The Bride’s Trunk: A Story of War and Reconciliation


Ingrid Dixon - 2016
    She has survived British and American bombs and witnessed the destruction of Aachen, her ancient and beautiful city. How will a German woman cope in austere post-war Britain, where she is still regarded as the enemy?Illustrated with almost 100 images and original documents, The Bride’s Trunk describes the adventures of an unremarkable piece of luggage and three generations of its owners, whose journeys across Europe are determined by the turbulent events of twentieth century history.

Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute


Jonathan Mayo - 2015
    All over the country, people are on the move- concentration camp survivors, Allied PoWs, escaping Nazis- and the civilian population is running out of food. The man who orchestrated this nightmare is in his bunker beneath the capital, saying his farewells. This is the gripping story of Hitler's final hours, as seen through the eyes of those who were with him in the bunker; those fighting in the streets of Germany; and those pacing the corridors of power in Washington, London and Moscow.30th April 1945 was a day that millions had dreamed of, and millions had died for.

Tell No One Who You Are: The Hidden Childhood of Regine Miller


Walter Buchignani - 1994
    Régine Miller was one such child, who left her mother, father, and brother when she was 10 years old. Utterly alone as she is shunted from place to place, told to tell no one she is Jewish, she hears that her mother and brother have been taken by the SS, the German secret police. Only her desperate hope that her father will return sustains her. At war’s end she must learn to live with the terrible truth of “the final solution,” the Nazi’s extermination camps.The people who sheltered Régine cover a wide spectrum of human types, ranging from callous to kind, fearful to defiant, exploitive to caring. This is a story of a brave girl and an equally brave woman to tell the story so many years later.From the Hardcover edition.

A Girl Called Renee: The Incredible Story of a Holocaust Survivor


Ruth Uzrad - 2017
    This is the unbelievable autobiographical story of Ruth Uzrad, a Jewish teenager whose life was turned upside down by the Nazi regime. After her father was arrested one night from their Berlin apartment by the Gestapo, Ruth’s mother sends 13 year-old Ruth and her two younger sisters out on their escape route across Europe by train to the safety of Belgium. But then the Nazis also reach Belgium, driving Ruth into the French Jewish underground… Later, when the Nazis conquer Belgium, Ruth and one of her sisters escape to France, leaving the youngest sister behind to be taken in by a Belgian foster family. Later, Ruth joins the Jewish underground movement in France and takes on a false identity and a new name, Renee. As an underground fighter, she participates in special operations aimed at rescuing Jews in danger. When the German police set out to arrest her, she manages to cross the border into Spain and eventually makes her way to Israel, where she makes her home and spends the rest of her life.

Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany


Karen Truesdell Riehl - 2014
    Asked about her experience during the war, Helga quietly revealed she had been a "Jugend," a member of Hitler's child army, "trained to revere and obey the Fuhrer." When Riehl asked how children were recruited, she replied, "Clever seduction." Helga's seduction begins with an invitation from Hitler she cannot refuse. The ten-year-old is ordered to attend weekly meetings of the Hitler Youth movement. Lies and tasty treats are employed to entice her allegiance to the Fuhrer. Helga is sent away to Hitler Youth training camps as the war draws nearer her home in Berlin. She is caught between loyalty to her family, suffering under Nazi rule, and loyalty to the Fuhrer, who keeps her safe and well-fed. Helga's gradual disillusionment, followed by her harrowing escape home, is a powerful coming-of-age story of a young girl's survival of Nazi mind control.

