Heinrich Himmler was not only head of Hitler's SS police and Gestapo, but was also in charge of the death camps in the East. The account of Himmler's life and his impact on the rise and fall of the Nazi state make a gripping and horrifying story. But more than this, it is a profound moral and intellectual inquiry into the nature of evil in the human character.

    While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel— all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701.In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America’s east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen’s three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen’s successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats’ success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen’s cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic—and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode’s survivors.A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler’s U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.

    Risa was shipped together with many other Jews to the Oradea Ghetto and from there to the Plaszow Labor Camp and later to the Ober-Altstadt Labor camp. And even this was not enough… Risa was sent to the Auschwitz Death Camp to be slaughtered! But, she survived!Having survived, she met her husband – Mordechai Tzvi and they created a family which included 4 sons, 22 grandkids and 34 great-grandkids!Had anyone told Risa Shtauber during 1944-1945 that she would celebrate her 90th birthday in Israel surrounded by her sons, grandkids and great-grandkids, she would tell them to stop fantasizing.But in 2016, this came to be!And today, at the age of 94 and living her life in Israel, she still feels victorious when remembering those horrible years!

    It was a mystery of sorts: a young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents, who understood the danger they were in all too well. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, there was a falling out, and they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war, and after?So began an investigation that would consume Bart van Es's life, and change it. After some sleuthing, he learned that Lientje was now in her 80s and living in Amsterdam. Somewhat reluctantly, she agreed to meet him, and eventually they struck up a remarkable friendship, even a partnership. The Cut Out Girl braids together a powerful recreation of that intensely harrowing childhood story of Lientje's with the present-day account of Bart's efforts to piece that story together, including bringing some old ghosts back into the light.It is a story rich with contradictions. There is great bravery and generosity--first Lientje's parents, giving up their beloved daughter, and then the Dutch families who face great danger from the Nazi occupation for taking Lientje and other Jewish children in. And there are more mundane sacrifices a family under brutal occupation must make to provide for even the family they already have. But tidy Holland also must face a darker truth, namely that it was more cooperative in rounding up its Jews for the Nazis than any other Western European country; that is part of Lientje's story too. Her time in hiding was made much more terrifying by the energetic efforts of the local Dutch authorities, zealous accomplices in the mission of sending every Jew, man, woman and child, East to their extermination. And Lientje was not always particularly well treated, and sometimes, Bart learned, she was very badly treated indeed.The Cut Out Girl is an astonishment, a deeply moving reckoning with a young girl's struggle for survival during war, a story about the powerful love of foster families but also the powerful challenges, and about the ways our most painful experiences define us but also can be redefined, on a more honest level, even many years after the fact. A triumph of subtlety, decency and unflinching observation, The Cut Out Girl is a triumphant marriage of many keys of writing, ultimately blending them into an extraordinary new harmony, and a deeper truth.

    Running, starved and shoeless, through the streets of Budapest, ALL THE PRETTY SHOES is the story she survived to write.“Marika Roth’s narrative holds us captive throughout one hell of a ride: betrayal, sexual predators, love affairs, modeling career, kidnapping of her children... Not to be missed!” —Tova Laiter, Producer, The Scarlett Letter and Varsity Blues“A story about the indomitable spirit of a woman faced with unimaginable horrors and impossible odds. Roth tells her extraordinary tale with clarity and a remarkable lack of self-pity.” —Jillian Lauren, Author, SOME GIRLS: MY LIFE IN A HAREM“I remember Marika calling to say she’d discovered a memorial to the atrocity she’d witnessed … I googled it and suddenly the draft of her memoir in my hands felt very, very heavy. This is a powerful book about overcoming the ongoing, chronic victimization that is all too often the prolonged second act of the refugee ordeal.” —Robert Morgan Fisher, Award-Winning Writer“…plucks at an emotional inner chord and serves as a portrayal of hope for the human condition.” —Stefan Pollack, The Pollack PR Marketing Group“I have read books about how people suffered during WWII, like Imre Kertesz who won the Nobel Prize, but none moved me as much as ALL THE PRETTY SHOES. Roth’s style, the way she narrated how cruel life can be, without judging others, truly brought tears to my eyes.” —Vivian Nagy, Hungary“A story of self-discovery, wonderfully told, full of such drama that one can hardly believe that an innocent little girl could endure so much. I couldn’t put it down!” —Mary Stokes-Rees, China“The story of Anne Frank cannot even compare to what Marika went through. A book all teenagers and young adults should read.” —Shelia Durfey, Independent

    As Heiden states: "his path of murder and violence was, in accordance whit Hitler's beliefs, the right path to greatness".This new edition of Heiden's work shows it to be not only a profound and revealing narrative but an important historical document essential to both historian and layman for a greater understanding of the calamitous events that dominated the twentieth century.

    Kessel, a member of the French Resistance, was arrested by the SS at age 23. He was tortured, sent to work in mines, and dumped into a series of work and death camps. While he was being hung, the rope miraculously broke, so he was sentenced to be shot. Instead, he fooled his captors by assuming the identity of another prisoner and lived to tell the tale.

