1954 with Marilyn Monroe, her white dress flying up around her as she filmed a scene for The Seven Year Itch. An amateur filmmaker, Jules Schulback had his home movie camera with him, capturing what would become the only surviving footage of that legendary night. Bonnie wasn’t sure she quite believed her grandfather’s story…until, cleaning out his apartment, she found the film reel. The discovery would prompt her to investigate all of her grandfather’s seemingly tall tales—and lead her in pursuit of a remarkable piece of forgotten history that reads like fiction but is all true.
A “fast-moving American epic with a cast of refugees and starlets, publishers and bootleggers, comic-book creators and sports legends” (The Washington Post), The American Way follows two very different men—Jules Schulback and his unlikely benefactor, DC Comics publisher (and sometimes pornographer) Harry Donenfeld—on an exuberant true-life adventure linking glamorous old Hollywood, the birth of the comic book, and one family’s experiences during the Holocaust. It’s an “amazing” story told “with grace, verve, and compassion” (The Jerusalem Post) of two strivers living through an extraordinary moment in American history, their lives intersecting with a glittering array of stars in a “colorful” and “punchy” (The New York Times Book Review) tale of hope and reinvention, of daring escapes and fake identities, of big dreams and the magic of movies, and what it means to be a real-life Superman.
Family lore had it that Bonnie Siegler’s grandfather crossed paths in Midtown Manhattan late one night in 1954 with Marilyn Monroe, her white dress flying up around her as she filmed a scene for The Seven Year Itch. An amateur filmmaker, Jules Schulback had his home movie camera with him, capturing what would become the only surviving footage of that legendary night. Bonnie wasn’t sure she quite believed her grandfather’s story…until, cleaning out his apartment, she found the film reel. The discovery would prompt her to investigate all of her grandfather’s seemingly tall tales—and lead her in pursuit of a remarkable piece of forgotten history that reads like fiction but is all true.
A “fast-moving American epic with a cast of refugees and starlets, publishers and bootleggers, comic-book creators and sports legends” (The Washington Post), The American Way follows two very different men—Jules Schulback and his unlikely benefactor, DC Comics publisher (and sometimes pornographer) Harry Donenfeld—on an exuberant true-life adventure linking glamorous old Hollywood, the birth of the comic book, and one family’s experiences during the Holocaust. It’s an “amazing” story told “with grace, verve, and compassion” (The Jerusalem Post) of two strivers living through an extraordinary moment in American history, their lives intersecting with a glittering array of stars in a “colorful” and “punchy” (The New York Times Book Review) tale of hope and reinvention, of daring escapes and fake identities, of big dreams and the magic of movies, and what it means to be a real-life Superman.
379 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 14, 2023
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570 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
March 20, 2023
3.5 Gangsters! Movie stars! Narrow escapes from Nazis! Secret benefactors! Millionaires! Superheroes! The fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way! Oh, and pornography!
It's a thoroughly enjoyable non-fiction read that doesn't pretend to be anything more. The authors focus on the stories of a small group of real people whose lives surprisingly intersected immediately before, during, and after WW2.
(Before going any further, let me make clear that this is not a lighthearted, nostalgic look back into some magical period in America's past. The authors do not avert their gaze from the darkness -- in Germany, the Great Depression here in the US, antisemitism within federal offices, organized crime, and the tragic life of Norma Jeane Mortenson. The darkness is there; we see it again and again -- as how could we not, given the times. But the book, I thought, holds the shadows at a certain distance in its tone.)
A large part of the cast is Jewish: German Jews desperately trying to get to the US, American Jews (including a bootlegger/pornographer/friend of gangsters/philanderer -- this is all one person, incidentally -- who saved Jewish lives but made the people promise not to reveal his assistance), their families and friends, the young Jewish teens who invented Superman. And there's Marilyn Monroe (who converted to Judaism), Joe DiMaggio, Clark Gable, Arthur Miller, Howard Hughes, Billy Wilder, and others.
The book moves very briskly in time and space. We see the growing darkness in Nazi Germany and the awful obstacles to escape: one of the people successfully made it to the US in search of a sponsor, which was necessary to ensure refugees wouldn't be a burden to the state, and then had to go back to Nazi Germany to collect his family. The German officials didn't want to let him in -- after all, why would they want another Jew in the country? -- so he told them, lying, that he was Clark Gable's European agent; it seems Gable, like many American film stars, was popular in prewar Germany. Eva Braun, for example, was particularly fond of Gone with the Wind. The returning German Jew casually remarks to the Nazi official, "Think of what the Fuhrer will say when he finds you were the man who stopped Clark Gable's movies from entering the country."
And of course there's Superman himself, the refugee, the outsider, embodiment of the wishes of the powerless: the first true superhero (the "Clark" of Clark Kent was a nod to Clark Gable; the "Kent" was a less-known actor). We meet the two young men, both outsiders, who invented him and soon lost control of their creation -- and the millions of dollars Superman generated for the publisher from comics, films, radio, and merchandise -- and what Superman's creators subsequently had to do to support themselves. It wasn't very pretty.