Dunkirk


Ewan Butler - 2017
     The victories won by British arms in the years which followed that great deliverance have made men forget those soldiers – the first of the many – upon whom it fell to withstand the shock of Hitler’s great attack. It is now fitting that these men and their Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort, should be worthily remembered, and their story fully told, from those first landings in France, in the autumn of 1939, until the climax of Dunkirk. The authors, both professional writers, themselves served as officers with the B.E.F., and have recaptured the gallantry and comradeship of that little force. The result is a moving story of courage and devotion in the face of odds which no other British Force has ever been called upon to face. It is chivalrous to admire a gallant enemy, and of that chivalry we have lately seen much. Justice demands that the courage and devotion of our own fighting men be no less clearly recognised. There were no medals for the B.E.F., hardly even today the laurels of memory. They were soldiers, doing a soldier’s job against odds which no British Force had ever been called upon to face, and which, it is to be hoped, no British Force will ever face again. What were they then, the men of that small Expeditionary Force, a mere army in one of the groups of French armies? How did they spend the months of what has been called the “twilight war”, and how, when the shock of battle came at last, did they withstand the blow? Dunkirk tells the true story of those brave men who fought to save the lives of so many. With the 2017 movie release of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk now is the time to remember the real history of the battle in the words of those who experienced it. Lt. Colonel Ewan Butler and Major J. Selby Bradford M.B.E., M.C. served in France as young officers during the last months of 1939 and the first five of 1940 with that small British Expeditionary force commanded by Lord Gort, which first faced the full might of Nazi Germany. Dunkirk was first published in 1950 under the title Keep The Memory Green. It was used as inspiration for the 1958 film, Dunkirk, starring Richard Attenborough.

Spectator In Hell


Colin Rushton - 1999
    The Germans called it Auschwitz. Auschwitz; a name now synonymous with man's darkest hour. Contrary to widespread belief, Auschwitz was not just a camp for those that the Third Reich deemed 'undesirables' - Jews, homosexuals and communists - hundreds of British Tommies were also incarcerated there and beheld the atrocities meted out by Hitler's brutal SS. This is the true story of one of those witnesses. Forced to do hard labour in an industrial factory, beaten by SS guards, part of a partisan group aiding in the plans for a mass breakout of Jewish prisoners. An escapee, a survivor; Arthur Dodd - a Spectator in Hell.

Letters From Berlin: A Story of War, Survival, and the Redeeming Power of Love and Friendship


Kerstin Lieff - 2012
    Like countless citizens under Hitler’s regime, Margarete struggled to understand what was happening to her country. Later, as a nurse for the German Red Cross, she treated countless young soldiers—recruited in the eleventh hour to fight a losing battle—they would die before her eyes as Allied bombs racked her beloved city. Yet, her deep humanity, intelligence, and passion for life—which sparkles in every sentence of her memoir—carried Margarete through to war’s end. But just when she thought the worst was over, and she and her mother were on a train headed to Sweden, they were suddenly rerouted deep into Russia…This powerful account draws back the curtain on a piece of history that has been largely overlooked—the nightmare that millions of German civilians suffered, simply because they were German. That Margarete survived to tell her tale so vividly and courageously is a gift to us all.

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.

Escaping with His Life: From Dunkirk to D-Day & Beyond


Nicholas Young - 2019
    Having survived the retreat to and evacuation from Dunkirk, he volunteered for the newly formed Commandos and took part in their first operation, the raid on the Lofoten Islands. He fought and was captured in Tunisia. He went on the run before his POW camp at Fontanellato was taken over by the Nazis after the September 1943 Italian armistice. He spent six months on the run in the Apennine mountains aided by brave and selfless Italians. Many of whom were actively fighting their occupiers. He eventually reached Allied lines but not before several of his companions were tragically killed by both German and American fire.On return to England he immediately signed up for the invasion of North West Europe and despite being wounded eventually fought through to Germany.It is thanks to his son's research that Major Young's story can now be told. It is an inspiring and thrilling account which demands to be read.

Bitter Freedom: Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor


Jafa Wallach - 2006
    Jafa Wallet's "Bitter Freedom," which I first read as an untitled manuscript in the late 1970's, is one of the most compelling first-person accounts by a Holocaust survivor that I have ever encountered. She evokes scenes which have resonated inside my head for nearly thirty years, and its publication is an important event not only for those interested in the Holocaust, but for everyone seeking illumination into the complexities and mysteries of what it means to be human. "Nelson E Breen, Emmy Award-winning writer and director "

