Book picks similar to
The Murder of the Jews in Latvia 1941-1945 by Bernhard Press
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Turned Away: The World War II Diary of Devorah Bernstein
Carol Matas - 2005
Devorah learns that 5,000 Jewish children in France have visas to leave the country, but the Canadian government will not let them in, leading Devorah to desperately lobby the government to change its policies. Turned Away illustrates the restrictions on the life of Jews in Paris via letters from Sarah who is living in German-occupied France. It also reveals Canada's dismal record on Jewish immigration during World War II and depicts the impact of the war in Canada. In Winnipeg, one intriguing response to the war was "If Day," when local people posed as Nazis and staged a mock invasion to illustrate what it would be like if the city was occupied. Also included are fascinating period documents and photographs, many from the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The historical consultants for Turned Away were Dr. Irving Abella, co-author of the ground-breaking book None is Too Many, and Terry Copp, author of the remarkable book No Price Too High.
Holocaust: A History
Deborah Dwork - 2002
It is a story of all Europe, of Nazis and their allies, the experience of wartime occupation, the suffering and strategies of marked victims, the failure of international rescue, and the success of individual rescuers. It alone in Holocaust literature negotiates the chasm between the two histories, that of the perpetrators and of the victims and their families, shining new light on German actions and Jewish reactions.No other book in any language has so embraced this multifaceted story. Holocaust uniquely makes use of oral histories recorded by the authors over fifteen years across Europe and the United States, as well as never-before-analyzed archival documents, letters, and diaries; it contains in addition seventy-five illustrations and sixteen original maps, each accompanied by an extended caption. This book is an original analysis of a defining event.
Splatterpunks
Sam West - 2014
You throw a party to end all parties. A party that will last for days. A party where debauchery knows no bounds. A party where the guests are expendable…God help those unwitting souls who wind up on the guest list. In another time, long ago, the multi-millionaire party hosts might have been called Libertines. Or Philanderers, Sensualists, or Scoundrels… ‘Psychotic’ is probably more fitting.Although Sebastian and Richard prefer to be known as Splatterpunks, if you please.Warning from the author: This novel is my most disturbed and twisted offering yet. It is EXTREME horror. I cannot stress this enough, please turn away now if you are of sane mind and do not enjoy vivid descriptions of violent orgies and human cruelty.
In the Face of Evil: Based on the Life of Dina Frydman Balbien
Tema N. Merback - 2010
The love of family and friends offer no protection against the menace of the Nazi regime that begins to siphon off the worldly and spiritual goods of Radom's Jews. We witness Dina's battle to survive and understand the deadly apocalypse that transforms her from an innocent child to a teenage/adult. When her family is deported and murdered at Treblinka she finds safety at a forced labor facility where she experiences her first taste of love when she at thirteen meets Natek Korman, a passionate sixteen year old who rekindles her will to live. Forced by the Nazis to separate, the young lovers vow to find each other after the war. From work camps to death camps, Dina survives against all odds. The aftermath of six years of death and destruction presents a new obstacle, how to live? With the war over Dina travels from a German castle to a DP facility and finally a school for orphans as she struggles to reclaim her life. In 1945, she is reunited with Natek Korman only to face the most important decision of her life. She chooses to follow her dream. In the Face of Evil is a timeless story of the upheavals of war, the tenacious endurance of love and the resilience of the human spirit. It is an epic journey through the nightmare of the Holocaust-the single most defining moment in modern history, as told through the eyes of a young girl.
Blitz Kid
Eliza Graham - 2013
Rachel is alone and adrift in a stricken city as the Blitz reaches its most deadly stage and thousands die in nightly air raids. Her father is under arrest as a suspected spy, her mother seriously ill in hospital. Can she survive in the murky blackout alongside London’s criminals and unearth the real traitors? Age 13-plus.
We Wept Without Tears: Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando from Auschwitz
Gideon Greif - 1994
Though never involved in the killing itself, they were compelled to be “members of staff” of the Nazi death-factory. This book, translated for the first time into English from its original Hebrew, consists of interviews with the very few surviving men who witnessed at first hand the unparalleled horror of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Some of these men had never spoken of their experiences before.Over a period of years, Gideon Greif interviewed intensively all Sonderkommando survivors living in Israel. They describe not only the details of the German-Nazi killing program but also the moral and human challenges they faced. The book provides direct testimony about the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem,” but it is also a unique document on the boundless cruelty and deceit practiced by the Germans. It documents the helplessness and powerlessness of the one-and-a-half million people, 90 percent of them Jews, who were brutally murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Hacksaw Ridge : The True Story of Desmond Doss
Ronald Kruk - 2017
His comrades claim that he saved 100. President Harry S. Truman presented him with the Congressional Medal of Honor upon his return to the United States, for his heroics on Okinawa, and the citation credits him with saving 75 lives, splitting the difference. "From a human standpoint, I shouldn't be here to tell the story," said Doss in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "No telling how many times the Lord has spared my life." During World War II, 16,112,556 American soldiers served their country and the cause of the Allies, and only 43 received the Medal of Honor. Doss, who held a powerful allegiance to Christ, and was a devoted member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, became the first conscientious objector to receive the U.S. military's highest honor. Today, he is one of two conscientious objectors to have received it.