We read too the sad story of Marilyn Monroe's transformation from foster child to international celebrity. How the powerful men she interacted with were blind to her intelligence and ambition. Her stormy relationships with DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. And how it came to pass that the very same German Jewish escapee described above managed to make his way through a crowd of NYC onlookers and the film crew and capture her famous blown-skirt in "The Seven Year Itch" (a Billy Wilder film) on his handheld camera.
"The American Way" is not deep history. It's a fun ride, plain and simple. I'm pretty confident that readers under a certain age will not get who many of the people in the book were, what movie stars meant to Americans in those days, why "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" had so much popular appeal. On the other hand, readers closer to my age -- you know who you are, Boomers! -- will enjoy hearing the names, reading the anecdotes. It's a quick, diverting read. I say go for it if you want a break from, well, most everything.
It's a thoroughly enjoyable non-fiction read that doesn't pretend to be anything more. The authors focus on the stories of a small group of real people whose lives surprisingly intersected immediately before, during, and after WW2.
(Before going any further, let me make clear that this is not a lighthearted, nostalgic look back into some magical period in America's past. The authors do not avert their gaze from the darkness -- in Germany, the Great Depression here in the US, antisemitism within federal offices, organized crime, and the tragic life of Norma Jeane Mortenson. The darkness is there; we see it again and again -- as how could we not, given the times. But the book, I thought, holds the shadows at a certain distance in its tone.)
A large part of the cast is Jewish: German Jews desperately trying to get to the US, American Jews (including a bootlegger/pornographer/friend of gangsters/philanderer -- this is all one person, incidentally -- who saved Jewish lives but made the people promise not to reveal his assistance), their families and friends, the young Jewish teens who invented Superman. And there's Marilyn Monroe (who converted to Judaism), Joe DiMaggio, Clark Gable, Arthur Miller, Howard Hughes, Billy Wilder, and others.
The book moves very briskly in time and space. We see the growing darkness in Nazi Germany and the awful obstacles to escape: one of the people successfully made it to the US in search of a sponsor, which was necessary to ensure refugees wouldn't be a burden to the state, and then had to go back to Nazi Germany to collect his family. The German officials didn't want to let him in -- after all, why would they want another Jew in the country? -- so he told them, lying, that he was Clark Gable's European agent; it seems Gable, like many American film stars, was popular in prewar Germany. Eva Braun, for example, was particularly fond of Gone with the Wind. The returning German Jew casually remarks to the Nazi official, "Think of what the Fuhrer will say when he finds you were the man who stopped Clark Gable's movies from entering the country."
And of course there's Superman himself, the refugee, the outsider, embodiment of the wishes of the powerless: the first true superhero (the "Clark" of Clark Kent was a nod to Clark Gable; the "Kent" was a less-known actor). We meet the two young men, both outsiders, who invented him and soon lost control of their creation -- and the millions of dollars Superman generated for the publisher from comics, films, radio, and merchandise -- and what Superman's creators subsequently had to do to support themselves. It wasn't very pretty.
We read too the sad story of Marilyn Monroe's transformation from foster child to international celebrity. How the powerful men she interacted with were blind to her intelligence and ambition. Her stormy relationships with DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. And how it came to pass that the very same German Jewish escapee described above managed to make his way through a crowd of NYC onlookers and the film crew and capture her famous blown-skirt in "The Seven Year Itch" (a Billy Wilder film) on his handheld camera.
"The American Way" is not deep history. It's a fun ride, plain and simple. I'm pretty confident that readers under a certain age will not get who many of the people in the book were, what movie stars meant to Americans in those days, why "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" had so much popular appeal. On the other hand, readers closer to my age -- you know who you are, Boomers! -- will enjoy hearing the names, reading the anecdotes. It's a quick, diverting read. I say go for it if you want a break from, well, most everything.
January 31, 2023
I read The American Way by Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler in two days. I am not bragging; I couldn’t help it. The story drew me in: I had to know how things would play out for the Schulbacks and the Donenfeld crew once they got to America. I put lesson planning, exercising, and real-world grown-up responsibilities aside to experience the story of Holocaust survivors and refugees who do everything they can to get to America and to make lives for themselves. Marilyn Monroe’s place in the story surprised me. I grew up with Marilyn in the air, a cultural icon nobody needed to know much about–a part of the scenery. She was the pretty blonde who somehow gave “being blonde” a bad name. In contrast, Stapinski and Siegler paint a portrait of an Orphan Annie who took notes every time life delivered a lesson and made the most of her learning to come out ahead of the game. Their Marilyn is a woman of our time–fearless, driven, unapologetic, lonely. The American Way chronicles the experiences of Jewish refugees and how they found their place in American culture and how we understand ourselves. This is our biography, our memoir. Read it and learn that we might better care for our new neighbors as we deepen our understanding of what it means to be American.
March 19, 2023
Fantastic!!