Hans Sturm: A Soldier's Odyssey on the Eastern Front


Gordon Williamson - 2015
    However, few can match Hans Sturm in his astonishing rise from a mere private in an infantry regiment, thrown into the bloody maelstrom of the Eastern Front, to a highly decorated war hero. A young man who had displayed fearless heroism in combat, earning him some of Germany's highest military awards, Sturm hated bullies and injustice, and reacted in his normal pugnacious and outspoken manner when confronted with wrongdoing. From striking a member of the feared Sicherheitsdienst for his treatment of a Jewish woman, to refusing to wear a decoration he felt was tainted because of the treatment of enemy partisans, Sturm repeatedly stuck to his moral values no matter what the risk. Even with the war finally over, Sturm's travails would not end for another eight years as he languished in a number of Soviet labour camps until he was finally released in 1953. ** This electronic edition includes 60 black-and-white photographs **

Hitler's Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Confidante of Hitler, Ally of FDR


Peter Conradi - 2004
    An urbane Harvard-educated German, Putzi was living in Germany in 1922 when he first heard Hitler speak in Munich. Introducing himself after the speech, Putzi began one of the strangest relationships in twentieth-century politics. As he tried to introduce Hitler to Munich high-society and polish his image in the eyes of the world, Hanfstaengl helped finance Mein Kampf, claimed to have devised the chant of "Sieg Heil," and attempted to set Hitler up with the American ambassador's beautiful young daughter. But he fell out of Hitler's graces, fled to Britain where he was interned, and then transferred to America. There, he worked for his old friend from the Harvard Club, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The star of Roosevelt's "S-Project," Putzi provided information on four hundred leading Nazis, analyses of Hitler's speeches, and a sixty-eight-page psychological portrait of Hitler. Through newly declassified documents, photographs, interviews with members of Hanfstaengl's family, and original writing by Hanfstaengl, Peter Conradi recounts the remarkable life of history's personal link between Hitler and FDR.

The Secret Agent: In Search of America's Greatest World War II Spy


Stephan Talty - 2013
    He also had a secret to keep.In 1942, the Brooklyn-born Erickson was a millionaire oil mogul who volunteered for a dangerous mission inside the Third Reich: locating the top-secret synthetic oil plants that kept the German war machine running. To fool the Nazis, Erickson played the role of a collaborator. He hung a portrait of Hitler in his apartment and “disowned” his Jewish best friend, then flew to Berlin, where he charmed Himmler and signed lucrative oil deals with the architects of the Final Solution. All the while, he was visiting the oil refineries and passing their coordinates to Allied Bomber Command, who destroyed the plants in a series of B-17 raids, helping to end the war early. After the war, Erickson's was revealed as a secret agent and received the Medal of Freedom for his bravery. William Holden even played him in a hit Hollywood movie. For a brief moment in the early '60s, Erickson was the most famous spy in the world. His secret? He hadn't played a Nazi collaborator. He'd actually been one - a war profiteer who'd made millions of trading with Hitler before having a change of heart. Black-listed by the Allies and disowned by his family, Erickson had volunteered for the spy mission in order to redeem himself, and ended up saving thousands of Allied lives. Based on newly-discovered archives in Sweden, The Secret Agent is a riveting piece of narrative nonfiction that tells the true story of Erickson's remarkable life for the first time. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephan Talty is the author of five acclaimed non-fiction books, including Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Spy Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day. He's written for the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Men's Journal and many other publications.

The Sledge Patrol: A WWII Epic of Escape, Survival, and Victory


David Howarth - 1957
    Using dogsleds to patrol a stark 500-mile stretch of the Greenland coast, their wartime mission was to guard against Nazi interlopers - an unlikely scenario given the cruel climate. But one day, a footprint was spotted on desolate Sabine Island, along with other obvious signs of the enemy. escaped to the nearest hunting hut only to have the Germans pursue on foot. In the dead of the Arctic night, the men escaped capture at the last instant and, without their coats or sled dogs, walked fifty-six miles to get back to base. While the Sledge Patrol had only hunting rifles, resilience and their knowledge of outdoor survival, the Germans were armed with machine guns and grenades and greatly outnumbered them.