From then on the Germans were forced into a long, bitter retreat that ended in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. An officer in an elite guards unit of the Red Army, Bessonov rode tanks from Kursk, through a western Russia and Poland devastated by the Germans, and right into the heart of Nazi Germany.Tank Rider is the riveting memoir of Evgeni Bessonov telling of his years of service at the vanguard of the Red Army and daily encounters with the German foe. He brings large-scale battles to life, recounts the sniping and skirmishing that tried and tested soldiers on both sides, and narrates the overwhelming tragedy and horror of apocalyptic warfare on the Eastern Front.So much of the Soviet experience of World War II remains untold, but this memoir provides an important glimpse into some of the most decisive moments of this overlooked history.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    Zywulska born in 1914 as Sonia Landau. During the German occupation of Poland, she was displaced with her Jewish family to the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941. She escaped from the Ghetto and became active in the Polish resistance movement. Under her new name, Zywulska, she was captured by the Nazis in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz. There is always the danger that we will forget things that are best not forgotten. Certainly, some things should be permanently recorded so that posterity will remember what we would prefer to erase from our memories. This is the story of a woman who was imprisoned for a number of years in Auschwitz, the notorious death camp. What she saw there makes medieval genocides look like child’s play. This is her memoir, and she shows not only her own courage but also her fellow prisoners’ fierce will to live. Half-starved, suffering from lice, scabies and dysentery and mowed down by typhus and pneumonia, they worked in fields of icy slush and mud and registered new arrivals—hundreds of thousands of women from Holland, Greece, Italy and Hungary, who did not know where they were or why they had been seized. That she survived and finally managed to escape to tell the tale is one of many reasons why this book should be published and widely read. Most of her companions were murdered so that they could not bear witness. Written just after the author’s escape and published in 1946, I Survived Auschwitz was the first ever book to emerge about the camp and therefore occupies an important place in Holocaust literature. In certain parts of this book you will notice changes made by Poland’s communist censors after 1945. Due to these interventions, the book has become an unintentional double witness to the 20th century’s two most dreadful totalitarian regimes. I Survived Auschwitz was published in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. With additional footnotes, 26 percent increase in text, and 45 photos taken during war, the new edition is greatly expanded compared to the original 1946 English version. The book was translated from the Polish, Przeżyłam Oświęcim, by Lech Czerski and Sheila Callahan based on an initial translation by Krystyna Cenkalska.

    The Japanese were trying to get a foothold on the south coast of the island, opposite Australia. The American Thirty-second Infantry Division had the job of driving them back over the Owen Stanley Mountain. It succeeded, at the cost of more than 10,000 casualties, four-fifths of them from tropical diseases contracted in the face of heavy rain, astonishing depths of mud, rugged terrain, perpetually rancid weather, shortage of supplies (including medicines), and, not incidentally, the Japanese. The most poignant part of the book consists of the letters of an army surgeon who eventually committed suicide, but every part of the book entitles it to a berth in WWII collections.

    Shortly after the Nazis occupied Poland in 1939, he was sent to do slave labour in the Nowy Sącz, Tarnów Ghettos and Szebnie camp. He was then transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buna, Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen death camps. When his parents were murdered in the Belżec death camp, he became the sole survivor of his entire family. After liberation, Henry volunteered for the Israeli Army and fought for Israel’s independence. He came to Canada in 1965 with his wife Hela and their two children.His story is one of strength and courage. His survival is nothing short of a miracle.

    The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone." In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.

    On April 10, when the German troops marched into Zagreb, the Croatian capital, they were greeted as liberators by the Croats. Three days later, Ante Pavelić, the future leader of the Independent State of Croatia, returned from exile in Italy and Goldstein’s father, the proprietor of a leftist bookstore in Karlovac—a beautiful old city fifty miles from the capital—was arrested along with other local Serbs, communists, and Yugoslav sympathizers. Goldstein was only thirteen years old, and he would never see his father again.   More than fifty years later, Goldstein seeks to piece together the facts of his father’s last days. The moving narrative threads stories of family, friends, and other ordinary people who lived through those dark times together with personal memories and an impressive depth of carefully researched historic details. The other central figure in Goldstein’s heartrending tale is his mother—a strong, resourceful woman who understands how to act decisively in a time of terror in order to keep her family alive.   From 1941 through 1945 some 32,000 Jews, 40,000 Gypsies, and 350,000 Serbs were slaughtered in Croatia. It is a period in history that is often forgotten, purged, or erased from the history books, which makes Goldstein’s vivid, carefully balanced account so important for us today—for the same atrocities returned to Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s. And yet Goldstein’s story isn’t confined by geographical boundaries as it speaks to the dangers and madness of ethnic hatred all over the world and the urgent need for mutual understanding.