November 28, 2022
I was intrigued by the subtitle of this book - "A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe" - thinking how do these disparate things all fit together if at all? I was so pleasantly surprised as they do fit together because of the authors' absolutely brilliant interweaving of stories that are personal and fascinating. One of the author's grandfather is a central figure whose compelling story is one of the key through-lines in this book. I could not put this book down it was so gripping and well-written. The writing and approach reminded me of Erik Larson's writing as he also aptly pulls in different contexts and narratives. Not only are the creators of Superman featured, but also Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. There is also harrowing tales of fleeing the Nazi's or in some cases tragically believing it can't get much worse so staying to ride it out - knowing that these are personal stories of the author's family make it even more poignant.
I am so glad I discovered this book - I highly recommend it. An absolute must-read.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I am so glad I discovered this book - I highly recommend it. An absolute must-read.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
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March 30, 2025Amazing stories of lives that intertwine in incredible ways -- a writer couldn't make this stuff up. Real people with experiences that were so interesting.... I didn't want to stop reading. Yes, some of this describes the horror of the Nazi's campaign to eliminate Jews; but also a detailed narrative of triumph as people made new lives in America. Vivid details....The authors are excellent storytellers.... one is the granddaughter of Jules, who fled from Germany in the days just before the Holocaust.
July 22, 2023
Just the kind of book I enjoy most. Many different strands/stories, all tied up together by the end. Very well written, lots of interesting info about Berlin, the Holocaust, America, Superman, Marilyn Monroe, and one of the authors family. See what I mean? Read it to see how they all come together.
April 23, 2023
I wish all authors wrote as interestingly as the two authors of this book. Although I really did not learn anything new when reading this book, it was just so well written that I didn't care. Anyone who wants to learn a little history regarding The Holocaust, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe, should sit back, open this book, and learn. I was going to type the words "and enjoy," but when dealing with The Holocaust, that word does not apply.
February 1, 2023
There are quite a few stories in this expansive book and the authors have adeptly tied them together. The reader can't help but be impressed by the huge amount of research that must have gone into the writing of the book. It is a little challenging to keep track of all the characters, but well worth the effort as the reader gets to learn about so many diverse aspects--or at least they seemed diverse before reading the book--of American life.
To me, the story of Jules Shulback was what really stood out and had me engrossed in the book. For those of us who are Jewish and seek to understand the impact of the Holocaust, this is a huge draw. Did I know that the comics world and the early film industry was so saturated with Jewish refugees and immigrants? Perhaps vaguely, but having it all laid out like this was a satisfying revelation of our role in American history.
The Marilyn Monroe story is a great hook, and will no doubt attract film buffs to this book. But it is much more than this and an excellent slice of life look at American history both pre- and post-World War II.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I hope it climbs straight up the best seller lists!
To me, the story of Jules Shulback was what really stood out and had me engrossed in the book. For those of us who are Jewish and seek to understand the impact of the Holocaust, this is a huge draw. Did I know that the comics world and the early film industry was so saturated with Jewish refugees and immigrants? Perhaps vaguely, but having it all laid out like this was a satisfying revelation of our role in American history.
The Marilyn Monroe story is a great hook, and will no doubt attract film buffs to this book. But it is much more than this and an excellent slice of life look at American history both pre- and post-World War II.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I hope it climbs straight up the best seller lists!
March 25, 2025
fun read! at times i lost the thread bc it took me a while to get through this (lunch break book!) but it was along the lines of something my dad might have liked. minus one star for zionism!
January 8, 2023
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Simon and Schuster for an advance copy of this book that is both a biography, and family study and and a history of America in the middle part of the twentieth century.
People like to believe in things. Most people want to think the best of the world, though that is getting harder and harder, and the best about themselves. People would like to think that if asked to help others, strangers, distant family, neighborhood people, work mates, co-religionists that they would do so without a doubt, or if there was a doubt still do it. People also like to think that the stories they grew up hearing, not fictional stories, but the stories about family are true. Maybe not totally true, uncles like myself like to add details, but that the basis for the story is true. That Grandpa and Grandma actually did interesting things, lived lives that were full, scary but interesting. I know we have plenty of stories like that in my family, and sadly no real way of checking to see if they are true. These two ideals, ideals that make America what it is, helping others and learning from the people before us to make a better today are at heart in this memoir and history by Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler. The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe is a book about comics, heroes, villains, finding a new home, cinema and celebrity, and much more.
Jules Schulback and his girlfriend, soon to be wife Edith were enjoying life in Berlin, Germany, which was an oasis at the time from many of the problems that were slowly under mining the country. The ascendancy of Adolf Hitler soon changed that, and their lives and the lives of their family were soon to be very much in danger. Henry Donenfeld had come with his parents from Romania, and started his own clothing business with his wife. After the First World War, times got hard, and he lost his business. Joining his brothers in their printing company Martin Publishing Donenfeld might have worked with the mob to smuggle illegal hooch during Prohibition, which gave him connections in the underworld that later helped his business, and comic book history. Joel Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel had an idea of a Super Man, one who wouldn't be afraid to fight oppression and the Nazis, but would fight for the rights of people of everywhere. And finally Joe DiMaggio loved baseball and comics, and later the actress Marilyn Monroe, and would later cross paths with Jules Schulback in a different way.
