Silver Wings, Iron Cross


Tom Young - 2020
    . . World War II Lieutenant Karl Hagan earned his wings the hard way. But when his plane is shot down behind enemy lines, he's forced to make the hardest decision of his life: trusting the enemy.Oberleutnant Wilhelm Albrecht wore his Iron Cross with pride. But when his U-boat is attacked in a devastating air raid, he abandons ship and finds an unlikely ally: the pilot who bombed him.From the smoke-filled skies over Europe to the fire-blasted waters of a Nazi naval base to the battle-scarred German countryside, the American and the German must form an uneasy truce if they hope to survive. It is November of 1944. The tides of war have turned. Allies have taken back France, and German troops have retreated. But for Karl and Wilhelm, the war is far from over. Each must be prepared to lie for the other, fight for the other, or die with the other. But their short-lived alliance won't truly be put to the test until they reach the end of the line--inside a POW camp . . .Thrillingly tense, blisteringly authentic, and emotionally powerful, Silver Wings, Iron Cross is an unforgettable novel of World War II that's sure to become a classic in the field.

A Fine September Morning


Alan Fleishman - 2013
    But in the aftermath, Avi is forced to flee to America. His darling wife Sara and the rest of his family soon follow – all except his brother Lieb, who stubbornly refuses to abandon his home. In ensuing years, while Avi lives the American immigrant’s dream, Lieb lives Russia’s nightmare: World War I, the Communist revolution, civil war, typhus, and famine. Still Lieb rejects Avi’s pleas to leave Russia. Then on the eve of World War II, Stalin’s pathological purges finally ensnare Lieb’s family. At last he realizes he must escape the Communist nightmare, but now all avenues are blocked, and Hitler’s armies are gathering. He turns to Avi, his brother in America, who frantically tries to rescue Lieb and his family with little more to work with than his own wit. Stretching from pre-Revolution Russia to post-Holocaust America, A Fine September Morning blends historical facts and fictional characters into a compelling epic family saga.

White House in a Gray City: A Memoir of an Orphan Jewish Boy Who Survived The Holocaust (WW2 True Story)


Itzchak Belfer - 2019
    In 1912, Korczak established a unique orphanage that is to this day a beacon for educators. There he gave children the freedom to develop and manage their talents. They learned about mutual responsibility and caring and how to create a righteous human society. Korczak was murdered by the Nazis at the Treblinka Death Camp when he refused to abandon his children. I will never forget those times; this is a memorial volume The author, Itzchak Belfer, was raised and educated in Korczak's orphanage. We read of his flight from the Nazis through the Polish forests to Russia to become the only survivor in his large family and his attempt to immigrate to Israel, only to be waylaid in a Cypress deportation camp, where he studied art. Then of his renewed life in Israel, where his art commemorates Janusz Korczak, the Holocaust, and the family he lost. Scroll up now to get your copy of White House in a Gray City!

Pippo and Clara


Diana Rosie - 2021
    Two siblings divided by fate.Italy, 1938. Mussolini is in power and war is not far away . . .Clara and Pippo are just children: quiet, thoughtful Clara is the older sister, Pippo the younger brother is forever chatting. The family has only recently arrived in the city carrying their few possessions.When Mamma goes missing early one morning, both Clara and Pippo go in search of her. Clara turns right; Pippo, left.As a result of the choices they make that morning, their lives will be changed forever.Diana Rosie’s Pippo and Clara tells the story of a family and a country divided. But will Clara and Pippo – and their mother – find each other again?

The Winter Agent


Gareth Rubin - 2020
    A bitter winter grips occupied France, where Marc Reece leads a circuit of British agents risking their lives in order to sabotage the German war effort from within.But Reece has a second mission, secret even from his fellow agents - including Charlotte, the woman with whom he has ill-advisedly fallen in love. He must secure a document identifying a German spy at the heart of British intelligence. The fate of the Allied forces on D-Day is in his hands.But when his circuit is ambushed - with fatal consequences - Reece realizes there may be a traitor in its ranks, putting everything they've been fighting for at risk.Then Charlotte goes missing. Is she in danger, or has Reece been betrayed by the only person he thought he could trust?And with the clock ticking towards D-Day, can he find the truth before it's too late?A gripping and atmospheric thriller inspired by true events, this is the story of a deadly game of espionage, destined to change the course of the most crucial battle in the Second World War.