    Adolf Hitler believed this surprise attack was crucial for German success in World War II. It aimed to destroy what Hitler perceived as a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy and to ensure German economic, political and cultural prosperity. A huge percentage of German resources were allocated to the campaign against the Soviet Union, and the total percen

    Chamberlain had just returned from Munich, where he had averted the greatest crisis of the century. Under his leadership, Britain and France had conceded the German-speaking fringe of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, after which the Führer was persuaded to sign a joint declaration symbolizing "the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again." The cost had been high, but Chamberlain's eleventh-hour gamble had, the Prime Minister boasted, secured "peace for our time." Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland and the deadliest conflict in human history began. Appeasement is a groundbreaking history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy and parliamentary infighting that enabled Hitler's domination of Europe. Drawing on deep archival research and sources not previously seen by historians, Tim Bouverie has created an unforgettable portrait of the ministers, dukes and debutantes who, through their actions and inaction, shaped their country's policy and determined the fate of Europe. Beginning with the advent of Hitler in 1933, we embark on a fascinating journey from the early days of the Third Reich to the beaches of Dunkirk. Bouverie takes us inside the 10 Downing Street of Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin and into the backrooms of Parliament--where an unusual coalition of Conservative rebels, including the indomitable Winston Churchill, and opposition MPs were among the few to realize that the only real choice was between "war now or war later." And as German troops enter the demilitarized Rhineland, march into Austria and threaten to invade Czechoslovakia, he takes us into the drawing rooms and dinner clubs of fading imperial Britain, where Hitler enjoyed surprising support among the ruling class and even members of the Royal Family. Both sweeping and intimate, Appeasement is not only an eye-opening history but a timeless lesson on the challenges of standing against authoritarianism--and the calamity that results from failing.

    She was ruthless. She had a steel trap for a mind and a will of iron. Born Vera Maria Rosenberg in Bucharest, she became Vera Atkins, legendary spy and holder of the Legion of Honor. Recruited by William Stevenson—the spymaster who would later come to be known as “Intrepid”—when she was only twenty-three, Vera spent much of the 1930s running countless perilous espionage missions. When war was declared in 1939, her fierce intelligence, blunt manner, personal courage, and knowledge of several languages quickly propelled her to the leadership echelon of the highly secretive Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by, and reporting to, Winston Churchill. She recruited and trained several hundred agents, including dozens of women, whose objectives were to penetrate deep behind enemy lines. The stirring exploits and the exemplary courage of the SOE agents and the French Resistance fighters—who in the words of General Dwight D. Eisenhower together “shortened the war by many months”—are justly celebrated. But the central role of Vera Atkins has until now been cloaked in silence. William Stevenson was the only person she trusted to record her life; he kept his promise that he would not publish her story until after her death. Here is the extraordinary account of the woman whose intelligence, beauty, and unflagging dedication proved key in turning the tide of World War II.

    More than fifty years later, this classic wartime memoir is just as gripping as it was then.Desperate to see action but rejected by both the marines and paratroopers because he was too short, Murphy eventually found a home with the infantry. He fought through campaigns in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Although still under twenty-one years old on V-E Day, he was credited with having killed, captured, or wounded 240 Germans. He emerged from the war as America's most decorated soldier, having received twenty-one medals, including our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. To Hell and Back is a powerfully real portrayal of American GI's at war.

     A paratrooper in the 101st Airborne, James Sheeran was just a kid when he floated into Normandy on D-Day-only to be captured soon afterward by the Germans. Escaping from a POW train bound for Germany, Sheeran traveled behind enemy lines in France, eventually fighting alongside the French Resistance. After hooking up with Patton's advancing army, he fought admirably in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge, and was ultimately awarded the Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and the Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor. Sheeran's breathtaking chronicle of his capture, daring escape, fierce guerilla resistance, and valor under fire is an unforgettable testament to the spirit of the American soldier.

