Immediate danger of destruction. Tiny rays of hope.Yaakov was the youngest son of the Kotowskis, a well-to-do Jewish family in the small Polish town of Skulsk, who enjoyed the respect and admiration of local Jews and Christians alike.The quiet life of the family was disrupted abruptly when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.Soon, its members were deported to a faraway village where they suffered horrific torments at the hands of the Germans and their collaborators.The head of the family, who was blessed with sharp instincts, grasped what was about to take place and instructed his children to disperse in different directions, in the hope that at least some of them would be able to survive.This is the fascinating story of the Kotowski family, who was thrown deep into the flames that lit the fire that exterminated six million Jews, and yet, over half of the ten-member family managed to flee the blazing inferno against all odds.

    Quickly falling in love with the rush of being a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne, he believed his service would honorably help the South Vietnamese protect their country from the ruthless communist North and their Southern allies. But once in the volatile jungles of Vietnam, the merciless hunting and killing of the enemy, constant threat of landmines and booby traps, ambushes that could easily backfire, and deaths of his comrades made Stillman question how any man—if he survived—could ever return to his life as he’d known it. Written with John’s daughter, Lori Stillman, Jumping from Helicopters is a vivid and moving memoir that unearths fifty years of repressed memories with stunning accuracy and raw details. Interwoven with the author’s own journal entries and including thirty-five photographs, it is a story that will open your eyes to what these brave young men witnessed and endured, and why they returned facing a lifetime of often unspoken unrest, persistent nightmares, and forced normalcy, haunting even the strongest of soldiers.

    Aged just sixteen, she fell in love and married US soldier Bob Irvine. And soon after she set sail for a new life in America.It was the 1950s, the land of hope, dreams and Doris Day movies. But Iris ended up in a cramped Chicago bungalow, shared with Bob's parents. With a baby on the way and a husband turning daily into a stranger, Iris was wracked by homesickness. Trapped and desperately lonely, she had to make a fresh start, in a country where hope and opportunity thrived.In this dramatic sequel to the Sunday Times bestseller, Far From the East End, we follow young Iris Jones Simantel from London to New York, Chicago and Las Vegas in her struggle to find work, love and a sense of belonging in a foreign land.

    That is, however, until he took it upon himself to attempt to assassinate the Führer, Adolph Hitler. Being a common man who opposed the Nazi regime, Elser took the skills from his craft and worked to assemble his own bomb detonator. Every night, he snuck out to the Munich Beer Hall, where he worked on assembling the bomb that he planned to use to kill Hitler. Hidden in a hollowed-out space near the speaker’s podium, Elser’s bomb went off successfully, killing eight people. Hitler was not one of them. This is the story, scene by scene, of the events that led up to Georg Elser taking justice into his own hands, his attempt to murder the Führer, and what happened after the bomb went off. The Lone Assassin is a powerfully gripping tale that places the reader in the dark days of Munich in 1939, following Elser from the Munich Beer Hall, across the border, and sadly, to the concentration camp where his heroic life ended.

    Hitler, who loathed flying, felt safe with Baur and would allow no one else to pilot him. As a result, an intimate relationship developed between the two men and it is this, which gives these memoirs special significance. Hitler relaxed in Baur's company and talked freely of his plans and of his real opinions about his friends and allies.Baur was also present during some of the most salient moments of the Third Reich; the R�hm Putsch, the advent of Eva Braun, Ribbentrop's journey to Moscow, the B�rgerbr�ukeller attempt on Hitler's life; and when war came, he flew Hitler from front to front. He remained in Hitler's service right up to the final days in the F�hrerbunker. In a powerful account of Hitler's last hours, Baur describes his final discussions with Hitler before his suicide; and his last meeting with Magda Goebbels in the tortuous moments before she killed her three children. Remarkably, throughout it all Baur's loyalty to the F�hrer never wavered. His memoirs capture these events in all their fascinating and disturbing detail.

