[applause] >> good afternoon. it is an honor and privilege to be speaking with you here today. several years ago my father told me about a german ship sunk at the end of world war ii. he didn't know much about it other than its name and that was incredibly devastating.

i discovered was the worst maritime disaster in peace and war. more than 9,000 people died on january 30th, 1945 when the submarine attacked the wilhelm which was a other cruise liner turned state ship. so, to put that into context that is about six times more than those who died when the titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. during the initial research into this incident i found few people outside of the military took note of the sinking in in the immediate aftermath. as the years went on the, it would get a mengin uncertain histories of world war ii. but there had been nothing that was exploring it in debt. and so, because of that, little

is known. initially i could find no information and no explanation for the knowledge why did so little success. but that piques my curiosity even further. i wanted to know more about the sinking and more about the people that were above tonight because to me, it is the story of how people came to be aboard this ship. it's about what it was like to come of age in the part of nazi germany that until the early 1940's had remained in some ways isolated from what was happening closer to berlin. the first survivor that i found was a man man who grew up in the east russia and today he lives about three hours north of

toronto. he was a ten year old boy at the time of the sinking. and so i traveled to canada to meet him and the sinking naturally still harms him. he thinks about it every day. as desperate as the conditions were, the stories like his have remained largely unknown. i knew after the very first hour of meeting him that his story and the story of the other survivors needed to be told. and so this book is the story of what i found. it's the result of interviews with survivors and time spent in the archives in putting the archives in washington, d.c.. i was fortunate enough to spend time at the holocaust memorial museum as well as obtaining records from the federal archives in germany.

well, in the early 1945, the end of the war in europe was in sight. the americans and british were closing in from the left and the soviets were closing in on berlin from the east did many civilians and some soldiers chose to abandon these volatile areas by any means possible. especially for those civilians living in east prussia at the time. they knew exactly what awaited them when the soviets were approaching. they knew that the same act of barbara qassam, the same massacres that happened to them as had happened to the russians and the german army had evidenced in its invasion of the soviet union in 1942. however, they were under orders. they were not permitted to leave until the end of january 45. the nazi government forbade any one to leave. to do so would show signs of

acknowledgment that they were going to lose the war. finally hitler agreed and gave permission to start evaluating and that did save about 2 million civilians. so at this point of the refugees are starting to amass the harbors on the baltic sea. it is today of course of poland. in the final days of january 27, 8, 29, the refugees are trying to get aboard the ship and its one of them. nearly 10,000 german refugees attempt to escape across the baltic sea to germany which was supposed to be about 812 hour

trip. as you know they met a tragic end. some time before the daybreak of jinnah where a 30 of, three torpedoes from a submarine struck the vote causing catastrophic damage and throwing passengers into the frozen waters of the baltic sea, and it was about 12 nautical miles off of the bank, which is a low flying off the coast of poland. those included primarily women and children, elderly and men but it also included members of the marine corps the german navy, and there were also wounded soldiers. because history is defined by as much what becomes a part of the official record as what is left unrecorded, you know the story. in this case, german censorship and the soviet suppression and western indifference conspired.

refusing to let the flailing third crites, hitler was reporting the sinking. they suppressed the story partly because it doubted the integrity of the very submarine commanders at fired. the event remains very first because of world fatigue and that was overshadowed by the cold war. was relatively him and the victims themselves inspired little empathy of their role and the country's role in world war ii. perhaps more than any other war in recent history is still portrayed in the stark lines of black and white.

last winter we stopped at gettysburg. i was drawn to newspaper coverage of the battle to to it really resonated with me because of what i had been working on. every name is a lightning strike in some parts and bricks like thunder and falls a long black shadow and the reason this quote resonated with me because the stories had been quite for so long. and as i mentioned, the victims fell to number one unable to talk about it because of the guild and number two, there was definitely little sympathy for the civilians of this part of the world. but to me every name that perished was a lightning stroke

to some parts. and the story with all of its drama not only resurrect history but raises provocative questions about loss, survival, and how those impacted continue on year after year and decade after decade. so now i would like to turn to some slides that will tell you the story of some of those survivors that i was fortunate enough to interview. so it was launched on may 5th, 1937, just one day before the german passenger air shaft crashed and burned from the lakehurst to new jersey. it was a 25,484-ton ship and it was 684 feet long.

