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Freedom in the Air: A Czech Flyer and His Aircrew Dog by Hamish Ross
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I Love You My Child, I'm Abandoning You: Holocaust book memoirs
Ariela Palacz - 2017
But one day she is suddenly forced to confront the cruel reality of the Holocaust, together with the rest of French Jewry. Paulette is forced to separate from her family, and as a result, abandoned by her father. But despite her difficult and shocking life experiences, she remains naïve and optimistic, holding on to her thirst for life even in the darkest hours.
An authentic and moving life story
I Love You My Child, I'm Abandoning You is an exciting human documentary, taking place in France during the Holocaust. It honors the memory of the French Jews who perished in the Second World War, while simultaneously giving voice the persistent will to live, and the strength and bravery that characterize those who survived and gave rise to the future generations of the Jewish people.
An existential odyssey that puts a spotlight on the human need and right to belong
Ariela Palacz shares her life story through the character of little Paulette Szenker, sensitively weaving past and present into an authentic and moving journey that shifts between WWII France and contemporary Jerusalem. A story about the human spirit and the thirst for a family, a tradition, and a nation, that will touch your heart.
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The Last Visit to Berlin: A Historical Family Saga Based On A True Story
Ruvik Rosenthal - 2020
The fate of an entire family…Berlin, 1933. Erich, a Jew, and Hilde, a Christian, are a young couple, the parents of Yvonne, and owners of a small book publishing firm. With Hitler’s rise to power and the persecution of Jews, their lives are destroyed in an instant.The Nazis burn their books and, fearing for their lives, the family is forced to escape to Holland.The many hardships, however, tear the family apart when Hilde chooses to return to Germany together with Yvonne, leaving Erich, who immigrates to Palestine. Will he ever see his family again?The Last Visit to Berlin is a saga that spreads over one hundred years in the lives of the members of the Freyer family. The novel follows the most difficult moments the family went through. It tells the story of the tragic destiny suffered by generation after generation in Germany and in the Land of Israel, reliving their shattered beliefs and documenting their stubborn insistence on living a good life under the shadow of memories and loss.
The Collaborators
Reginald Hill - 1987
From the bestselling author of the Dalziel and Pascoe series, a superb novel of wartime passion, loyalty – and betrayalWhen Janine Simonian was dragged roughly from her cell to face trial as a collaborator in the days of reckoning that followed the liberation of France, she refused to conceal her shaven skull from the jeering crowds that greeted her.Before the jury of former Resistance members pledged to extract vengeance on all who had connived in Nazi rule, Janine stood proudly in court – and pleaded guilty to the charges.Why did so many French men and women collaborate with the Nazi occupation forces whilst others gave their lives in resistance? Were the motives of those who betrayed their country always selfish – and those of the Resistance always noble?The Collaborators is a superb novel of conscience and betrayal that portrays the human dilemmas brought about by the Nazi occupation of France, and asks uncomfortable questions about the priorities of personal and national loyalty in time of war.
Hunting the Truth: Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld
Beate Klarsfeld - 2009
They met on the Paris Metro and fell in love, and became famous when Beate slapped the face of the West German chancellor--a former Nazi--Kurt Georg Kiesinger.For the past half century, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld have hunted, confronted, prosecuted, and exposed Nazi war criminals all over the world, tracking down the notorious torturer Klaus Barbie in Bolivia and attempting to kidnap the former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka on the streets of Cologne. They have been sent to prison for their beliefs and have risked their lives protesting anti-Semitism behind the Iron Curtain in South America and in the Middle East. They have been insulted and exalted, assaulted and heralded; they've received honors from presidents and letter bombs from neo-Nazis. They have fought relentlessly not only for the memory of all those who died in the Holocaust but also for modern-day victims of genocide and discrimination across the world. And they have done it all while raising their children and sustaining their marriage.Now, for the first time, in Hunting the Truth, a major memoir written in their alternating voices, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld tell the thrilling story of a lifetime dedicated to combating evil.
Skorzeny's Special Missions: The Memoirs of "The Most Dangerous Man in Europe"
Otto Skorzeny - 1950
His extraordinary wartime career was one of the high risk adventure. Among the exploits that earned him the reputation as "the most dangerous man in Europe" were the rescue of Mussolini in 1943 and the capture of the Hungarian regent Admiral Horthy just before he could sign a peace treaty with Stalin. In this book Skorzeny tells the full story.