The Diary of Laura's Twin


Kathy Kacer - 2008
    Laura is to learn about Sara's life and then share her Bat Mitzvah with her -twin- by speaking of her at the ceremony. Sara's diary unfolds with the details of her daily life in the Ghetto, a world full of fear, confusion, tragedy and above all, courage. From Sara's brave story, Laura learns how to find the courage to confront a problem in her own life. Includes photographs, biographies of young heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and true accounts of -Twinning Ceremonies.-

Final Witness: My journey from the holocaust to Ireland


Zoltan Zinn-Collis - 2006
    In Bergen-Belsen concentration camp he survived the inhuman brutality of the SS guards, the ravages of near starvation, disease, and squalor. All but one of his family died there, his mother losing her life on the very day the British finally marched into the camp. Discovered by a Red Cross nurse who described him as ‘an enchanting scrap of humanity’, Zoltan was brought to Ireland and adopted by one of the liberators, Dr Bob Collis, who raised him as his own son on Ireland’s east coast. Now aged 65, Zoltan is ready to speak. His story is one of deepest pain and greatest joy. Zoltan tells how he lost one family and found another; of how, escaping from the ruins of a broken Europe, he was able to build himself a life – a life he may never have had.

I Only Wanted to Live: The Struggle of a Boy to Survive the Holocaust


Arie Tamir - 2015
    The epic history is narrowed down to the struggle of a single boy nicknamed Leosz to survive the war. From age 7 to age 13, he endures all the horrors that the Holocaust brings upon the Jewish people. Life hangs on split-second timing, decision-making in impossibly cruel circumstances, incredible resourcefulness, luck and the help of others, even Germans.In the Krakow Ghetto, Leosz is saved from three mass deportations to the death camps. He escapes the ghetto, survives for several weeks pretending to be a Polish street child, and then goes into hiding. Although sentenced to die after being caught, he is instead miraculously reunited with his family in the Plaszow labor camp. A year later, father and son become slave laborers in the Gozen 2 camp in Austria, where his father perishes. Close to death himself, Leosz is finally liberated by the American army on May 5th, 1945. Scroll up and grab a copy today.

Time No Longer


Taylor Caldwell - 1941
    Karl Erlich loves his country. But these are dangerous times for Germany, whose poor and downtrodden have been seduced by an Austrian sign painter named Adolf Hitler. Karl’s twin brother, Kurt, a distinguished scientist, has already pledged his allegiance to the Third Reich, a regime that Karl finds cruel and oppressive. But he soon has even more reason to fear: There is talk of the Nazis singling out the Jews for extermination. Karl and Kurt’s younger sister, Gerda, is engaged to Eric Rheinhardt, a German Jew. Before Gerda and Eric can escape to America, Eric is arrested by the Gestapo.   Then the unthinkable happens, and in the wake of searing tragedy, Karl cuts all ties with his brother. A onetime candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, he is no longer able to write, eat, or sleep. His wife, Therese, fears for his sanity. She knows she must get her husband away from the madness that is now Germany. But can she rescue her husband, who is rapidly becoming like their beleaguered Rhineland—inconsolable, frightened, and thirsting for revenge? As she seeks answers, unknowingly thrusting herself into harm’s way, Therese will discover the powerful ties that bind German to Jew, and come to realize that the only one way to save Karl is to save Germany.   Set in the years of the Nazis’ ascent to power, Time No Longer is at once a universal and intensely personal novel about the struggle against hate and fear that can elevate an ordinary man to extraordinary heights and the unassailable bond between two brothers.