A big sprawling history book about the interconnection of history and how one little thing, can change events and lives. These people and others would circle each other, some helping others by physically doing things, others inspiring events and actions, but all leading to almost one moment in a dark night surrounded by cast, crew and lots of men watching one actress do one scene. The book reads almost like a collection of Zelig-like moments, and each page has information and facts that makes the reader flip to find more. The narrative is strong, and if one wonders why I didn't go much into the book, I really didn't want to ruin it for others. The story covers many of the big events historically and culturally, and the writing is very good at describing and making sense of what is going on. Some people in the book live, happy, some end horribly, and in sad situations. However the reader does care about the characters due to the writing, and how everything interlinks.
Recommended for readers who like narrative history such as books by Eric Larson or David Grann. Also for fans of big family history books like Rich Cohen's Sweet and Low, which shares a lot of characteristics with this book. And for readers who enjoy big stories about people doing good things and helping others, something we all should strive to do.
People like to believe in things. Most people want to think the best of the world, though that is getting harder and harder, and the best about themselves. People would like to think that if asked to help others, strangers, distant family, neighborhood people, work mates, co-religionists that they would do so without a doubt, or if there was a doubt still do it. People also like to think that the stories they grew up hearing, not fictional stories, but the stories about family are true. Maybe not totally true, uncles like myself like to add details, but that the basis for the story is true. That Grandpa and Grandma actually did interesting things, lived lives that were full, scary but interesting. I know we have plenty of stories like that in my family, and sadly no real way of checking to see if they are true. These two ideals, ideals that make America what it is, helping others and learning from the people before us to make a better today are at heart in this memoir and history by Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler. The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe is a book about comics, heroes, villains, finding a new home, cinema and celebrity, and much more.
Jules Schulback and his girlfriend, soon to be wife Edith were enjoying life in Berlin, Germany, which was an oasis at the time from many of the problems that were slowly under mining the country. The ascendancy of Adolf Hitler soon changed that, and their lives and the lives of their family were soon to be very much in danger. Henry Donenfeld had come with his parents from Romania, and started his own clothing business with his wife. After the First World War, times got hard, and he lost his business. Joining his brothers in their printing company Martin Publishing Donenfeld might have worked with the mob to smuggle illegal hooch during Prohibition, which gave him connections in the underworld that later helped his business, and comic book history. Joel Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel had an idea of a Super Man, one who wouldn't be afraid to fight oppression and the Nazis, but would fight for the rights of people of everywhere. And finally Joe DiMaggio loved baseball and comics, and later the actress Marilyn Monroe, and would later cross paths with Jules Schulback in a different way.
A big sprawling history book about the interconnection of history and how one little thing, can change events and lives. These people and others would circle each other, some helping others by physically doing things, others inspiring events and actions, but all leading to almost one moment in a dark night surrounded by cast, crew and lots of men watching one actress do one scene. The book reads almost like a collection of Zelig-like moments, and each page has information and facts that makes the reader flip to find more. The narrative is strong, and if one wonders why I didn't go much into the book, I really didn't want to ruin it for others. The story covers many of the big events historically and culturally, and the writing is very good at describing and making sense of what is going on. Some people in the book live, happy, some end horribly, and in sad situations. However the reader does care about the characters due to the writing, and how everything interlinks.
Recommended for readers who like narrative history such as books by Eric Larson or David Grann. Also for fans of big family history books like Rich Cohen's Sweet and Low, which shares a lot of characteristics with this book. And for readers who enjoy big stories about people doing good things and helping others, something we all should strive to do.
February 14, 2023
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Simon and Schuster for a digital ARC - pub date 2/14/2023.
First of all, I had to read this because, looking at the title, how could you not? The inclusion of the word "true" makes it especially intriguing because the rest sounds like a wild romp of fiction. I had to see how it all tied together. To my pleasure, it did. The extremely disparate threads actually all were woven together by the skilled hands of the authors; nothing proved too far a stretch in this six degrees of separation book.
Mind you, that does not mean that all of the threads were structural or even necessary. I feel that it would have been just as fascinating if they had whittled it down by a player here or there. It made for a very large and sprawling cast of characters, after all, and a very long timeline. However, it was a choice made by the authors to include every single diverging branch and, thanks to their care and conversational writing style, it worked far better than it theoretically had a right to work. In fact, it felt like you were reading one of those deftly balanced movies that Hollywood so rarely gets right, where they have an entire baker's dozen of Big Name Stars and actually utilize them all correctly. Jules, the Every Man of sorts, the Survivor, the Heart, kept everything remarkably grounded despite the explosions of glitz and glamor and famous names. He and his family stood fast in the center somehow and kept the book remarkably cozy. His life and experiences kept things realistic despite the brushes with the famous and infamous.