    But this conventional narrative is not the full story.In Church of Spies, the intelligence expert Mark Riebling draws on a wealth of recently uncovered documents to argue that, far from being Hitler’s lackey, Pius was an active anti-Nazi spymaster. He directed a vast network of Vatican operatives—priests and laypeople alike—who partnered with the German resistance, tipped the Allies off to Hitler’s invasions of France and Russia, and involved themselves in three separate plots to assassinate Hitler.A fast-paced and gripping tale of secrecy, danger, and self-sacrifice, Church of Spies takes readers from hidden crypts beneath the Vatican to Nazi bunkers in Germany to chart the true legacy of Pius’s secret war. Although these revelations do not excuse Pius’s public silence during the war, they provide us with a deeper understanding of the man reviled by so many.

    The policemen want to haul away her gypsy husband and their five children. The police tell Helene that as a German she does not have to go with them, but she decides to share the fate of her family. After convincing her children that they are going off to a vacation place, so as to calm them, the entire family is deported to Auschwitz. For being German, they are settled in the first barracks of the Gypsy Camp. The living conditions are extremely harsh, but at least she is with her five children. A few days after their arrival, Doctor Mengele comes to pay her a visit, having noticed on her entry card that she is a nurse. He proposes that she direct the camp’s nursery. The facilities would be set up in Barrack 29 and Barrack 31, one of which would be the nursery for newborn infants and the other for children over six years old.Helene, with the help of two Polish Jewish prisoners and four gypsy mothers, organizes the buildings. Though Mengele provides them with swings, Disney movies, school supplies, and food, the people are living in crowded conditions under extreme conditions. And less than 400 yards away, two gas chambers are exterminating thousands of people daily.For sixteen months, Helene lives with this reality, desperately trying to find a way to save her children. Auschwitz Lullaby is a story of perseverance, of hope, and of strength in one of the most horrific times in history.

    Recently, hundreds of those books were discovered in the Library of Congress by Timothy Ryback, complete with Hitler’s marginalia on their pages—underlines, question marks, exclamation points, scrawled comments. Ryback traces the path of the key phrases and ideas that Hitler incorporated into his writing, speeches, conversations, self-definition, and actions.We watch him embrace Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the works of Shakespeare. We see how an obscure treatise inspired his political career and a particular interpretation of Ibsen’s epic poem Peer Gynt helped mold his ruthless ambition. He admires Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic tract, The International Jew, and declares it required reading for fellow party members. We learn how his extensive readings on religion and the occult provide the blueprint for his notion of divine providence, how the words of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are reborn as infamous Nazi catchphrases, and, finally, how a biography of Frederick the Great fired the destructive fanaticism that compelled Hitler to continue fighting World War II when all hope of victory was lost.Hitler’s Private Library, a landmark in the study of the Third Reich, offers a remarkable view into Hitler’s intellectual world and personal evolution. It demonstrates the ability of books to preserve in vivid ways the lives of their collectors, underscoring the importance of the tactile in the era of the digital.

    

    Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men gathered on the beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear.Unable to retreat any farther, the Allied soldiers set up defense positions and prayed for deliverance. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an evacuation on May 26, expecting to save no more than a handful of his men. But Britain would not let its soldiers down. Hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels streamed into the Channel to back up the Royal Navy, and in a week nearly the entire army was ferried safely back to England.Based on interviews with hundreds of survivors and told by “a master narrator,” The Miracle of Dunkirk is a striking history of a week when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance (Arthur Schlesinger Jr.).

    The war is over, but for some the fight for survival is only just beginning. Alix, the aristocratic daughter of a German resistance fighter, is alone and desperate to flee before the Reds come. But when a ferocious snowstorm descends she must return to the shelter of her abandoned ancestral home. There, she is shocked to find her childhood sweetheart Gregor. As old passions are rekindled, a couple break into the house to hide - the man, dressed in Gestapo uniform, is a stranger, but his companion is altogether more familiar.By morning, the blizzard has died down but the Reds are back. The woman and her Nazi escort are dead, and Gregor has vanished. Alone and terrified, Alix runs for her life, and embarks upon an extraordinary and heartbreaking journey. It will take sixty years and the fall of another empire - Communism - before the riddles of that fateful night can be deciphered. "Restitution" is a memorable novel about love and betrayal, hatred and heroism - a reminder that, even in the worst of times, the most courageous acts of kindness are possible.

    In this groundbreaking study–based on a wide range of new sources–Nicholas Stargardt details what happened to children of all nationalities and religions living under the Nazi regime. Their stories open a world we have never seen before. As the Nazis overran Europe, children were saved or damned according to their race. Drawing on an untouched wealth of original material–school assignments; juvenile diaries; letters; and even accounts of children’s games–Nicholas Stargardt breaks stereotypes of victimhood and trauma to give us the gripping individual stories of the generation Hitler made.

    In the slaughter that ensued, Rommel left behind a shaken, confused, and deeply shamed American army and a nearly collapsed Allied front. This is the full story of that massacre of youthful innocents. 31 photos. 262 pp.