All Whom I Have Loved


Aharon Appelfeld - 1999
    Initially, Paul lives with his mother–a secular, assimilated schoolteacher, who he adores until she “betrays” him by marrying the gentile André. He is then sent to live with his father–once an admired avant-garde artist, but now reviled by the critics as a “decadent Jew,” who drowns his anger, pain, and humiliation in drink. Paul searches in vain for stability and meaning in a world that is collapsing around him, but his love for the earthy peasant girl who briefly takes care of him, the strange pull he feels towards the Jews praying in the synagogue near his home, and the fascination with which he observes Eastern Orthodox church rituals merely give him tantalizing glimpses into worlds of which he can never be a part.The fates that Paul’s parents will meet with Paul as terrified witness–his mother, deserted by her new husband and dying of typhus; his father, gunned down while trying to stop the robbery of a Jewish-owned shop–and his own fate as an orphaned Jewish child alone in Europe in 1938 are rendered with extraordinary subtlety and power, as they foreshadow, in the heart-wrenching story of three individuals, the cataclysm that is about to engulf all of European Jewry.

Light of the Moon


Elizabeth Buchan - 1992
    Set in resistance France, this is a grand and passionate story of forbidden love between an English Special Operations Executive and a German Abwehr officer.

The Plum Trees


Victoria Shorr - 2021
    This seems improbable to Consie. Did people escape from Auschwitz? Could her great-uncle have been among them? What happened to Hermann? Did anyone know? These questions are at the root of Consie’s excavation of her family’s history as she seeks, seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, to discover what happened to Hermann.The Plum Trees follows Consie as she draws on oral testimonies, historical records, and more to construct a visceral account of the lives of Hermann, his wife, and their daughters from the happy days in prewar Czechoslovakia through their internment in Auschwitz and the end of World War II. The Plum Trees is a powerful, intimate reckoning with the past.

The Words I Never Wrote


Jane Thynne - 2020
    Within its case she discovers an unpublished novel, igniting a transatlantic journey to fill the gaps in the story of Cordelia and her sister’s loving yet tempestuous relationship.England, 1936: Cordelia’s socialite sister, Irene, marries a German man from a powerful family who whisks her away to Berlin. Cordelia remains in England to pursue the writing career she cherishes, but in the male-dominated world of journalism, she can only get hired as a typist. The sisters exchange letters as politics begin to boil in Europe and tensions come to a head when Cordelia discovers Irene’s husband is a Nazi sympathizer. Does that make Irene one by proxy? With increasing desperation, Cordelia writes to Irene, seeking to understand her loyalties. But the sisters’ letters don’t tell the whole story. So Cordelia decides to fill in the blanks by sitting down with her Underwood and—finally—writing the truth.When Juno discovers the trove of letters the two exchanged, a vivid portrait of Berlin in the devastating years during and after the war comes into focus. In this moving novel, Jane Thynne offers an intimate glimpse into a lesser known side of World War II.

The Girls in the Attic


Marius Gabriel - 2021
    So when he is sent home wounded, only to discover that his mother is sheltering two young Jewish women in their home, he is outraged.His mother’s act of mercy is a gross betrayal of everything Max stands for. He has dedicated his life to Nazism, fighting to atone for the shame of his anti-Hitler father’s imprisonment. It’s his duty to turn the sisters over to the Gestapo. But he hesitates, and the longer Max fails to do his duty, the harder it becomes.When Allied bombers fill the skies of Germany, Max is forced to abandon all dogma and face the brutality of war in order to defend precious lives. But what will it cost him?

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted


Robert Hillman - 2018
    He can’t have been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It’s only when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and takes little Peter away with her to join the holy rollers, Tom’s heart breaks all over again.Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic smalltown bookseller: the second Jew—and the most vivid person—Tom has ever met. He dares to believe they could make each other happy. But it is 1968: twenty-four years since Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz. Tom Hope is taking on a batttle with heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine.