Book picks similar to
A Girl Called Judith Strick by Judith Strick Dribben
holocaust-memoirs
holocaust-resistance
biography
dest-room-case1-3rd-shelf
All the Pretty Shoes
Marika Roth - 2011
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
Beyond the Last Path: A Buchenwald Survivor's Story
Eugene Weinstock - 1947
22483, who had been shipped from Belgium to Buchenwald.
It records what he saw and felt during his calvary from Antwerp to the Malin distribution camp in France and from there to the extermination camp of Buchenwald. He was one of the few people who both entered a Nazi concentration camp and left again. This is his remarkable personal story that records his experiences of one of the most harrowing events in human history. Buchenwald concentration camp was one of the first and largest camps to be built on German soil and during the years that Weinstock spent there he kept company with other Jews, Poles, Slavs, political prisoners and many other men and women that the Nazi’s deemed subhuman. “A mere number, he had the strength to remain a man, an artist of the word, observing his captors, his fellow-prisoners, life in the shadow of death. … . Throughout, the writing is poignant, vibrant with humanity, a cry “de profundis” and a vow that it must never happen again. This book should be long remembered.” — Emil Lengyel Eugene Weinstock was a Hungarian Jew who was living in Belgium at the beginning of the Second World War. Beyond the Last Path records his life during those terrible years up to the point when American troops released the remaining prisoners in Buchenwald. By this time Weinstock weighed a mere eighty pounds and had seen many of his good friends die. His work was first published in the United States in 1947 where he had gone to. He passed away in 1984.
In the Hell of Auschwitz: The Wartime Memoirs of Judith Sternberg Newman
Judith Sternberg Newman - 1963
She was the only one to leave alive again. At five o’clock on February 23, 1942, Nazi police, armed with rifles surrounded the hospital where Sternberg worked. Time had run out for the Jewish inhabitants of Breslau. There had been ten thousand Jewish inhabitants in the city prior to the rise of Nazis. By the end of the war only thirty-eight had escaped the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps. Sternberg’s book relates episode after episode of events where she should have been killed, but for whatever reason, she was spared. Much has been written of the horrific events that occurred in Nazi Germany, yet it is rare that you are able to hear of these stories written by survivors themselves. Sternberg’s book is therefore an invaluable source that uncovers the dark days that she spent in hell. In the Hell of Auschwitz is a fascinating book that provides insights into the worst horrors of the Second World War. Although at points it is a difficult read, it should be read by everyone so that such horrors will never be allowed to occur again. After the war Judith Sternberg Newman married Senek Newman, a fellow concentration camp survivor, and emigrated to the United States 1947. She began writing her account immediately after arriving in the United States. She worked as a nurse in Providence, Rhode Island, until her retirement. In the Hell of Auschwitz was first published in 1963. Newman passed away in 2008.
Crucible of Terror
Max Liebster - 2003
After his arrest, followed by four months of solitary confinement in a Nazi prison, Liebster plummets headlong into the nightmare
Kennedy
Brett Harper - 2015
Kennedy glimmers through history as the young, idealistic president whose Camelot administration promised a new dawn for America. He did a great deal in his thousand-day presidency, from embracing civil rights and starting the Peace Corps to negotiating a nuclear test ban and facing down the Soviets on the brink of nuclear war. But fifty years after he was murdered, it's hard to separate the real JFK, with all his faults, from the many myths about him. This is his story - and why he mattered.
The Fire She Set
Leigh Overton Boyd - 2020
They did not talk about their mom's extended absences or why their dad put Scotch tape on the backdoor frame. To cover up the chaos, they kept their clothes neat and got good grades. But when they were teenagers, an arson fire destroyed their home and killed their parents. Rumors were thick that summer that smart, angry, fourteen-year-old Lisa set the blaze. Then, adult powers they did not understand squelched the investigation. As teenagers accustomed to keeping silent, they packed up and moved on.Forty years later, Leigh, the oldest, decided it was time to find out who killed their parents. She obtained copies of the police and fire investigations and began unwrapping the past. This memoir is the story of that investigation as Leigh tried to piece together the truth, but found more lies instead. With the help of her sisters, Leigh was able to reconstruct much of what happened to them in the beach towns around Atlantic City in the early 1970s. After the fire, one sister turned to heroin and another to alcohol; Leigh became Miss Atlantic City. Then, one by one, they each moved to California and shut the door on their past, even though they privately wondered whether one of them killed Frank and Nancy Overton. It's funny. They never wondered whether one of their parents was trying to kill them.
