Book picks similar to
Brothers Beyond Blood by Don Kafrissen
historical-fiction
wwii
leisure
world-war-ii
Sea of Wolves
Philip K. Allan - 2020
Across the stormy North Atlantic battle rages between wolfpacks of U-boats and escort ships fighting to protect the Allies’ vital convoys. Meanwhile teams of codebreakers at Bletchley Park struggle to penetrate the German Navy’s Top-Secret Dolphin code, and unlock the flow of vital intelligence that will swing the battle in the Allies favour.Sea of Wolves plots the lives of three people caught up in the centre of the battle. Vera Baldwin, a young crossword-enthusiast, lifted from her quiet suburban life and thrown into the middle of the greatest codebreaking effort the world has seen. Otto Stuckmann, the rookie commander of U70, a German naval veteran struggling with the ceaseless demands being placed on him. Leonard Cole, the newly appointed first lieutenant of HMS Protea and a man with unfinished business to resolve.Each is unknown to the others as their fates spiral around each other, touching and twisting towards a final encounter that will change their lives forever.
The Girl from the Channel Islands
Jenny Lecoat - 2020
In June of that year, Hitler’s army captures the Channel Islands—the only part of Great Britain occupied by German forces. Abandoned by Mr. Churchill, forgotten by the Allies and cut off from all help, the Islands’ situation is increasingly desperate.Hedy Bercu is a young Jewish girl who fled Vienna for the island of Jersey two years earlier during the Anschluss, only to find herself trapped by the Nazis once more—this time with no escape. Her only hope is to make herself invaluable to the Germans by working as a translator, hiding in plain sight with the help of her friends and community—and a sympathetic German officer. But as the war intensifies, rations dwindle and neighbors are increasingly suspicious of one another. Hedy’s life is in greater danger every day. It will take a definitive, daring act to save her from certain deportation to the concentration camps.A sweeping tale of bravery and love under impossible circumstances, Hedy’s remarkable story reminds us that it’s often up to ordinary people to be quiet heroes in the face of injustice.
Resistance Women
Jennifer Chiaverini - 2019
Lincoln’s Dressmaker, an enthralling historical saga that recreates the danger, romance, and sacrifice of an era and brings to life one courageous, passionate American—Mildred Fish Harnack—and her circle of women friends who waged a clandestine battle against Hitler in Nazi Berlin.After Wisconsin graduate student Mildred Fish marries brilliant German economist Arvid Harnack, she accompanies him to his German homeland, where a promising future awaits. In the thriving intellectual culture of 1930s Berlin, the newlyweds create a rich new life filled with love, friendships, and rewarding work—but the rise of a malevolent new political faction inexorably changes their fate.As Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party wield violence and lies to seize power, Mildred, Arvid, and their friends resolve to resist. Mildred gathers intelligence for her American contacts, including Martha Dodd, the vivacious and very modern daughter of the US ambassador. Her German friends, aspiring author Greta Kuckoff and literature student Sara Weitz, risk their lives to collect information from journalists, military officers, and officials within the highest levels of the Nazi regime.For years, Mildred’s network stealthily fights to bring down the Third Reich from within. But when Nazi radio operatives detect an errant Russian signal, the Harnack resistance cell is exposed, with fatal consequences.Inspired by actual events, Resistance Women is an enthralling, unforgettable story of ordinary people determined to resist the rise of evil, sacrificing their own lives and liberty to fight injustice and defend the oppressed.
The Camp
Greg Hair - 2012
Making a name for himself through his brutality and impassioned hatred of all things Jewish, the arrival of new prisoners forces him to begin to question everything he’s ever known. In a place known for despair, death, and hate, is it possible to find hope, life, and love? In Poland, 1943, the most profound discovery that Karl will make in The Camp—is himself.