The Enemy Above: A Novel of World War II
Michael P. Spradlin - 2016
And twelve-year-old Anton knows his family can't outrun them. A web of underground caves seems like the perfect place to hide. But danger lurks above the surface. Ruthless Major Karl Von Duesen of the Gestapo has made it his mission to round up every Jew in the Ukrainian countryside. Anton knows if his community is discovered, they will be sent off to work camps...or worse.When a surprise invasion catches them off guard, Anton makes a radical decision. He won't run any longer. And he won't hide. He will stop being the hunted...and start doing some hunting of his own. Michael P. Spradlin's newest thriller is the ultimate game of cat and mouse set during one of the darkest moments in history.
Gestapo: Hitler's Secret Terror Police
Lucas Saul - 2015
These men were leaders of the Gestapo, the secret police during the times of the Nazis. This book outlines who the Gestapo were, how they operated, what their numbers were, the terrible crimes they committed and how they paid for these in the end when they were hunted down after the war.
Safe Passage
Ida Cook - 1950
Sudden wealth and fame. Dangerous undercover missions into the heart of Nazi Germany. Standing up to the perils of the Blitz. No one would have predicted such glamorous and daring lives for Ida and Louise Cook—two decidedly ordinary Englishwomen who came of age between the wars and seemed destined never to stray from their quiet London suburb and comfortable civil service jobs. But in 1923 a chance hearing of an aria from Madame Butterfly sparked a passion in the sisters that became a vehicle for both their greatest happiness and the rescue of dozens of Jews facing persecution and death.Safe Passage is one of the most unusual and inspiring accounts to come out of the cataclysm of World War II. First published in 1950, Ida's memoir of the adventures she and Louise shared remains as fresh, vital and entertaining as the woman who wrote it. The Cook sisters' zest for life and genuine "goodness" shines through every page and explains why the leading opera singers of their day befriended and loved them. Even when Ida began to earn thousands as a successful romance novelist, the sisters never departed from their homespun virtues of thrift, hard work, self-sacrifice and unwavering moral conviction. They sewed their own clothes, traveled third class, bought the cheapest tickets during opera season and directed every spare resource, as well as their own considerable courage and ingenuity, toward saving as many people as they could from Hitler's death camps.Uplifting and utterly charming, Safe Passage is moving testimony to all that can be achieved when conscience and compassion are applied to a collapsing world.
Out on a Ledge: Enduring the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Beyond
Eva Libitzky - 2010
Despite the deepest suffering and the most profound loss, Eva was able to rebuild her life, and with her husband, also a survivor, raise a family in America – in the city, suburbs, and on the farm. Lehrhaus is proud to publish the second edition, which includes Eva’s eventful return to Poland in 2013 with 16 of her closest relatives spanning three generations.
The Job: Fighting Crime From the Frontline
Charlie Bezzina - 2010
The Job is an explosive and intriguing account of what it takes to be a criminal investigator at the highest level.
Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany
Marion A. Kaplan - 1998
Answering the charge that Jews should have left earlier, Kaplan shows that far from seeming inevitable, the Holocaust was impossible to foresee precisely because Nazi repression occurred in irregular and unpredictable steps until the massive violence of Novemer 1938. Then the flow of emigration turned into a torrent, only to be stopped by the war. By that time Jews had been evicted from their homes, robbed of their possessions and their livelihoods, shunned by their former friends, persecuted by their neighbors, and driven into forced labor. For those trapped in Germany, mere survival became a nightmare of increasingly desperate options. Many took their own lives to retain at least some dignity in death; others went underground and endured the fears of nightly bombings and the even greater terror of being discovered by the Nazis. Most were murdered. All were pressed to the limit of human endurance and human loneliness.Focusing on the fate of families and particularly women's experience, Between Dignity and Despair takes us into the neighborhoods, into the kitchens, shops, and schools, to give us the shape and texture, the very feel of what it was like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany.
Witnesses of War: Children's Lives Under the Nazis
Nicholas Stargardt - 2005
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.