    In the first week of October, 1918, six hundred men charged into the forbidding Argonne Forest. Against all odds, they surged through enemy lines--alone. They were soon surrounded and besieged. As they ran out of ammunition, water, and food, the battalion withstood constant mortar attack and relentless enemy assaults. Seven days later, only 194 soldiers from the original unit walked out of the forest. The stand of the "Lost Battalion" was--and remains--an unprecedented display of heroism under fire.The narrative of Never in Finer Company focuses on the stories of four men: the battalion's commander, Major Charles Whittlesey, a lawyer eager to prove his mettle; his New York stockbroker executive officer, Captain George McMurtry; Sergeant Alvin York, whose famous exploits help rescue the battalion; and Damon Runyon, the soon-to-be famous newspaper man who struggled to understand the events he witnessed. From the patriotic frenzy that sent young men "over there" to the hurried stateside training, shipping overseas, and encounters with life at the front, each man trod a unique path to the October days that engulfed them. And their stories did not end on the battlefield--each man was haunted by the experience as America tried to come to grips with the carnage of the war.Character-rich, abundantly textured, sometimes tragic, sometimes uplifting, but always compelling, Never in Finer Company is a deeply moving and dramatic story on an epic scale.

    Her loved ones were cruelly forced from her arms in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland and perished in Treblinka Death Camp. This is a true story of Holocaust survival. In ww2 books, it is a searing story of human rights abuses and genocide.The story of Nazi Germany and the Jews is a story of anti-Semitism, Nazi concentration camps, gas chambers and World War 11 (wwii). The Warsaw ghetto where the Nazis had imprisoned the Jews was being emptied as Hitler’s Final Solution to murder all of European Jewry was put into action. Lena kept thinking, “It’s my turn next.” As some Jews escaped Treblinka and exposed it as being a death camp not a labour camp, young men and women in the ghetto decided to make a stand.Lena helped in the resistance which became the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by gathering light bulbs from empty houses which could be used for Molotov cocktails. By a miracle, she escaped the ghetto before it became an inferno. But where could she hide? When it was over and she could walk free, the tears she had held back flooded out because she was all alone and there was no one to care that she had survived and no one to go to.Author Barbara Miller adds to Holocaust history and ww2 German history by skilfully weaving her research with Lena’s diary and interviews to bring her ww2 biography to life. Lena helped her companions in hiding to survive with her humour and compassion. She turned 100 in January 2019 and her miraculous story of survival against the odds will inspire you to not give up no matter how dark the time or difficult the situation or cruel the people around you. Download or order now! What are others saying about this remarkable book? This is a compelling, indeed exemplary work, that merges the history of the Holocaust with the live story of one survivor: Lena Goldstein, aged 100, one of the last living witnesses to the horrors of the Holocaust. Konrad Kwiet, Emeritus Professor and Resident Historian Sydney Jewish Museum This is a truly beautiful collaboration between the author and her subject, who have together produced an invaluable documentation of a unique, moving, life story set against the backdrop of one of the darkest moments in human history.  To read "If I Survive" is to meet a remarkable person and to be touched by her intense humanity in an inhuman world. Jeremy Jones AM, former President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and Director, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council In this book Barbara Miller tells a powerful, must read story of survival - the story of Lena Goldstein, an elegant, articulate centenarian, a victim of one of the most horrific periods in human history, the Holocaust. Josie Lacey OAM, Author of An Inevitable Path, A Memoir, Life Member Executive Council of Australian Jewry, WIZO, and ECC Barbara Miller has given Lena Goldstein’s personal Holocaust journey the validation it so richly deserves; an eye witness account of a truly inspiring and heroic survivor. Viv Parry, Chairperson, Child Survivors of the Holocaust, Melbourne Another important book from the celebrated writer Barbara Miller. Expertly researched and skillfully written. Irene Shaland, author of The Dao of Being Jewish and Other Stories: Seeking Jewish narrative all over the World.” It is not often that you commence a book and feel compelled to continue reading until it is finished.

    One contained her dad’s Air Force uniform, and the other an unfinished memoir, stacks of envelopes, black-and-white photographs, mission reports, dog tags, and the fake identity cards he used in his escape. Ankeny spent more than a decade from that moment tracking down letter writers, their loved ones, and anyone who had played a role in her father's story, culminating in a trip to France where she retraced his path with the same people who had guided him more than sixty years ago.A remarkable hero emerged—Godelieve Van Laere—just a teenaged girl when she saved the fallen Lieutenant Dean Tate, risking her life and forging a friendship that would last into a new century.The result is an amazing, multifaceted World War II tale—perhaps one of the last of its kind to be enriched by an author’s interviews with participants. It traces the transformation of a small-town American boy into a bombardier, the thrill and chaos of an air war, and the horror of bailing from a flaming aircraft over enemy territory. It distinguishes the actions of a little-known French resistance network for Allied airmen known as Shelburne. And it shines a light on the courage and cunning of a young woman who put her life on the line to save another’s.

    It was August 3, 1943, just one day after Sam escaped the Camp during a prisoner uprising. With 870,000 murdered at Treblinka, Sam was one of approximately 65 to survive and live until the end of the war. Esther had been hiding in that patch of forest for a year and was out that morning, looking for mushrooms to eat. They met and after hearing of the prisoner revolt, she took him to the Righteous Gentiles who, at great danger to themselves, hid them in their barn for three days while the Nazis, Ukrainians and Poles scoured the area looking for escapees. Deciding to stay and hide with Esther, they dug a forest pit where they “lived” when it was not freezing. They subsisted in the pit and the barns – hungry, cold, and scared – for another year until they were liberated by the Red Army in July of 1944. This is only one piece of their harrowing story of survival. This book tells the story of Sam and Esther, Holocaust survivors, who lost their entire families because of Hitler’s Final Solution. After four years in Displaced Person’s Camps, they arrived in New York Harbor to build a new life. The author, Karen Treiger, is Sam and Esther’s daughter-in-law, and with in-depth research and a bit of luck was able to find the three surviving children of the Styś families – those Righteous Gentiles who helped Sam and Esther during that dark time. She and her family traveled to Poland to walk in Sam and Esther’s footsteps and to meet the Styś children. It was intensely emotional, and the family heard some of what Sam and Esther lived through from those who helped them survive. Also, with the help of a Polish Priest, she was able to locate and meet a Goldberg cousin they never knew they had. My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story brings to life the horror of the Nazis’ actions and the toll that it exacted on so many Jewish families. This is also a story of hope, love and determination; of a family rediscovering the path taken by their parents to find life and freedom in a new world. Sam and Esther’s story is one of love and the will to live no matter what they had to endure. It reminds us that we are still learning the lessons of the Holocaust. TRIBUTES “Karen has written a powerful and personal account of Sam and Esther Goldberg. This book is a must read for those interested in the greatest crime in the history of mankind.” Chris Webb, Author/Historian, Founder of the Holocaust Historical Society,br> “It is vital that this book—as well as other accounts of the Holocaust— be preserved and disseminated widely to future generations to help prevent anything similar from ever happening again.”Marion Blumenthal Lazan, Holocaust Survivor and Co-Author, Four Perfect Pebbles“One can only bow one’s head, out of an unutterable gratitude, to the author for her contribution to the sacred narrative of our people. I call this book sacred, for (as with all forms of scripture) it tells not only what happened - but how to live in light of the story.”Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, President Emeritus, CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership; chairman, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 2000-2002. “We are haunted by the question of inexplicable evil. If you want to be inspired in spite of the horrors one human being can do to another human being, read this book.

    It is the tale of how one newly takes on the world, having lived in the midst of corpses strewn about in the scores of thousands, and how one can possibly resume life in the aftermath of such experiences. It is the story of the child who decides, upon growing up, that the only career that makes sense for him in light of these years of horror is to become someone sensitive to the deepest flaws of humanity, a teacher of God’s role in history amidst the traditions that attempt to understand it—and to become a rabbi. Readers will not emerge unscathed from this searing work, written by a distinguished, Boston-based rabbi and academic.

    S. 12th Army Group in the European Campaign. By the spring of 1945, this group contained 1,300,000 men--the largest exclusively American field command in U.S. history. Mild mannered, General Bradley was a dedicated mentor, the creator of the Officer Candidate School system, and a methodical tactician who served through World War II. Then, as a five-star general, he lifted the Veterans Administration from corruption and inefficiency to a model government agency, served as U.S. Army chief of staff, first chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and head of NATO. Alan Axelrod applies his signature insight and compelling prose to the life, strategy and legacy of the general who remains the model for all commanders today as the man who revolutionized the National Guard, shaped the US army’s focus on the individual soldier, and emphasized cooperation and coordination among the military services--a cornerstone of modern U.S. military doctrine.

    So it was for James Jug Curran, all the way from New Guinea to the Philippines with the 348th Fighter Group, the first P-47 Thunderbolt outfit in the Pacific. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Curran volunteered to try flying in the blue yonder, and trained as an Army fighter pilot. He got his wish to fly the P-47 in the Pacific, going into combat in August 1943, in New Guinea, and later helping start the Black Rams fighter squadron. The heavy U.S. Thunderbolts were at first curious to encounter the nimble, battle-hardened Japanese in aerial combat, but soon the American pilots gained skill of their own and their planes proved superior. Bombers on both sides could fall to fighters, but the fighters themselves were eyeball to eyeball, best man win. Check Six! is an aviation chronicle that brings the reader into flight, then into the fight, throughout the Pacific War and back. This work, from someone who was there, captures the combat experience of our aviators in the Pacific, aided by pertinent excerpts from the official histories of units that Jug Curran flew with. It is a tale of perseverance, as Curran flew over 200 combat missions, and with the men of the 348th Fighter Group proved the Thunderbolt s great capability as they battled their way against a stubborn and deadly foe. This work increases the body of knowledge on the critical role of aviation in the Pacific War, as U.S. fighter pilots took the lead in our counteroffensive against the short-lived island Empire."

    But on March 24, 1944, in a courageous attempt by two hundred prisoners to break out through a series of tunnels, seventy-six Allied officers managed to evade capture -- and create havoc behind enemy lines in the months before the Normandy Invasion. This is the incredible story of these brave men who broke free from the supposedly impenetrable barbed wire and watchtowers of Stalag Luft III -- and who played an important role in Allied intelligence operations within occupied Europe. The prisoners developed an intricate espionage network, relaying details of military deployment, bombings, and raids. Some of them were involved in other daring escape attempts, including the famous Wooden Horse episode, also turned into a classic film, and the little-known Sachsenhausen breakout, engineered by five Great Escapers sent to die in the notorious concentration camp on Hitler's personal orders. Tragically, fifty of those involved in the Great Escape were murdered by the Gestapo. Others were recaptured; only a few made it all the way to freedom. This dramatic account of personal heroism is a testament to their ingenuity and achievement -- a stirring tribute to the men who never gave up fighting. Includes eight pages of photographs and illustrations, excerpts from Göring's testimony during postwar investigations, and a list of the men who escaped.

    I was serving in the U.S. Army with my brothers of First Platoon Company A 3/1 11th Bde Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. We were average American sons, fathers, husbands, or brothers who'd enlisted or been drafted from all over the United States and who'd all come from different backgrounds. We came together and formed a brotherhood that will last through time.I share my experiences about weeks of boredom and minutes to hours of terror and surviving the heat, carrying a 60-pound rucksack, monsoons, a forest fire, a typhoon, building a firebase, fear, death and fighting the enemy while mentally, physically, and morally exhausted.

    Early in 1944, German commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took one look at the gentle, sloping sands and announced "They will come here!” He was referring to "Omaha Beach”—the prime American D-Day landing site. The beach was subsequently transformed into three miles of lethal, bunker-protected arcs of fire, with seaside chalets converted into concrete strongpoints, fringed by layers of barbed wire and mines. The Germans called it “the Devil's Garden."When Company A of the US 116th Regiment landed on Omaha Beach in D-Day’s first wave on 6th June 1944, it lost 96% of its effective strength. Sixteen teams of US engineers arriving in the second wave were unable to blow the beach obstacles, as first wave survivors were still sheltering behind them. This was the beginning of the historic day that Landing on the Edge of Eternity narrates hour by hour—rom midnight to midnight—tracking German and American soldiers fighting across the beachhead. Mustered on their troop transport decks at 2am, the American infantry departed in landing craft at 5am. Skimming across high waves, deafened by immense broadsides from supporting battleships and weak from seasickness, they caught sight of land at 6.15. Eleven minutes later, the assault was floundering under intense German fire. Two and a half hours in, General Bradley, commanding the landings aboard USS Augusta, had to decide if to proceed or evacuate. On June 6th there were well over 2,400 casualties on Omaha Beach – easily D-Day’s highest death toll.The Wehrmacht thought they had bludgeoned the Americans into bloody submission, yet by mid-afternoon, the American troops were ashore. Why were the casualties so grim, and how could the Germans have failed? Juxtaposing the American experience—pinned down, swamped by a rising tide, facing young Wehrmacht soldiers fighting desperately for their lives, Kershaw draws on eyewitness accounts, memories, letters, and post-combat reports to expose the true horrors of Omaha Beach.These are stories of humanity, resilience, and dark humor; of comradeship and a gritty patriotism holding beleaguered men together. Landing on the Edge of Eternity is a dramatic historical ride through an amphibious landing that looked as though it might never succeed.