Warsaw
Richard Foreman - 2012
It has the authentic feeling that pulses from an important book. The meticulous research and psychological insights light up one of the most ghastly episodes in the history of man's inhumanity to man."Patrick Bishop, author of Fighter Boys and A Good War.The Warsaw Ghetto. 1942. Adam Duritz, a Jewish Policeman, is charged with the duty of selecting five people each day to be transported to Treblinka - or else he will be selected himself.Thomas Abendroth is a German soldier, trying his best to retain his humanity in the inhumane ghetto. Thomas befriends Adam. Both men make enemies of other people in power though.Yet, far more than his friendship with the German, Adam realises that his salvation resides in his love for Jessica Rubenstein. If he can save her, he may also save himself.Their fates - and those of others - will intertwine and be decided during a climactic evening on the streets of the ghetto, where love and tragedy abound – and collide.Warsaw is a novel which lingers long in the heart and mind. For fans of Dostoyevsky’s Crime & Punishment and Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark. Praise for A Hero of Our Time.'An elegant novel which is awash with both hope and tragedy. A Hero of Our Time is a must read for anyone interested in WWII or 19th Century Russian Literature.' (Nigel Jones, author of Countdown To Valkyrie)Praise for Raffles: The Gentleman Thief."Classy, humorous and surprisingly touching tales of cricket, friendship and crime."(David Blackburn, The Spectator).Praise for Augustus: Son of Rome.'Augustus: Son of Rome forges action and adventure with politics and philosophy. This superb story is drenched in both blood and wisdom - and puts Foreman on the map as the coming man of historical fiction'.(Saul David, Author of the Zulu Hart series)About The Author.Richard Foreman is the author of numerous best-selling Kindle books, including Augustus: Son of Rome and the Raffles series of historical crime novellas. He is also the author of A Hero of Our Time, a literary novel set during the end of the Second World War. He lives in London.
Trieste
Daša Drndić - 2007
Now an old woman, she waits to be reunited after sixty-two years with her son, fathered by an S.S. officer and stolen from her by the German authorities during the War as part of Himmler's clandestine 'Lebensborn' project, which strove for a 'racially pure' Germany. Haya's reflection on her Catholicized Jewish family's experiences deals unsparingly with the massacre of Italian Jews in the concentration camps of Trieste. Her obsessive search for her son leads her to photographs, maps and fragments of verse, to testimonies from the Nuremberg trials and interviews with second-generation Jews, as well as witness accounts of atrocities that took place on her doorstep. A broad collage of material is assembled, and the lesser-known horror of Nazi occupation in northern Italy is gradually unveiled. Written in immensely powerful language, and employing a range of astonishing conceptual devices, Trieste is a novel like no other. Dasa Drndic has produced a shattering contribution to the literature of our twentieth-century history.
Silence and Secrets: A Jewish Woman's Tale of Escape, Survival and Love in World War II
Yvonne Carson-Cardozo - 2013
In her courageous memoir, she breaks the chains of silence and reveals an incredible story of evading the Nazis, escaping the threat of annihilation, surviving in strange worlds, and finding love and a new life. This book is a testament to the human spirit.Yvonne Carson-Cardozo was twelve years old when she and her family escaped the German occupation of Belgium. She lost her brother and fifty relatives to the death camps. As a refugee, she traveled to France, Spain, Jamaica, and West Indies. She joined the Dutch Indonesian Army and served in Australia and Indonesia, where she worked in the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service, deciphering and encoding secret military telegrams. After the war, she eventually settled in the United States, her home for the past fifty-five years. She has two children and lives in California. On Veteran’s Day 2013, Yvonne was honored as Veteran of the Year for the city of Mission Viejo, California.
Across The Blood-Red Skies
Robert Radcliffe - 2010
Under furious attack both from the ground and the air, the average survival time of a First World War reconnaissance pilot is eighteen hours. George Duckwell, reluctant novice-hero of the Royal Flying Corps, is living on borrowed time. Having joined up to escape disgrace at home, George can only watch in horror as a succession of comrades - inexperienced, under-trained and hopelessly idealistic - are shot down, burned, maimed and killed, while somehow he survives. Struggling to make sense of the conflict, George forms an awkward friendship with William 'Mac' MacBride, an enigmatic Canadian ace, waging his own private war against the legendary Red Baron. But when Mac falls for George's sweetheart - front-line nurse Emily - heartbroken George learns that Mac's mysterious past is darker than he imagined, and the fragile bond that keeps the two men alive comes under threat on the eve of the most lethal conflict the modern world has known.