If the authors did not want to fully relinquish all of the characters, though, it occurs to me that they could have shorted some of the weight towards one or the other a bit. After all, while Marilyn Monroe is fascinating, she is also so well known that the reader does not need any elaborations other than a Cliff's Notes version of her life. I love Marilyn - deeply - but even I caught myself skimming those areas to get to the actual brush her life had with that of Jules Schulback. Likewise, to some extent, with the Superman connection which is only landed via Harry's sponsorship.
In the end, Jules and his family are the powerful central hub with the spokes of Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Harry Donenfeld, and all the rest spiraling out from them. The Schulbacks give the history its weight and relevance. They are a story of the American Dream that so many want to believe. Their suffering, their resilience, their love story. We want and need to believe that there are good people and good people are rewarded. We want to believe that, so long as a name is spoken, its owner's deeds can never die. Deeds and stories - we are human and to tell stories makes us even more human and to live stories... Well, that is all of our fate.
I wish I could quite a line from the book because it is such a beautiful summary of the immortality of our stories but, alas, it's pre-pub and I'm not allowed. Go on and read it, though. Go through the lives of Jules and Edith and see how even the smallest of us can be linked to the biggest because, in the end, we are all just simply human.
First of all, I had to read this because, looking at the title, how could you not? The inclusion of the word "true" makes it especially intriguing because the rest sounds like a wild romp of fiction. I had to see how it all tied together. To my pleasure, it did. The extremely disparate threads actually all were woven together by the skilled hands of the authors; nothing proved too far a stretch in this six degrees of separation book.
Mind you, that does not mean that all of the threads were structural or even necessary. I feel that it would have been just as fascinating if they had whittled it down by a player here or there. It made for a very large and sprawling cast of characters, after all, and a very long timeline. However, it was a choice made by the authors to include every single diverging branch and, thanks to their care and conversational writing style, it worked far better than it theoretically had a right to work. In fact, it felt like you were reading one of those deftly balanced movies that Hollywood so rarely gets right, where they have an entire baker's dozen of Big Name Stars and actually utilize them all correctly. Jules, the Every Man of sorts, the Survivor, the Heart, kept everything remarkably grounded despite the explosions of glitz and glamor and famous names. He and his family stood fast in the center somehow and kept the book remarkably cozy. His life and experiences kept things realistic despite the brushes with the famous and infamous.
If the authors did not want to fully relinquish all of the characters, though, it occurs to me that they could have shorted some of the weight towards one or the other a bit. After all, while Marilyn Monroe is fascinating, she is also so well known that the reader does not need any elaborations other than a Cliff's Notes version of her life. I love Marilyn - deeply - but even I caught myself skimming those areas to get to the actual brush her life had with that of Jules Schulback. Likewise, to some extent, with the Superman connection which is only landed via Harry's sponsorship.
In the end, Jules and his family are the powerful central hub with the spokes of Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Harry Donenfeld, and all the rest spiraling out from them. The Schulbacks give the history its weight and relevance. They are a story of the American Dream that so many want to believe. Their suffering, their resilience, their love story. We want and need to believe that there are good people and good people are rewarded. We want to believe that, so long as a name is spoken, its owner's deeds can never die. Deeds and stories - we are human and to tell stories makes us even more human and to live stories... Well, that is all of our fate.
I wish I could quite a line from the book because it is such a beautiful summary of the immortality of our stories but, alas, it's pre-pub and I'm not allowed. Go on and read it, though. Go through the lives of Jules and Edith and see how even the smallest of us can be linked to the biggest because, in the end, we are all just simply human.
January 7, 2024
The American Way is the story of Bonnie Siegler's grandfather, Jules Schulback. Jules Schulback was a German Jew living in Berlin in the 1930's with his wife and daughter. They were proud Berliners and they refused to believe that the Holocaust was really happening. As the anti-semitism grew and grew in Germany, Jules realized that it was unfortunately time to go. In the late 1930's, Jules came to New York to beg his relatives to help him get the proper forms to leave Germany. One had to prove that you would not be a burden to the US government. Obviously, the world has changed a great deal. Jules cousin, Faye Sternberg had an acquaintance with Harry Donenfeld, the publisher of the Superman comics. She requested that he fill out all of the forms. He did this, and he saved many members of the Schulback family. A simple visa was the difference between life and death. The ones that were left behind were all murdered by the Nazis, ie Germans. Jules wife was Edith, and her father refused to leave Germany. He could not believe what was happening. All of his possessions and money were taken and then he was murdered.
While Harry Donenfeld helped the Schulback family to escape, he was also an unscrupulous businessman. He was friends with the legendary Mafia figure, Frank Costello. In a sweetheart deal, Donenfeld bought the rights to Superman from the naive creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. This also happened in the late 1930's. Siegel and Shuster were young, extremely poor kids from Cleveland. When they were thrown in the pool with the New York business sharks, they were quickly eaten. They were poor and bitter the rest of their lives. Decades later when the first major Superman movie with Christopher Reeves opened, the studios decide to pay the two creators an extremely modest salary.