The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow
Krystyna Chiger - 2008
The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, shares one of the most intimate, harrowing and ultimately triumphant tales of survival to emerge from the Holocaust. The Girl in the Green Sweater is Chiger's harrowing first-person account of the fourteen months she spent with her family in the fetid, underground sewers of Lvov.The Girl in the Green Sweater is also the story of Leopold Socha, the group's unlikely savior. A Polish Catholic and former thief, Socha risked his life to help Chiger's underground family survive, bringing them food, medicine, and supplies. A moving memoir of a desperate escape and life under unimaginable circumstances, The Girl in the Green Sweater is ultimately a tale of intimate survival, friendship, and redemption.
To Heaven and Back: The Journey of a Roman Catholic Priest
John Tourangeau - 2015
There was no immediate response on my part, only a deep sense of fear entombed by a completely paralyzed inner spirit. Much to my surprise, he spoke again: "Sir, you've waited too long to get here. You're not going to make it." And he continued: "If you believe in God, this is the time to make peace." In that very moment, I said to myself, "What do you mean, 'If you believe in God?' Of course I believe in God! I'm a man of faith and a Catholic priest!" Fr. John Tourangeau, O. Praem., a Norbertine priest who had an afterlife experience following a major heart attack, emphatically states, "Heaven is for real!" Within this enlightening and hope-filled book, Fr. John weaves a powerful and dynamic tapestry of the Kingdom of God at hand through the exploration of Christian tradition, Sacred Scripture, Catholic teaching, as well as his own lived experiences. "While the fullness of heaven cannot be fully experienced in our life here on earth," Father explains, "we are able to more fully experience God's love for us through our relationships with others. For it is in and through these relationships that we draw closer to Christ and his promise for us."
A Fly on the Ward
Michael K. Chapman - 2012
A collection of humorous hospital stories and events as witnessed by a frequently incarcerated patient and told from a patient's point of view while secured and gagged in a hospital bed.Stories and tales from a lifetime of hospital admissions, showing that hospital life as a patient is not all doom and gloom.
The Lost Child by David Pelzer
Dave Pelzer - 1997
It is a story about a boy lost in life, the system and finally found. It is a moving and troubling sotry to read
Alone In The Wind: A Journal of Discovery in 'The Summer of 88'
Charles Schiereck - 2015
1988 would prove to be the worst drought since the ‘dustbowl’ of the 1930’s. Yellowstone would burn, Ronald Reagan would shake his fist at the 'Evil Empire', and the author, oblivious to it all, hit the road and never looked back. That trip would consume the entire summer, logging over twelve thousand miles from sea to sea and back. “Alone In The Wind” is the account of that trip, with pictures, maps, historical & geographical notes, and rolling narrative. A few selected excerpts: The early evening sun is bright red and except for wind slapping the tents, all is quiet. Other campers are talking in subdued tones. The scene has a timeless quality I can’t explain. Maybe it’s how I’d picture an Oregon Trail camp. Everybody too exhausted to do more than whisper, anticipating the day ahead, trying to forget the ones behind. Kurt Vonnegut might have written that the Custer annihilation occurred solely to provide me with a ranger to give advice on the coming storms. That irony rattled around in my helmet for the next forty miles. Chewing mindlessly I stare at passing trucks with red eyes. This has been an endless, grueling day. A far cry from the mystical experience that other writers claim. The bone numbing reality of motorcycle touring is exhaustion, dehydration, disorientation. Vacant eyes seem to be nothing more than rubber stoppers that keep my liquefied brains from spilling out over my face. Carved out by the tides, the cave is probably underwater for most of the day. At the entrance is a rock with a well-formed depression at the top. Without thinking I dump both bottles of Atlantic Ocean into that shallow basin, move deeper into the cave and sit. There’s a lot on my mind, and it all seems to be demanding immediate attention. The mission will be accomplished. The oceans will unite. It will take a few hours, and I won’t be here to see it, but this is a better way. Letting the sea take it on its own terms seems more fitting. Heat was the real problem. Both the heat of a western summer day and the heat thrown off an air-cooled engine that's being pushed to its limits. While it was never transcendental, the passage was always very real, very immediate, and unforgettable. Thinking back to the other riders that I met, it seemed the same for them as well. They were all worn down with fatigue and loneliness - while at the same time brimming over with confidence and satisfaction. I won't forget them.
The Long Walk
Ruth Treeson - 2010
There are no attack dogs barking, no guards shouting. After weeks of evading the Soviet Army by marching their captives around Germany, the Nazis have finally given up and evaporated into the night.Rutka embarks on a harrowing journey back to Poland that lands her at the Catholic boarding school where she'd hidden from the Gestapo until her capture. Here, among the few tattered remnants of her childhood, the tragic past begins to seep through: the assumed Christian names, the mother who risked everything to find her lost husband and the sister torn from Rutka's arms by the police.Confronted by unimaginable loss, Rutka nonetheless finds friends, joy and slowly, a whole new life in the United States.