Hitler's Brothel
Steve Matthews - 2020
Ania is imprisoned and forced to endure the atrocities of a Nazi concentration camp. Danuta’s search for her sister leads her into the dangers of the Polish Underground. Each will do what they must to survive long enough to find each other. Their dream of being reunited is crushed in shocking circumstances.In an astonishing twist of fate, the opportunity for revenge presents itself 60 years later. But faced with the ultimate decision what will be the outcome ... seek justice or revenge? Spanning decades, Hitler’s Brothel is a tragic and gripping tale of deception, courage and survival.
The Long Way Home: The Other Great Escape
John McCallum - 2012
a great tale with a deep message' George Robertson 'a thrilling escapade' Bournemouth Echo At the age of nineteen, Glasgow-born John McCallum signed up as a Supplementary Reservist in the Signal Corps. A little over a year later, he was in France, working frantically to set up communication lines as Europe once more hurtled towards war. Wounded and captured at Boulogne, he was sent to the notorious Stalag VIIIB prison camp, together with his brother, Jimmy, and friend Joe Harkin. Ingenious and resourceful, the three men set about planning their escape. With the help of Traudl, a local girl, they put their plan into action. In an astonishing coincidence, they passed through the town of Sagan, around which the seventy-six airmen of the Great Escape were being pursued and caught. However, unlike most of these other escapees, John, Jimmy and Joe eventually made it to freedom. Now, due to the declassification of documents under the Official Secrets Act, John McCallum is finally able to tell the thrilling story of his adventure, in which he recaptures all the danger, audacity and romance of one of the most daring escapes of the Second World War.
Wolfpack 351
R. Cameron Cooke - 2019
submarines of Wolfpack 351 are low on fuel, torpedoes, and morale. Their only means of escape is a narrow passage teeming with enemy aircraft, mines, and coastal batteries – and guarded by a menacing Japanese fleet led by a legendary admiral hell-bent on stopping them. Facing the imminent destruction of the entire wolfpack, and with few options remaining, the American admirals in Pearl Harbor turn to an aging submarine, the only boat close enough to help. With time running out, the USS Aeneid – a V-boat from another era – must spring the trapped submarines from their watery prison before they meet their fates under the hull-shattering wrath of the enemy’s depth charges.
The Longest Year: America at War and at Home in 1944
Victor Brooks - 2015
Historian Victor Brooks argues that 1944 was, in effect, “the longest year” for Americans of that era, both in terms of casualties and in deciding the outcome of war itself.Brooks also argues that only the particular war events of 1944 could have produced the “reshuffling” of the cards of life that, in essence, changed the rules for most of the 140 million Americans in some fashion. Rather than focusing on military battles and strategy alone, the author chronicles the year as a microcosm of disparate military, political, and civilian events that came together to define a specific moment in time.As war was raging in Europe, Americans on the home front continued to cope (with some prospering). As US forces launched an offensive against the Japanese in the Mariana Islands and Palau, folks at home enjoyed morale-boosting movies and songs such as "To Have and Have Not" and “G.I. Jive.” And as American troops invaded the island of Leyte—launching the largest naval battle during the war—President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas E. Dewey were in the home stretch leading up to the election of 1944.It has been said that the arc of history is long. Throughout American history, however, some years have been truly momentous. The Longest Year makes the case that 1944 was one such year.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, 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.
Grey Wolf, Grey Sea
E.B. Gasaway - 1970
Kapitanleutnant Jochen Mohr commanded his German submarine and navigated it through the treacherous waters of one of the most destructive, savage wars the world has known.
Eva: A Novel of the Holocaust
Meyer Levin - 1959
The book opens with the girl at age 16 leaving her home in southeastern Poland and posing as a gentile from the Ukraine named Katya. The story follows Eva as she works as a maid in the home of a prominent Austrian family in Linz (the husband is an SS officer), and then as an office worker in a German munitions factory. When she is eventually discovered to be a Jew, she is sent to Auschwitz. After the evacuation of the camp she manages to escape, finding refuge with a Polish family. At the end of the novel she is trying to find her family and home, difficult because so many Jewish communities in Eastern Europe had been destroyed. In real life, Ida Loew made her way to Israel after the war where she settled in Tel Aviv.