it was the pride and joy of the strength through july fleet. by way of comparison again the titanic was actually much larger at 46,000 tons, and 882 feet long. while the hindenburg as you know caught fire and was the story that they failed in the morning mass and there were 97 people aboard, and 46 died. when the summary torpedoed more than 9,000 the ships were launched with great fanfare, they both strike a very different chord in our collective memory. a gearshift also coming from the same government doesn't carry the weight of nazi germany, and for good reason. the booze love was built expressly to symbolize the strength and power of the third right to the letter was named

for the assassinated leader of switzerland's nazi party, and wilhelm is also a close personal friend of adolf hitler. when hitler decided after gustav was assassinated that he could use this assassination for political purposes for propaganda, and so he decided that one of the ships of the fleet would be named for gustav and that it would also be the biggest, it would also be the best. and until then, though most people of germany didn't know the name. and this was a way to rally the people. it's a little difficult to make out at the bottom of the slide, but looks a little bit fuzzy and the heads of hundreds of thousands of people who have just to see this ship launched from the shipyard.

this is the menu in the voyage, so initially the program was a way to deliver to the people, and the program was started in the mid-1930s. it was a large-scale social program to the it was part of the german labor front, and it was put into rights abolished trade union. so the people that took root members of the german labor and mind you this is not a voluntary membership, you were forced to join in and you were forced to pay the dues. but in return, they offered sporting events, operas, harvest festivals, it celebrated hitler's's birthday so it was a very political organization. and the cruise liners were

launched. and that is partly because until then, the most germans had never traveled outside of their own country. it was something for the wealthy. it wasn't something that was available to most. so, it stops along the coast of africa to read in scandinavia it would go up the shores of norway and the mediterranean. and year it is just off the coast of portugal. and you can see the people walking in the street in costume , and i've been told by one gentleman whose mother remembered, she grew up in norway and remember it coming up in those early years. people were very upset because one, what it represented, and number two, the germans a board would spend no money in these

towns. they just came off and looked around and they were back on their boat. but, the idea behind these is there was no first or third class. the idea at the land, was one people, one entire, one leader to the and so the gustav became an effective propaganda tool. it was used also in facilitating the rescue but english crew after a storm, and interestingly a paper in australia loved this rescue. they were so impressed. in 1938, they were used as a station so they took german citizens living in london at the time to come to be doubled to vote and the evening before,

they essentially told people you will vote yes. it's very how they were to vote. by 1939, it is no longer a cruise ship. in september -- after september 1st after the start of world war ii, the government quickly decides that it's going to become a hospital ship for the sick and the wounded, and so it becomes -- is tethered in the shipyard and it will not leave the shipyard until 1945. at that point, a wide green bay and was painted of novel hall of a gleaming white and there are red cross symbols painted on the stacks as well. so by 1940 it is decided that they will serve as an accommodation ship for the

trainees so what you are seeing more officers eating a board serving of the time as the accommodation should. they are learning survival skills and in his days in that capacity until the start of the operation. so this photograph is a photo of a street in east prussia which of course is the story. this is one of the women that i was able to meet in the interview for the book and she had this photograph of her family's furniture showroom. just three weeks after the premiere at the wizard of oz to the audiences, world war ii

began on the timber first, 1939. on the tent, the courses are marching in from the west and coming in from the east. and east prussia, where the refugees come from, most of them come from that area remains somewhat isolated. and it wasn't until a little bit later until early 40's the policies truly go into effect and take whatever they want. the factories are no exception they explain to me they turn it into a uniform factory, and her family is no longer able to come in and out. they had to ask for permission. they forbade anyone to leave. the toy with the idea of leaving that they knew that their neighbor across the street had been executed for trying to leave, but they wouldn't be allowed to leave.