If this book tells us one thing, it is that Jews need a place to go when the country where they are living decides that they are in the way. This has happened many times in the past. Spain threw out the Jews in 1492. In recent memory, every country in the Middle East has exiled their Jewish populations. After the state of Israel was founded in 1948, all of the Muslim countries have ethnically cleansed their Jewish populations. There were one million of these Jewish individuals who were forced out of their so called countries. This is historical fact. They moved to Israel, America or Western Europe and got on with their lives. They did not become perpetual victims. I was once on a cruise with a gentleman that told me that his parents escaped from Vienna at the last minute. He related to me that they always believed that it could never happen in Austria, but it did. If the last months have shown me anything, it could also happen in the United States.
While Harry Donenfeld helped the Schulback family to escape, he was also an unscrupulous businessman. He was friends with the legendary Mafia figure, Frank Costello. In a sweetheart deal, Donenfeld bought the rights to Superman from the naive creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. This also happened in the late 1930's. Siegel and Shuster were young, extremely poor kids from Cleveland. When they were thrown in the pool with the New York business sharks, they were quickly eaten. They were poor and bitter the rest of their lives. Decades later when the first major Superman movie with Christopher Reeves opened, the studios decide to pay the two creators an extremely modest salary.
If this book tells us one thing, it is that Jews need a place to go when the country where they are living decides that they are in the way. This has happened many times in the past. Spain threw out the Jews in 1492. In recent memory, every country in the Middle East has exiled their Jewish populations. After the state of Israel was founded in 1948, all of the Muslim countries have ethnically cleansed their Jewish populations. There were one million of these Jewish individuals who were forced out of their so called countries. This is historical fact. They moved to Israel, America or Western Europe and got on with their lives. They did not become perpetual victims. I was once on a cruise with a gentleman that told me that his parents escaped from Vienna at the last minute. He related to me that they always believed that it could never happen in Austria, but it did. If the last months have shown me anything, it could also happen in the United States.
June 28, 2023
The co-author's grandfather Jules saw Marilyn Monroe's famous 1955 subway grate scene from The Seven Year Itch being filmed, and captured the moment on his home videocamera. From this extremely minor claim to fame, The American Way widens its scope to incorporate:
*Jules' dramatic 1938 escape from Nazi Germany just ahead of Kristallnacht ;
*The tragic story of Julies' family members left behind in Europe;
*The shady, licentious magazine publisher who sponsored Jules' immigration to the US;
*The two shlemeils who created "Superman," then sold the character to the publisher and lost out on millions of dollars;
*Marilyn Monroe, who once posed nude for the publisher's skin magazine; and
*Billy Wilder, another Jewish immigrant who directed The Seven Year Itch.
It reads quickly and smoothly, but I finished wondering why The American Way had to exist. There are other books that provide a more comprehensive history of the Holocaust, not to mention countless biographies of Monroe. Perhaps the authors wanted to portray the story of a real mensch whose long life was a testimony to the American Dream, and show how seven degrees of separation tied him to everyone from Holocaust victims to movie stars. But it felt at times like a random assortment of biographies that didn't quite fit together.
*Jules' dramatic 1938 escape from Nazi Germany just ahead of Kristallnacht ;
*The tragic story of Julies' family members left behind in Europe;
*The shady, licentious magazine publisher who sponsored Jules' immigration to the US;
*The two shlemeils who created "Superman," then sold the character to the publisher and lost out on millions of dollars;
*Marilyn Monroe, who once posed nude for the publisher's skin magazine; and
*Billy Wilder, another Jewish immigrant who directed The Seven Year Itch.
It reads quickly and smoothly, but I finished wondering why The American Way had to exist. There are other books that provide a more comprehensive history of the Holocaust, not to mention countless biographies of Monroe. Perhaps the authors wanted to portray the story of a real mensch whose long life was a testimony to the American Dream, and show how seven degrees of separation tied him to everyone from Holocaust victims to movie stars. But it felt at times like a random assortment of biographies that didn't quite fit together.
October 21, 2023
The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe. Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler. Simon & Schuster, 2023. 384 pages.
I love connections in history, and The American Way is a great example of connections done in a great and thoroughly entertaining way. What connections? In The American Way, co-author Bonnie Siegler manages to connect her Jewish grandparents' story of escaping Nazi Germany to New York to fellow Jewish refugee and Hollywood movie writer/director Billy Wilder to the creators of Superman to Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio to New York mob boss Frank Costello to a softcore porn magazine publisher. Each one of the stories told is amazing and interesting, especially the story of Superman's creation and how the creators were cheated out of their just rewards by the publisher, the aforementioned smut peddler.
Well, OK, true, the hub of the story is the story of Siegler's grandparents, Jules and Edith Schulback, a young Jewish furrier and his wife who managed to escape Nazi Germany just before the start of WWII. Their experiences in Germany and those of their family members who were unable to escape are well documented and told. The stories of the other individuals are the spokes radiating from the Schulback hub. Altogether, the parts make for a very satisfying wheel of reading.