    The fate of the country rested in the hands of George V's sorely unequipped sons: Edward VIII abandoned his throne to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson; Prince Henry preferred the sporting life of a country squire; the glamorous and hedonistic Prince George, Duke of Kent, was considered a wild card; and stammering George VI felt himself woefully unprepared for the demanding role of King. As Hitler's Third Reich tore up the boundaries of Europe and Britain braced itself for war, the new king struggled to manage internal divisions within the royal family. Drawing on many new sources including from the Royal Archives, Princes at War goes behind the palace doors to tell the thrilling drama of Britain at war.

    Despite the starvation and disease that claimed 50,000 lives per year, the Jews were not dying swiftly enough to suit Heinrich Himmler, who ordered in 1942 that the Warsaw Ghetto be dismantled and the 450,000 inhabitants be deported to the gas chambers at Treblinka. On April 19, 1943, the first day of Passover, two thousand German troops, singing confidently, marched into the ghetto to round up the remnant of remaining Jews. Suddenly, a fifteen-year-old girl tossed a grenade in their midst. Within minutes the German army had been routed. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had begin.This is the first full-scale, step-by-step account of the climatic twenty-eight-day struggle of the poorly armed Jews against their Nazi exterminators. The Bravest Battle took more than two years to write and involved interviewing more than 500 people, including most of the surviving fighters. This moving history cannot be matched for its authenticity and drama. The Bravest Battle is a testament to the Warsaw Jews, who fought for survival with dignity and courage.

    This book reveals how author Roald Dahl was a member of Churchill's infamous dirty tricks squad.

    The Germans responded with a dizzying series of assaults, using every tool of modern warfare developed in the previous generation. Airlifted infantry, mountain troops and paratroopers were dispatched to the north, seizing Norwegian strongpoints while forestalling larger but more cumbersome Allied units.The German navy also set sail, taking a brutal beating at the hands of Britannia, while ensuring with its sacrifice that key harbors could be held open for resupply. As dive-bombers soared overhead, small but elite German units traversed forbidding terrain to ambush Allied units trying to forge inland. At Narvik, some 6,000 German troops battled 20,000 French and British, until the Allies were finally forced to withdraw by the great disaster in France, which had then gotten underway.Henrik Lunde, a native Norwegian and former U.S. Special Operations colonel, has written the most objective account to date of a campaign in which 20th-century military innovation found its first fertile playing field.REVIEWS:"While it's almost impossible to find a new book about a hitherto unexplored WWII-related subject, it's almost as unlikely to discover a new book that turns out to be the best yet written on the topic. . . . Henrik Lunde's new Hitler's Pre-Emptive War is certainly not the first book about the 1940 invasion of Norway and the battles around Narvik, but it sure looks like the best."-Stone and Stone Second World War Books"Lunde has thoroughly dissected both ground and naval battles and managed to make a complex politico-military situation clear. . . . military collections will want to acquire this excellent effort . . ."-Library Journal"Well written with an unbiased eye. . . . Every aspect is covered, with British, French, German and Norwegian viewpoints, decisions and actions all being taken fairly into account. . . . It's an interesting story and one I would recommend." - Military Modeling, 06/2009.."a detailed, well laid out history... essential reading; a must-have in your military library and a job very well done by the author."Military Model Craft International, 07/2009 "This large book will fuel debate. . . . Exhaustive research and intellectual detachment enable the author to bring objectivity and a fresh interpretation to a subject that has been until now laden with national self-justification. . . . Holds the reader's interest while progressing seamlessly from political and strategic decisions to theater operations and tactics of the various national forces engaged, including describing and analyzing combat on land, at sea, and in the air. . . . This book is a gem."-Parameters"... an excellent job of compiling research material, which can be quite challenging due to the bias of what's out there...tough to put down...well written and thoroughly researched."Internet Modeler, 08/2009"Thoroughly researched, objective and thoughtfully written... a highly recommended addition to the historiography of World War II, and sheds new light on this misunderstood campaign."Carlo D'Este, World War II Magazine, 11/2009"A very detailed look at what was the first "joint" operation of the Second World War, the highly risky and amazingly successful German invasion of Normandy in April 1940...a comprehensive account of what was one of the most complex campaigns of the war..."The NYMAS Review, Fall-Winter 2009 ".. will undoubtedly become recognized as a milestone among the books about Norway in 1940."MILITAR HISTORIA 3/2009 (Norway)