how they will tell the story of how they knew that there were russian pows being forced to work in this factory. and her father was able to keep a little bit of a garden in the backyard which wasn't visible and some chickens and rabbits and he would make a soup every day. he was supposed to make a very watered-down version for the p.o.w. come in and of course a better and more nourishing soup for any of the officers, the nazi officers stationed there but he would try to sneak in a little bit of meat into the soup and vegetables into the soup, and so remembered just about once a week, every ten days or so her father was being brought down to the police station in clemens' third for the display of resistance. and so her parents were obviously very worried about what was going to happen. here is a picture on the left

and her oldest sister is there on the right. and there is a picture on one of the summer vacations on the baltic sea to the it's something that they look forward to every year as the of thousands, said in the baltic sea was just a beautiful place to go and what is amazing is that these photographs here she actually still has them. she told the story of how when i was finally allowed, she was the older sister and asked her father to be in charge of the money and the identification papers and her father said you know, that will be inga's job because she is a little older and a little more responsible. so she put some photographs in her back pocket. it was a pocket with a little

button to secure it and the photographs survived the sinking in the years afterwards to disagree chassis enough to provide me copies of these. this is a model of transport just about 1500 persons altogether so that would be passengers and a full complement these are the days it is giving the crew along the mediterranean and scandinavia. now you can see the lifeboats. there were 22. each lifeboat was designed to hold 70 people. as i mentioned upwards of 10,000 people on the davis sank. they were crammed into every

space imaginable. into the closets, under the stairwells. there were eight decks on the gustloff and the one was a glass enclosed to attract after the torpedos stock. i've been asked there were not enough life boats, life vests and certainly not large enough for the number of children aboard. even if there were more lifeboats that took a long time to sink. was very difficult for people that were even able to make their way to the lifeboat. those that did make their way to the lifeboat that was also no guarantee of survival because it had been one of the coldest winters on record.

many of them snapped and plummeted into the sea. the capsized. then those that try to swim and get into a lifeboat some of them were beaten back by people already in the life boats that were crowded. so the scene and you can't imagine was chaotic to say the least. helga today lives in las vegas. he was one of the survivors that was able to get into a lifeboat although she actually moved down the side of the boat. there were some boats in the area that night but they heard a distress call. they were able to get a distress call out that might and the

other they took up the most of these survivors but there was no organized rescue operation tree they were taken to the island in the baltic sea and it was itself another strength project. they had envisioned a very massive total and the cruise liners would have no luxury accommodation versus what we consider the economy today rather cost overruns and was never completed however the german red cross is set up to help the survivors helga's story takes a remarkable turn and that

she finally gets on the to train to start heading west today they wanted to end up in the allied hands to make it to the british or the american line. she was on a train during the dresden firebombing but she does eventually make it to california when she arrives in 1948. here is an actual official boarding pass. most people didn't have any official documentation they were handled in the first days it was orderly and that would have been about the 27 than the 28th of january 1945. after that, the situation becomes out of control and people are just pushing their way onto the ship. so because of that, people don't have them and many of them are destroyed in the sinking itself. this one was not, but you still

have that. so now we are going to goodlatte -- lafayette latvia her sister these are the two survivors i was able to get to know. they grew up in latvia and in 1939, because of the non-aggression treaty they were deported, anyone with any german ancestry at that point is the shea-porter and sent to east prussia primarily to colonize. and now they are red of the jewish people and the polish

people. but the girl identified very much with the russian heritage. their mother was russian and they spoke no english, so it was very confusing for them when they ever arrived in east prussia and they are told they have to learn german, they have to try and hitler youth and all of this is confusing to the two of them and they are of course just two of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced in the early years of world war ii. so this is irene today living in ontario. they are holding a cookbook with them. the reason for this, this is one of their treasures that came with them later after the war when they were able to reunite with their father, a cookbook he

took with them. after the war ended, some were fortunate enough to make it to the american line and the care packages start arriving. so at night they would flip through the book and look at the recipes and try to keep their hunger pains at bay. their story is also very sad. their cousin was with them that might and the mother was in charge of the three girls and the cousins didn't survive that and the reason aunt was up with them is she was very ill and they remembered their mother having to knock on her door to tell them that, you know, her daughter did not survive. and their uncle and cousin spent three years in a siberian forced