Spitfire Girl
Jackie Moggridge - 1957
We had taken off in peace at nine-thirty and landed in war at noon.'Jackie Moggridge was just nineteen when World War Two broke out. Determined to do her bit, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary. Ferrying aircraft from factory to frontline was dangerous work, but there was also fun, friendship and even love in the air. At last the world was opening up to women... or at least it seemed to be.From her first flight at fifteen to smuggling Spitfires into Burma, Jackie describes the trials and tribulations, successes and frustrations of her life in the sky. [Publisher's Description]
Against the Odds: Survival on the Russian Front 1944-1945
John Stieber - 1995
Caught there by the outbreak of the Second World War, he was unable to return to his parents for seven years. In due course, he was called to serve in an anti-aircraft battery and in the National Labour Service. Just after his eighteenth birthday, he was sent to the Russian Front with the elite Paratrooper and Tank Division, Hermann Göring. He lived through an amazing series of events, escaping death many times and was one of the few survivors of his division when the war ended. In this narrative of his early life, John Stieber describes how he went from a carefree childhood through increasing hardships, until every day of his life became a challenge for survival.
Landing on the Edge of Eternity: Twenty-Four Hours at Omaha Beach
Robert Kershaw - 2018
Early in 1944, German commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took one look at the gentle, sloping sands and announced "They will come here!” He was referring to "Omaha Beach”—the prime American D-Day landing site. The beach was subsequently transformed into three miles of lethal, bunker-protected arcs of fire, with seaside chalets converted into concrete strongpoints, fringed by layers of barbed wire and mines. The Germans called it “the Devil's Garden."When Company A of the US 116th Regiment landed on Omaha Beach in D-Day’s first wave on 6th June 1944, it lost 96% of its effective strength. Sixteen teams of US engineers arriving in the second wave were unable to blow the beach obstacles, as first wave survivors were still sheltering behind them. This was the beginning of the historic day that Landing on the Edge of Eternity narrates hour by hour—rom midnight to midnight—tracking German and American soldiers fighting across the beachhead. Mustered on their troop transport decks at 2am, the American infantry departed in landing craft at 5am. Skimming across high waves, deafened by immense broadsides from supporting battleships and weak from seasickness, they caught sight of land at 6.15. Eleven minutes later, the assault was floundering under intense German fire. Two and a half hours in, General Bradley, commanding the landings aboard USS Augusta, had to decide if to proceed or evacuate. On June 6th there were well over 2,400 casualties on Omaha Beach – easily D-Day’s highest death toll.The Wehrmacht thought they had bludgeoned the Americans into bloody submission, yet by mid-afternoon, the American troops were ashore. Why were the casualties so grim, and how could the Germans have failed? Juxtaposing the American experience—pinned down, swamped by a rising tide, facing young Wehrmacht soldiers fighting desperately for their lives, Kershaw draws on eyewitness accounts, memories, letters, and post-combat reports to expose the true horrors of Omaha Beach.These are stories of humanity, resilience, and dark humor; of comradeship and a gritty patriotism holding beleaguered men together. Landing on the Edge of Eternity is a dramatic historical ride through an amphibious landing that looked as though it might never succeed.
The Unfathomable Ascent: How Hitler Came to Power
Peter Ross Range - 2020
Culminating in Hitler's historic climb to totalitarian reign, this period marks his progression through the shifting political maze of the Weimar Republic and the tumultuous rise of the Nazi Party. Far from an irresistible force of politics, Hitler's passage was one underscored by personal power plays, economic instability, gloating triumphs, and near failures. A political chapter that spans Germany's wobbly recovery from World War I through years of growing prosperity and crippling depression, this period marks Hitler's unrelenting struggle for control over his radical, raucous movement. It includes brushes with power and quests for revenge, non-stop electioneering and American-style campaign tactics and, for Hitler, moments of immense success and feared humiliation. Following an improbable, serpentine journey, The Unfathomable Ascent is a complex story with one dangerous climax: Hitler's sweeping ascent into political power, and the western world's descent into historic darkness.