Book picks similar to
To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima by Pellegrino Charles
history
non-fiction
survival
worldly
The Light at Midnight: A Historical Thriller Set During the Holocaust
Tom Reppert - 2020
One Soldier's Story
Bob Dole - 2005
The bravery he showed after suffering near-fatal injuries in the final days of World War II is the stuff of legend. Now, for the first time in his own words, Dole tells the moving story of his harrowing experience on and off the battlefield, and how it changed his life.Speaking here not as a politician but as a wounded G. I., Dole recounts his own odyssey of courage and sacrifice, and also honors the fighting spirit of the countless heroes with whom he served. Heartfelt and inspiring, One Soldier's Story is the World War II chronicle that America has been waiting for.
Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter
Kazik (Simha Rotem) - 1994
After their attempts to penetrate the Ghetto had failed, they decided to spare themselves casualties by destroying it from outside with cannon and aerial bombings. A few days later the Ghetto was totally destroyed. . . . The 'streets' were nothing but rows of smoldering ruins. It was hard to cross them without stepping on charred bodies."—Kazik When the Nazis decided to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, five hundred young Jewish fighters within the Ghetto rose up to defy them. With no weapons, no influence, and no experience in warfare, they managed to resist the Germans for almost a month. In the end, when the battle was lost, the surviving Jews were led out of the ruins through the sewers by a nineteen-year-old fighter known as Kazik. As head courier of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), which had planned and executed the uprising, Kazik spent the rest of the war helping to care for the several thousand Jews who still remained in Warsaw. This book—an extraordinary story of courage and perseverance—is Kazik's wartime memoir. In stark, spare detail, Kazik reports on the efforts to prepare for the defense of the Warsaw Ghetto, the calamitous battle with the Germans, and the rescue of the few Jews who were still alive after the Ghetto was destroyed. He describes how he assumed a false Aryan identity in order to pass through the city as he collected money and found hiding places for the survivors. Constantly on guard, fearful of informers, his life always in danger, he nevertheless plotted resourcefully to aid his fellow Jews. He tells how he joined the Poles during their ill-fated uprising against the Nazis in Warsaw in 1944, had further brushes with death assisting the Polish underground, and returned to Warsaw to watch its liberation by the Russian army. Suspenseful, moving, and remarkably heroic, Kazik's memoir is only the second source to be published on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It will help demolish the image of Jews as submissive victims in the Holocaust.
The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil
Dean Reuter - 2019
He personally altered the design of Auschwitz to increase crowding, ensuring that epidemic diseases would complement the work of the gas chambers. Why has the world forgotten this monster? Kammler was declared dead after the war. But the aide who testified to Kammler’s supposed “suicide” never produced the general’s dog tags or any other proof of death. Dean Reuter, Colm Lowery, and Keith Chester have spent decades on the trail of the elusive Kammler, uncovering documents unseen since the 1940s and visiting the purported site of Kammler’s death, now in the Czech Republic. Their astonishing discovery: US government documents prove that Hans Kammler was in American custody for months after the war—well after his officially declared suicide. And what happened to him after that? Kammler was kept out of public view, never indicted or tried, but to what end? Did he cooperate with Nuremberg prosecutors investigating Nazi war crimes? Was he protected so the United States could benefit from his intimate knowledge of the Nazi rocket program and Germany’s secret weapons? The Hidden Nazi is true history more harrowing—and shocking—than the most thrilling fiction.
Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story
Irene Butter - 2018
Play is restricted. Family and friends disappear. Finally, with the Dutch police at their door comes the reality that Irene’s father has not moved his family far enough from Hitler’s Germany.By January 1945, the family is struggling to survive a death camp. Irene tends her ailing parents, cares for starving kids, and even helps bring clothes to her Amsterdam neighbor Anne Frank, before her family is offered a singular chance for freedom…providing the Nazi doctor says they are healthy enough. After two weeks of heart-lifting miracles and heart-breaking tragedies, Irene arrives in the Algerian desert to journey into redemption and womanhood, without her parents or brother.Irene’s first person memoir, Shores Beyond Shores, is an account of how the heart keeps its common humanity in the most inhumane and turbulent of times. Irene’s hard-earned lessons are a timeless inspiration.