labor camp. many of the men who had been conscripted after savitt took a long time for these families to be reunited. this photograph is inga with her mother milda and her grandmother rosalee. she has the distinction of being one of the youngest survivors on the gustloff that might. so naturally, she doesn't recall. she was about 2-years-old the light of the sinking. but she does remember that when her mother was alive, they often spoke about that day and the time that followed. milda wrote a very long and detailed letter to inga as well explaining why the in the double the speed and what happened during the sinking.

inga, who now lives in australia, told me that one of the greatest courage is people laughed at the notion that she had survived the world's maritime disaster and they dismissed the idea that a young mother and her baby girl were aboard the gustloff at all in this picture is horris as atv with his grandparents, who also lived in east prussia. he had a very warm feeling for his early childhood years. he ran third his mother putting him on the train with a sign at around his neck to go meet his grandparents. ..

>> it comes in handy for them. this is captain alexander of the

s13 #. the start of the war, there's not that much soviet submarine activity in the baltic sea. the boats are pretty much having their way just as they were in the very early part, you know, in the early part of the battle of the atlantic. the soviet submarines go through several changes. in the late 20s, they had started a new class of submarines that were modeled after british boat, and they had technical assistance from germany. by the 19 toes, they introduced another class of larger and faster submarines armed with torpedo tubes. most of the officers were drafted from the ranks of the merchant marines, and if they could prove they had what it took, and they could successfully serve one tour as an executive officer op a submarine, they would then get their own command, but even

still, finding officers with adequate experience during world war ii was a challenge for soviet leaders. that goes back, again, just to jump back for a moment to the 1930s with the communism party. many of the leaders had been forced out. it was not until the latter part of the war that the russians stepped up operations a little in the baltic sea. alexander who grew up in ukraine very much wanted to be the ideal russian naval officer, and he's responsible for firing, and only he was definitely not the ideal officer, and in some ways, as far as his superiors were concerned. he had a drinking problem. he was a womanizer. he very much was insubordinate. his crews loved him earning

their never ending respect. shortly before, he was caught fraternizing with a swedish woman in what we call a restaurant of ill repute. he's threatening the court marshall, but, again, it's difficult to find someone with experience so they just leave him by. they get orders to fire on anything, german, which he broadly interprets, and he's the target of opportunity for him, you know. the soviets at this point in late 1945 as they close in, the battle, in east prussia knowing civilians are trying to get out. they are very aware of the civilians aboard ships, but for him, this is 5 -- a target that he just could not resist, and, again, because of, and to use the word "animosity"

is an understatement between germany and soviet union at that time. this was, for him, what he considered to be a legitimate target. this is another captain, one of four aboard. why four captains? well, there's military aboard, and so john's in charge of them, but there's all the civilians, and so they have frederick peterson aboard, an they do not agree on anything other than the destination. john wanted to travel as fast adds possible. he was wanting to go 15 knots per hour, and petersonmented to hold back. he was concerned that the boat which had been in dry dock for five years at this point wouldn't really be able to withstand going so, going fast. they disagreed on what route to

take. you know, they disagreed, should they zigzag or follow the postal route? you know, hug the coastline to avoid submarines because there are not reports of submarines there, but they knew the baltic was filledded with mines. they argued over whether or not to have navigation lights on. they have the navigation lights on because they are concerned there is a german mine sweeper operating worry about collision that night as well. all of this enabled them to do what was decidedly risky maneuver, one key spot, and he kind of is in between the ship and coastline, and he strikes. after the war not after the war, but after the incident, not long after the incident, they are called in for a board of inquiry, and he testifies about

what happens, and so all of this came to light, and they placed blame on the crew just the lowest officers, and just people who said we didn't have jesh r germans and points fingers, but in the end, really, nothing would have saved them, and difficult to choose whether lights on or off would have helped them. today, it's off the coast, and few divers visited the wreck. mike is one diver who got hermits from the polish government, and i got to know mike through writing this book, and he shared the following slides with me. it rests in about 150 feet of