I love connections in history, and The American Way is a great example of connections done in a great and thoroughly entertaining way. What connections? In The American Way, co-author Bonnie Siegler manages to connect her Jewish grandparents' story of escaping Nazi Germany to New York to fellow Jewish refugee and Hollywood movie writer/director Billy Wilder to the creators of Superman to Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio to New York mob boss Frank Costello to a softcore porn magazine publisher. Each one of the stories told is amazing and interesting, especially the story of Superman's creation and how the creators were cheated out of their just rewards by the publisher, the aforementioned smut peddler.
Well, OK, true, the hub of the story is the story of Siegler's grandparents, Jules and Edith Schulback, a young Jewish furrier and his wife who managed to escape Nazi Germany just before the start of WWII. Their experiences in Germany and those of their family members who were unable to escape are well documented and told. The stories of the other individuals are the spokes radiating from the Schulback hub. Altogether, the parts make for a very satisfying wheel of reading.
March 18, 2023
I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.
This is a fascinating book that tells the stories of two very different, but essentially ordinary, men who lived in extraordinary times. One was a furrier from Germany and the other was a New York publisher of pulp (mostly pornographic) fiction. In following their lives, families, and careers, the reader learns about the horrors of Hitler's rise in Germany and the Holocaust. The advent of comic books introduced the world to Superman, America's first super-hero who fought the Nazis at every turn.
When the war ended and the GIs came home, the movie industry, home photography, comics and magazines rose to new heights. We learn how some of the now-famous athletes and stars got their start. When Marilyn Monroe rose to fame with her picture taken over a subway grate in New York City, the furrier was there recording all of it with his home movie camera.
The scope of The American Way is all encompassing. There are inventors, mobsters, movie stars, and real-life heroes.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which presented a different and highly personal view of mid-20th Century America.
This is a fascinating book that tells the stories of two very different, but essentially ordinary, men who lived in extraordinary times. One was a furrier from Germany and the other was a New York publisher of pulp (mostly pornographic) fiction. In following their lives, families, and careers, the reader learns about the horrors of Hitler's rise in Germany and the Holocaust. The advent of comic books introduced the world to Superman, America's first super-hero who fought the Nazis at every turn.
When the war ended and the GIs came home, the movie industry, home photography, comics and magazines rose to new heights. We learn how some of the now-famous athletes and stars got their start. When Marilyn Monroe rose to fame with her picture taken over a subway grate in New York City, the furrier was there recording all of it with his home movie camera.
The scope of The American Way is all encompassing. There are inventors, mobsters, movie stars, and real-life heroes.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which presented a different and highly personal view of mid-20th Century America.
August 28, 2023
How can you not be intrigued with a book whose subtitle reads "A true story of Nazi escape, Superman and Marilyn Monore"? This is a fabulous true story (actually multiple true stories) of WWII era people, some famous, some you haven't heard of, who all intersect in some way before the book ends. While it's beautifully written it is not "light" reading since much of the tale revolves around Nazi Germany and the plight of Jews there. It's clearly well researched (one of the people prominently featured in "The American Way" is one of the author's grandfather whose tall tales were considered just that until she found proof of one particular boast when cleaning out his apartment.) All of the players are three dimensional, even one character who isn't always so likable on the outside but his "mitzvahs" betray who he truly was on the inside. Since there are a lot of different characters, I was pleased to be able to avail myself of the cast list in the front of the book which was very helpful. If you have any interest in this chapter of world history, you will find the story fascinating and enjoyable reading.
May 4, 2023
The real life cast of characters list that opens “The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe” by Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler (Simon and Schuster) is three pages long and divided into three parts: the Schulback family and friends; Harry Donenfeld, his family and business connections; and Marilyn Monroe, her husbands and others connected to her career. “The American Way” shows how these very different people intersected in sometimes unimportant and, at other times, profound ways.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...
June 24, 2023
An interesting work that somehow connects escaping Jews from Nazi Germany that knew a certain mansion in Wannsee as a resort and not the place of the worst business meeting in history; a couple of comic book artists behind the greatest comic book figure in US history; a bootlegger/pornographer and a couple of the biggest stars in the US in the 1940-1950s in Clark Gable, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. For the most part, the stories are interesting by themselves, but the author looks to connect them in an attempted transcendent work on American pop culture. Perhaps the mix need not have really happened, but they tried. Are the sums of the parts better than the individual pieces? Not sure. Still, a decent library checkout.
June 24, 2023
Some of the connections among the people/things in the title are nebulous to say the least but they are all in there. It was a group of fascinating life paths, terribly altered by the Nazis in some cases, and how in the midst of the American Dream some came out well financially but terribly regarding their physical health, some were ruined both financially and morally (I really could have gone without knowing that one of Superman's original creators ended up drawing for porn magazines, so thorough was the screwing over that he got from the company who really tricked him out of the rights to his creation). But really nobody gets off easy in life and nobody makes it out alive. That's kind of the message here.