Sole Survivor: A Story of Record Endurance at Sea
Ruthanne Lum McCunn - 1985
Sole Survivor, based on three years of interviews with Poon and his family, reconstructs his remarkable ordeal and the survival techniques that earned him world celebrity and a listing in the Guiness Book of World Records. "A classic saga of ordeal and survival that reminds us of the courage, strength, and resourceful intelligence of which human beings are capable."-Tillie Olsen, author of Tell Me a Riddle
Intrepid's Last Case
William Stevenson - 1983
They concluded that the rumors grew, ironically, from Intrepid's last wartime case involving the first major Soviet intelligence defector of the new atomic age: Igor Gouzenko. Intrepid saved Gouzenko and found him sanctuary inside a Canadian spy school. Gouzenko was about to make more devastating disclosures than those concerning atomic espionage when the case was mysteriously terminated and Intrepid's organization dissolved.Unraveling the implications of Gouzenko's defection and Intrepid's removal from the case, tracing the steps of Dick Ellis and disclosing much new information regarding United States and Canadian postwar intelligence activities, Intrepid's Last Case is a story that for sheer excitement rivals the best spy fiction--and is all the more important because every word is true.Filled with never-before-revealed facts on the Soviet/Western nuclear war dance and a compelling portrayal of the mind of a professional spy, Intrepid's Last Case picks up where the first book ended, at the very roots of the cold war. It describes one of the most widespread cover-ups and bizarre betrayals in intelligence history. This is the incredible Intrepid against the KGB.
11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944
Stanley Weintraub - 2006
He tells how the Russians were rapidly advancing in the east, while the Americans and British, after a brief pause, were primed to thrust into Germany from the west.
Miracle in the Cave: The 12 Lost Boys, Their Coach, and the Heroes Who Rescued Them
Liam Cochrane - 2019
With no food or drinking water except the condensation found on the cave walls, their survival seemed unlikely. Yet against the odds, a team of determined divers traversed monsoon floodwaters and narrow passageways to find Coach Ek, a stateless orphan devoted to Buddhism, and his young players alive and hopeful.Liam Cochrane spent more than two weeks on the scene, and was stationed outside of the cave entrance in daily contact with divers and other key members of the rescue team, reporting the story for the Australian Broadcast Corporation. In this mesmerizing and inspiring book, he recounts this ultimate race-against-the-clock event. Filled with never-before-reported details based on exclusive access to both the rescue team, Coach Ek, and members of the soccer team and their families, Daring to Hope chronicles the Wild Boars’ ordeal in the cave, and the rescue plan that unfolded outside—including the contentious political negotiations, the early misadventure that halted the operation for crucial hours, and the death of Thai Navy SEAL diver Saman Kunan.Going deep inside the area between the Thai and Myanmar border, better known for methamphetamines and illegal wildlife trade, Cochrane guides us through every aspect of the adventure-turned-nightmare-turned miracle: the team’s agonizing wait in the darkness; the rescuers’ battle against the forces of nature; the work of international experts who pooled their skills to help. Chochrane evokes the rollercoaster of emotions every step of the way—the terror, optimism, sadness, and joy of this indelible experience.Filled with a spirit of true grit, Daring to Hope is a courageous tale of perseverance and a celebration of an inspiring moment when the world came together in hope.
Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Israel Gutman - 1994
They were to kill those who resisted. A few hundred of the trapped Jews, mostly teenagers, armed only with pistols, Molotov cocktails, and a few light machine guns, vowed to fight back. Resistance is the full story of the uprising and the events leading to it, told by a survivor of the battle who is now a world-renowned Israeli scholar of the Holocaust. Warsaw in the 1920s and 1930s was the home of Europe's largest and most vibrant Jewish community. It included the rich, the poor, and the middle class; casual assimilationists and ardent Zionists; representatives of the full spectrum of political and religious factions. Then came the German onslaught of ruthless violence against the Jews - isolation and starvation amid desperation and disease - then deportations. As the ghetto walls rose, hundreds of thousands were rounded up and sent to Treblinka. But resistance began to take shape, and when the final attack order came, the ghetto fighters stood ready. One of the few survivors of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, Holocaust scholar I. Gutman draws on diaries, personal letters, and underground press reports in this compelling, authoritative account of a landmark event in Jewish history. Here, too, is a portrait of the vibrant culture that shaped the young fighters, whose inspired defiance would have far-reaching implications for the Jewish people and the State of Israel.Supported by moving and dramatic excerpts from diaries, letters, and other documents of the period, Resistance is destined to take its place as the classic account of a most important turning point in Jewish and world history.
Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam's Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned
Alvin Townley - 2014
Determined to maintain their Code of Conduct, the POWs developed a powerful underground resistance. To quash it, their captors singled out its eleven leaders, Vietnam's own "dirty dozen," and banished them to an isolated jail that would become known as Alcatraz. None would leave its solitary cells and interrogation rooms unscathed; one would never return.As these eleven men suffered in Hanoi, their wives at home launched an extraordinary campaign that would ultimately spark the nationwide POW/MIA movement. The members of these military families banded together and showed the courage not only to endure years of doubt about the fate of their husbands and fathers, but to bravely fight for their safe return. When the survivors of Alcatraz finally came home, one veteran would go on to receive the Medal of Honor, another would become a U.S. Senator, and a third still serves in the U.S. Congress.A powerful story of survival and triumph, Alvin Townley's Defiant will inspire anyone wondering how courage, faith, and brotherhood can endure even in the darkest of situations.
Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War
Dale Maharidge - 2013
Steve Maharidge, like many of his generation, hardly ever talked about the war. The only sign he'd served in it was a single black and white photograph of himself and another soldier tacked to the wall of his basement, where he would grind steel. After Steve Maharidge’s death, his son Dale, now an adult, began a twelve-year quest to understand his father’s preoccupation with the photo. What had happened during the battle for Okinawa, and why his father had remained silent about his experiences and the man in the picture, Herman Mulligan? In his search for answers, Maharidge sought out the survivors of Love Company, many of whom had never before spoken so openly and emotionally about what they saw and experienced on Okinawa.In Bringing Mulligan Home, Maharidge delivers an affecting narrative of war and its aftermath, of fathers and sons, with lessons for the children whose parents are returning from war today.
Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood
Nechama Tec - 1982
Dry Tears is a dramatic tale of how an eleven-year-old child learned to pass in the forbidding Christian world and a quietly moving coming-of-age story. This book is uniquecelebration of the best human qualities that surface under the worst conditions.
When God Looked the Other Way: An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption
Wesley Adamczyk - 2004
Standing in the shadow of the Holocaust, this episode of European history is often overlooked. Wesley Adamczyk's gripping memoir, When God Looked the Other Way, now gives voice to the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet barbarism.Adamczyk was a young Polish boy when he was deported with his mother and siblings from their comfortable home in Luck to Soviet Siberia in May of 1940. His father, a Polish Army officer, was taken prisoner by the Red Army and eventually became one of the victims of the Katyn massacre, in which tens of thousands of Polish officers were slain at the hands of the Soviet secret police. The family's separation and deportation in 1940 marked the beginning of a ten-year odyssey in which the family endured fierce living conditions, meager food rations, chronic displacement, and rampant disease, first in the Soviet Union and then in Iran, where Adamczyk's mother succumbed to exhaustion after mounting a harrowing escape from the Soviets. Wandering from country to country and living in refugee camps and the homes of strangers, Adamczyk struggled to survive and maintain his dignity amid the horrors of war.When God Looked the Other Way is a memoir of a boyhood lived in unspeakable circumstances, a book that not only illuminates one of the darkest periods of European history but also traces the loss of innocence and the fight against despair that took root in one young boy. It is also a book that offers a stark picture of the unforgiving nature of Communism and its champions. Unflinching and poignant, When God Looked the Other Way will stand as a testament to the trials of a family during wartime and an intimate chronicle of episodes yet to receive their historical due. “Adamczyk recounts the story of his own wartime childhood with exemplary precision and immense emotional sensitivity, presenting the ordeal of one family with the clarity and insight of a skilled novelist. . . . I have read many descriptions of the Siberian odyssey and of other forgotten wartime episodes. But none of them is more informative, more moving, or more beautifully written than When God Looked the Other Way.”—From the Foreword by Norman Davies, author of Europe: A History and Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw “A finely wrought memoir of loss and survival.”—Publishers Weekly “Adamczyk’s unpretentious prose is well-suited to capture that truly awful reality.” —Andrew Wachtel, Chicago Tribune Books “Mr. Adamczyk writes heartfelt, straightforward prose. . . . This book sheds light on more than one forgotten episode of history.”—Gordon Haber, New York Sun “One of the most remarkable World War II sagas I have ever read. It is history with a human face.”—Andrew Beichman, Washington Times
Beyond the Ties of Blood
Florencia Mallon - 2012
Her lover, Manuel, is savagely killed, one of the countless “disappeared” that would haunt Chile’s collective memory for decades. While still in the torture camp, Eugenia discovers she is pregnant and is exiled to Mexico and then to the United States to raise her daughter alone, forbidden to return. She builds a quiet life for herself as a journalist and professor, but the scars on her arms do not allow her to bury her past. Each night she aches for her homeland while fighting to suppress the horrific nightmares that still plague her.Nearly twenty years after her exile, Eugenia is called back to Chile to testify in Manuel’s case and help seek justice for the others who disappeared. A rare living witness to these “camps,” Eugenia must come to grips with the legacy of violence and traumas left by Pinochet’s dictatorship and find truth and solace in the stories of those she left behind.In the tradition of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of Butterflies, Beyond the Ties of Blood is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and the transcendence of family.