water. what is striking is the check from the jet and the stern are very much in tact. the midsection of the boat very much collapsed in on itself, and it came to him, and they know soviets in the year after the war repeatedly dove the wreck. what it was taking no one knows. there's a lot of mystery, a lot of rumor going on what they were looking for. there's speculations by some that believe the amber room was aboard the boat. for those who don't know, the amber room was from the katherine palace in st. petersberg, and, today, there's a reproduction of the amber room there. there's some who said there was advanced rockets carried aboard, and there's those who say there were parts for more advanced

u-boats aboard, and none of that has been sub stanuated, that any of that was aboard, but because of the lack of remains where you expect to see human remains, there are none, and this has been taken away, and i think that remains a mystery. here's a stairwell. i just sort of imagine you can just imagine that night after of torpedo strike of the passengers below deck trying to make their way up these very narrow, crowded stairwells to make their way to lifeboats, you know, stepping over people who just lacked the energy at some point to go, who gave up, who had died in the initial attack, and so it's really may markble to me

that, in fact, any survived this because, again, the ship went down in less than 90 minutes. the last slide that i'll leave you with here shows side by side the letters, you can see in the upper left corp.er, and there is deliver just in front of the letters now, scraping away the growth there on the letters, but they are still very much in tact today. with that, i'll conclude my presentation, and i would love to take some questions. [applause] >> do you know how many pilots there were? >> again, because the numbers are difficult, but there were a

little more than a thousand survivors. >> [inaudible] >> no. there was no warnings. they dpsh the reason they chose the route they did partly is because they didn't expect there were submarines in the area. there were -- the civilians had no idea. they are really just doing anything to rush out. you know, someone that i had talkedded with tried to make the comparison at the end of the vietnam war with people just, you know, trying to get out of the fall of saigon. that is how desperate people were to flee at that point. people very much looked at the ship and safety feeling relieved to be aboard it. yes, sir? >> i noticed the last picture referenced hamburg as being a location for this.

now, were there any people on shore that were there during the experience? did they contribute to the book at all? >> there were people at the point that people were -- it was not -- the shipyard was out of timber, but to answer the question, in the jeer mapp federal archives, there's -- i was able to get documents and transcripts of people who had been on shore. for instance, as i mentioned, there was the women's naval, and they all died. they were in the swimming pool which was emptied. some of their remains, you know, some of the bodies were recovered, and so some of the people on shore after had the duty to identify, but most of the identification was for any of the military personnel aboard. the civil yaps on board, you

know, many are lost to history. i heard people say, i think, i grew up there, i think my great uncle was aboard, but i don't know. it's very difficult, you know, to be able to find that out. yes, ma'am? >> when you were charged to go op board and who paid it? >> no, there was no charge to go op board. you were able to get -- thigh wanted documentation and ticket the to go aboard, but they were really giving them only to, initially, the elderly or mothers with children, and because of that, couples who are eventually showing up or someone single with no child, they were passing babies back and forth to try to use to get aboard. [laughter] >> yes? >> back to the submarines, were there naval surface ships that were figging in the baltics? >> yes.

there was the t36 and admiral surface ships out that night, and they had heard the disstress call, and they were some of the first to arrive on scene to help. >> yes, sir? >> what happened to her paraphernalias? >> yes, her sister did not survive the sinks so two of them went over together, and they made the decision to, you know, grab on a rope rather than shimmy down, and she did not survive. her father did not survive the war, and she later finds her mother before the -- they eventually are able to get to the west. yes, sir? >> they had red cross markings on the ship prior to and shipped to a training ship. what markings were on the ship that night?