December 25, 2023
This is the true life tale of two men and how their stories are entwined with 1930's Berlin, the Holocaust, Superman and Marilyn Monroe. While I enjoyed the Superman and Marilyn aspects, because they were familiar, I was drawn into the tale by the real people fighting for their very lives in Hitler's Germany. Every choice made by the Jewish families at this time and place was a literal gamble. The book does a good job at balancing the devastation and loss of the very real people in the German part of the tale with the creative celebrity side of the story taking place largely in New York. The book is very good but all of the connections are too complicated to explain in a review. It really has to be read to be appreciated.
August 22, 2023
This was an excellent book. I will be recommending it to anyone who asks me what they should read next. Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Hugh Hefner, Harry Donenfeld, Superman -- these are a few of the people represented in this book. I am really amazed how the author was able to take so many people and show how they were connected to each other even if it was distantly. I learned something new about people I had heard about before and I admired Jules Schulback and his family their courage in either surviving or escaping to the U.S. in the face of the atrociities of Hitler's Germany.
October 1, 2023
Stapinski and Siegler bring together a cast of seemingly unrelated characters and events to tell an all American story. From Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Hefner and Superman to Nazi Germany and Jewish immigrant life in New York City, the story centers around Siegler’s grandfather Jules Schulback and his family. It was all very interesting but I got lost in some of the tangential anecdotes and side stories. And as is the problem with many authors, Siegler is not a great audiobook narrator. I also missed out on all of the photographs. This might be an example of a book that is better in print than on audio.
March 1, 2023
This was an interesting story of how Superman came about and the struggles that these two intertwined families went through from escaping Nazi Germany to making names for themselves in America and crossing paths with some of the biggest names. In short, from one distant family member making a connection to the other, a family was saved from concentration camps, torture and death and as a result, a legendary super comic was created and the iconic Marilyn Monroe moment came to pass in history. It was an incredible read.
March 16, 2023
A storytelling journey unlike any other I've ever read. The way each person's life was woven into the the next was so fun. I remember seeing my older cousin's comic book collection and wondering why there were Hitler or WWII references. Now 30 plus years later, this book answered that question. I learned so much about emigrant experience leading up to the war and so saddened by who all didn't get out in time. What a treasure to have Jules' film and stories. Having relatives write this new account of it all is even more special.
April 10, 2023
The authors have combined seemingly unconnected people and situations to detail America from the 30's to 60's. Each chapter begins with a photo of the people involved in that section, and the details the authors have found are almost too much. We learn of escapes from Germany while family members are being taken to camps, about Jewish gangsters and crooks, about the two young men who drew and wrote the first Superman comics, and about Marily Monroe. Somehow all of this goes together and I really enjoy the journey.
May 8, 2023
Wow. Fascinating Retelling of icons
While I would highly encourage this read, it is a sad tale. Most who journeyed in connections this icons did not experience the parts of life that matter and spent most of their life trying to find it.
It’s a fascinating journey to hear how so many overcame the death they were intended to experience at the hands of the Natzis and how it was never far from their memories. I will have to read it again to take on all the names and people connecting in this period of history.
While I would highly encourage this read, it is a sad tale. Most who journeyed in connections this icons did not experience the parts of life that matter and spent most of their life trying to find it.
It’s a fascinating journey to hear how so many overcame the death they were intended to experience at the hands of the Natzis and how it was never far from their memories. I will have to read it again to take on all the names and people connecting in this period of history.
April 7, 2023
At its heart this book is a love story about a Jewish furrier, Jules, and his wife Edith and how they escaped Berlin under the Nazis. The chapters are short and jump between Jules, his relatives and various famous people: Marilyn Monroe, Billy Wilder, the creators of Superman. I enjoyed these mini biographies, but as I was reading they felt disparate. By the end though it is clear that their stories are connected and those connections are part of what makes us human. A beautiful and frequently heartbreaking read.
July 28, 2023
‘The American Way” is a fun read, chocked full of facts on every page. Wonderfully and exhaustively researched, the books provides details of several very American stories interwoven through the 20th century. Movies I saw, comic books I read, headlines and celebrities we all talked about are all brought back to life on each well written page so that the action flows along like fiction. Highly recommended for those who remember and those who just love a good read.
October 15, 2023
I'd say 4.5 stars. Very enjoyable read, and various disparate threads were all woven together at the end, although some of that was really stretching. However, the book succeeded at presenting an interesting snapshot of American life in the 1930s through the 1950s and a bit beyond. It meshed nicely with the relatively recently read book, Madam, by Debby Applegate, about Polly Adler and her cultural surroundings in some of the same decades.
February 17, 2023
Well-written, fascinating stories especially those that begin in Germany. The tale of Jules and Edith on its own would make a great book. That they were saved, in part, by the efforts of the man responsible for bringing an American icon to the masses and that Jules would later film another American icon seem a little irrelevant, and the connections that tie these stories together seem stretched!
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