Unshed Tears
Edith Hofmann - 2012
It has only very recently been published. Although it has been written as a novel, it details events, which were all too tragically true.Edith Hofmann is a survivor of the Holocaust, born in Prague in 1927 as Edith Birkin. In 1941, along with her parents, she was deported to the Lodz Ghetto, where within a year both her parents had died. At 15 she was left to fend forherself.The Lodz Ghetto was the second-largest ghetto to Warsaw, and was established for Jews and Gypsies in German-occupied Poland. Situated in the town of Lodz in Poland and originally intended as a temporary gathering point for Jews, the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial centre, providing much needed supplies for Nazi Germany and especially for the German Army.Because of its remarkable productivity, the ghetto managed to survive until August 1944, when the remaining population, including Edith, was transported to Auschwitz and Chelmno extermination camp in cattle trucks. It was the last ghetto in Poland to be liquidated due to the advancing Russian army. Edith was only 17, and one of the lucky ones.For the majority, it was their final journey. A small group of them were selected for work. With her hair shaved off and deprived of all her possessions, she travelled to Kristianstadt, a labour camp in Silesia, to work in an underground munitions factory.
Conner Street's War
Harry Bowling - 1988
Corner shops nestle beside the tiny terraced houses and two minutes away is the lively Tower Road market, where it is said, if you can't buy something then it's not made. Once World War Two breaks out, however, life in Conner Street changes dramatically - for ever...
Trust To A Degree: Growing Up Under The Third Reich Book 3
Horst Christian - 2013
He and his friend, Harold, had narrowly escaped death during the fall of Berlin by taking refuge in the subway tunnels under the city. As members of the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), the two 14-year-old boys had been ordered to fight to the death; however, they defied Hitler’s orders and chose to live. Hearing the announcement the day before that Berlin had surrendered, they left their subway shelter to seek out friends where they thought they would be safe. Somehow, the Soviets had found them. But what did they want with them?After being transported to an interrogation center and brought before a Russian political Kommissar, Karl soon finds the answers to his questions. Once again, he is going to be used by a high-ranking official due to his unique knowledge of the Berlin subway system. He must agree to help the Kommissar or risk being shipped off to the Russian labor camps along with the rest of the German prisoners. When Karl learns that Harold has also been arrested and given the same choice, the two agree to assist the Kommissar.The boys work with the Kommissar and when the last mission is completed, Karl hopes to be released so he can search for his family. Unfortunately, the final mission ends with a twist and Karl is once again forced to make a life or death decision. This time, however, the life hanging in the balance is not his own, but that of someone very close to him. To save the life of the person he holds dear, Karl must decide whether or not he will follow orders and do the one thing he has never done before - take the life of another.Books In The Series:Children To A DegreeLoyal To A DegreeTrust To A DegreePartners To A Degree
The Noose
Mark H. Newhouse
What Ann Frank's Diary did to put a face to the plight of Dutch Jews in WWII, The Devil's Bookkeepers does for the Jew in the Lodz ghetto. Rita Boehm, Award-Winning Author “We need this book now more than ever.” – Wanda Luthman, Award-Winning AuthorLove and courage in the face of unrelenting terror as four men in the Lodz Ghetto struggle to document the tightening of the noose under Nazi rule. Written by the son of Holocaust survivors, this stunning novel based on events described in the Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto (Yale University Press, 1984), asks what you would have sacrificed to be one of the few to survive.Desperate people do desperate things…“…an emotionally riveting account of life inside the ghetto… You cannot read this story and remain unaffected.” – Kimberlee J Benart, 5 Stars Readers’ Favorite “… a riveting, emotionally charged novel… an amazing accomplishment… This is a must-read...” Louis Emond, English Professor
House of Israel, Vol. 1: The Return
Robert Marcum - 2002
Electrifying novel about one woman's desperate quest for freedom
The Boy on the Wooden Box
Leon Leyson - 2013
A remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list.Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow. Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, a man named Oskar Schindler, who saved Leon Leyson’s life, and the lives of his mother, his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory—a list that became world renowned: Schindler’s List.This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Most notable is the lack of rancor, the lack of venom, and the abundance of dignity in Mr. Leyson’s telling. The Boy on the Wooden Box is a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you’ve ever read.
The Way Back to Florence
Glenn Haybittle - 2015
When war arrives Freddie returns to England to become the pilot of a Lancaster bomber. Oskar, now a dancer, has moved to Paris where he escapes the 1942 roundup of Jews and arrives in Italy with his young daughter Esme. Isabella remains in Florence where she continues to paint. Until she is called upon by Maestro to forge an old master painting, apparently at the behest of the Führer himself, and as a result is seen as a Nazi collaborator by her neighbours. The murderous skies over Germany and a war-torn Italy in the grip of Nazi occupation provide the setting for this novel about the love of a separated husband and his wife and the love of a man for his young daughter. Freddie and Oskar both hope to find their way back to Florence. But Florence’s heritage of preserving the identity and continuity of the past has never before been so under threat.