>> that night, it was still painted gray, the colors of -- they never repainted it afterwards. any of the ships were pretty much as is. they might have been -- as i mentioned, they were using some of the military ships to transport civilians. they didn't really have much mountain way of large ships that could take a lot of people at once. yes, sir? >> in 1945, the germans were not too welcoming in the united states. how did they get here? >> good question. well, many of them were with family who might have been in west germany, and they applied for visa, and as you may know, there were quo toes -- quotas, and some were able to get in the states, some in canada, some ended up in the u.k., and inga's family, the one who was the baby, they ended up in australia.

that came through first for them, so it was tough, though, in the beginning. hellen remembered much whrairt, so this was 20 years after the war, she was never talking about the story, and most didn't want to talk about the story because they knew the political climate, and they didn't is a lot of sympathy, and coworkers had said to her something to the effect of it was very tough during the war. we had to use margin, and so she was just about to sort of tell them her story, and with that, she just decided this was not something to speak of with people. yes, sir? >> how many ships or boxes were used in operation hanibal, and when did it begin and end? >> it started just in the last weeks of january, and it went on through almost of the end of the

war. the land route by the time people are going were almost closed. it was almost impossible, and some of the -- in terms of the ships, hundreds were to be involved, but they could have been anywhere from a small sort of pleasure boat, but not too many to the larger military ships. the idea was they were just going to go back and forth across the baltic sea, and they would still be in german territory with the idea to get them as close as possible. >> okay. >> yes, sir? >> can you talk about the investigation after the sinking of the ship, whether it was classified as a war crime or any reliability the russian government was made to pay? >> yes, sure. well, it was never classified as a war crime. there was the inqir ri, but that was internal. that was the german navy itself. what happened, though, was they

were hoping to get hero of the soviet union, that's the highest -- would have been the highest military honor, but unfortunately, as i mentioned, his track records didn't serve him well. there was another incident he fired on a boat, and he exaggerated his report, so he had a history of that. he was responsible for torpedoing another escape a few weeks after this. he does not get the recognition that he craves. the soviet government -- they move on, and they don't want to talk about it again because that is their atrocities, in the same way some of the soviet liberators of concentration camps, their stories also were not told -- a positive story for them, but because of what was going on under stalin with all these forced labor camps.

he comes into power, and he's long dead that he does get hero of the soviet union, and today, which you call konansberg, there's a huge statue there today. he's slowly becoming, considered a hero in the soviet union for this, and it's one of these where, you know, if you believe that this was a legitimate target because of military personnel on board, you know, to me, the fact is the numbers of of civilians, you know, far outweigh that, but regardless, these are people who are very much caught up between two madmen, you know, hitler and stalin. yes, sir? >> here's where -- [inaudible] as i understand she was used in

rescue operations after the war. did you ever run into that vessel? >> i did not. actually, hitler never visited it either, so it's just -- thank you. yes, sir? >> what was the water temperature? >> the baltic was icing over that winter in particular. many of the tracks that people took to get to the harbors themselves, shallow lagoons, and people could go ice skating on occasionally, and they were iced over, and as they were going, russian planes were op them. they were targeting the civilians all along the way. frigid is an understatement. most would have died of exposure until they were rescued.

okay. well, thank you very much for listening. thank you. [applause] >> here's a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country:

>> with what we put in the intrough and what you helped me with because of the disconnect, first of all, the world i worked in for 5 years, tv, everything is exaggerated. you have to be much thinner than the normal person, so you think. you have to be a certain way. you have to lock a certain way. your hair has -- we've broken

all the rules op our show, but 25 years of network news took a toll on my image of myself, and i tell stories in the book about how we'd dress a certain way, everything had to be really tight, and i was even told by a network executive that they wanted to hire me, but i needed to lose weight and come back in six months and try again, and i did, and i came back in six months, and i got a job. the messages were very clear, and some of them were subliminal. you know, you already have a compulsiveness, or i claim, even addiction to some of the foods that we are surrounded with in ore environment. i think it's a bad mix, and i tell this story because i discovered, after a very, very uncomfortable, tough conversation with an extremely close friend who was actually obese, that even though she had a very different physical

result, we both had gotten to the point that we had gotten to the same way. >> all right, so -- >> it was driven by food obsession. >> set that up in one second, but to let people know how the obsession continues because on the "today" show yes, right, talking about being obsessed, talking about being healthy, and you were a size 2; right? >> 118 pounds, and a size 2. >> since you started doing the book, you actually started eating. >> that was the challenge. >> you weigh -- how much now? >> 133. size 66. >> size 6, okay. >> and it looks good. >> so we're celebrating this, and we are going around saying i look good, like she's convincing herself. >> yeah. >> this, like obsessed demon inside of you, i call you, and say, hey, that "toad" show was great, kicked it. i looked fat, didn't i? i looked fat. i said, oh, god, you're still

obsessed. >> yes. >> you're obsessed. diane, your friend, even though she weighs 255 pounds, she carried the same obsession around with her all the time, and talk about -- talk about how this book started on a boat -- >> two years ago. >> almost -- >> by the way, an addiction is not something you ever get rid of, but two years ago on the boat, two close friends, families there, and -- known her for a long time -- we have shared so much together. >> you guys had a baby together. >> we had a baby together. my husband was out of town for the birth of our second child, and she came to the hospital with me, and in the middle of intense labor, she was taking a long time to arrive, and the doctor went to order a pizza. [laughter] diane caught my baby.

[laughter] we literally, she has -- there are sides of me i wish she had not seen. [laughter] i'll tell you that it was amazing to me that about two years ago we've known each other so long, shared so much, and yet we have not talked about the one thing. that really needed to be addressed and divided us. i was really skinny, probably too skinny, yes, too skinny, and diane had become obese gaping a hundred pounds, and i told her on that boat rite, and you can imagine how thin i was and how she must have felt, but i told her that i was worried about her, and that she was fat and i used the word "obese," and i found my heart beating and sweat ran down by mac because i could tell the conversation could get really bad, but my -- >> yeah, i don't usually call my friends fat. >> yeah. >> you decided to do this -- you

decided to do it because you loved her, and you knew she was literally killing herself as much as somebody that smoked a couple packs a cigarettes a day. >> here's the question i have. if you're -- and women claim to be able to tell their i want mat friendships, tell each other everything, but do we? do we? if you have a friend who's so clearly obese and struggling and can't get into a boat, if your friend had cancer, wouldn't you support her, talk to her about it, and help her? if a friend had another illness, a condition, wouldn't you go there and walk her through it, and yet if a friend is obese, we subconsciously judge them, and the data shows we don't hire them. we think they are slobs. we think they are undisciplined, and we don't think they are as good as us. >> watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. what are you reading this summer? booktvments to know.

>> first on the list, i already read the first chapter called "eating animals," my daughter read it, she's an environmental studies major, very interested in the whole food movement and fighting against factoried food, and i'm interested, i mean, i eat meat, chicken, seafood, and i may come away from the book not wanting to eat any of that or being selective about how i eat it, but i know that it's a compelling writing, and i'm looking forward to it. next is a tribute to my son. this is the new biography of david foster wallace called "every love story is a ghost story," and i heard it's very, very well researched, and david foster wallace was a professor where my son graduated, and he's a fan of wallace. he read, and wallace was regarded by many to be one of

the most interesting and creative writers of his era, killed himself a few years ago, and i'm just very interested in the what happened with his life. i know he had many struggles, and i love biography. that's my biography for the summer. next is a book by a friend of mine called "our commonwealth," and my friend passed two years ago without finishing the book, and his friends pull together his essays all about the commons, which is, basically, anything that belongs to humanity. it's the air, the water, it's public spaces, the internet, and his, one of his strides in life was to protect the commons and mic sure everything doesn't get taken over by private enterprise so this is very much on my list. it's not a long read, and i

heard it's really very interesting. last is fiction. the new book called "and the mountains echoed," and i read the first two books. i've never been to afghanistan, and so this is my little way of going there without getting on a plane. it's a family story, intergenerational family, and i think he's a wonderful writer, and i plan to cry, and just end joy every minute it -- of it. thank you. ..

the first volume begins with a liberation where europe begins in north africa 1942. if the invasion of morocco and algeria and the campaign across north africa. the second volume of ms. moore across the mediterranean into the invasion of sicily in july of 1942 and souhe