Book picks similar to
Love in the Tempest of History: A French Resistance Story by Aude Yung-de Prevaux
non-fiction
history
french-resistance
19th-century
The Art of Inventing Hope: Intimate Conversations with Elie Wiesel
Howard Reich - 2019
During the last four years of Wiesel’s life, he met frequently with Reich in New York, Chicago and Florida—and spoke with him often on the phone—to discuss the subject that linked them: Reich’s father, Robert Reich, and Wiesel were both liberated from the Buchenwald death camp on April 11, 1945. What had started as an interview assignment from the Chicago Tribune quickly evolved into a friendship and a partnership. Reich and Wiesel believed their colloquy represented a unique exchange between two generations deeply affected by a cataclysmic event. Wiesel said to Reich, “I’ve never done anything like this before,” and after reading the final book, asked him not to change a word. Here Wiesel—at the end of his life—looks back on his ideas and writings on the Holocaust, synthesizing them in his conversations with Reich. The insights on life, ethics, and memory that Wiesel offers and Reich illuminates will not only help the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors understand their painful inheritance, but will benefit everyone, young or old.
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay Summary & Study Guide
BookRags - 2011
35 pages of summaries and analysis on Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Gwen Strauss - 2021
They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked escape routes to Spain and hid Jewish children in scattered apartments. They were arrested by French police, interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. They were subjected to a series of French prisons and deported to Germany. The group formed along the way, meeting at different points, in prison, in transit, and at Ravensbrück. By the time they were enslaved at the labor camp in Leipzig, they were a close-knit group of friends. During the final days of the war, forced onto a death march, the nine chose their moment and made a daring escape.Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative from Gwen Strauss is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.
Cover of Darkness: The Memoir of a World War Two Night-Fighter
Roderick Chisholm - 2020
Resistance Girl: A True Survival Story of a Brave Jewish Girl During WW2
Hassia Knaani - 2021
Jewish historical fiction
I Carried Them with Me: A Young Girl's Journey to Survive
Sara Lumer - 2016
When she was 16 years old her parents sent her to Budapest, Hungary, where her two older brothers were already living. They felt she would be safer there. But in March of 1944 Germany invaded Hungary and began to round up all the Jews. Sara was sent to two different labor camps and endured two long death marches. She is a Holocaust Survivor.
My Life in the Red Army
Fred Virski - 2014
The book chronicles Virski's experiences as a soldier in the Ukraine and Central Asia, describing the hardships, his comrades-in-arms, the food, clothing, and interactions with officers and the NKVD (secret police). When war with Germany breaks-out, Virski witnesses scenes of brutality and is caught in fierce fighting, where he is wounded and hospitalized. Following his recovery, he eventually makes his way back to his native Poland. My Life in the Red Army is impressive for its straightforward style yet tinged with a sense of humor towards his situation.
Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger's Life
Sarah Kaminsky - 2009
... Writing in Adolfo's voice gives this suspenseful narrative candor and immediacy.- Kirkus ReviewsAdolfo Kaminsky: A Forger's Life is "worthy of the best spy novels" and tells the story of Sarah Kaminsky's father, “the genius-forger who committed his know-how and convictions to serve the French Resistance during World War II, saving thousands of Jewish families, and many others over the course of 30 years for various causes around the world.”- TED.comA detailed and touching story traversing a century in clandestine shadow crossings, where Adolfo's skill meant life... or death.- Libération, FranceRiveting.- Haaretz, IsraelTechnical prowess, creativity, and self-denial drive the plot in the incredibly lucky life of Adolfo Kaminsky narrated in this exciting historical document.- Elle Magazine, France; 2010 Reader's Choice AwardUndoubtedly one of the most captivating books of the season.- Paris TodayA pointed, sober biography ... of one of the world's best forgers.- Der SpiegelIf made into a film, the life of Adolfo Kaminsky would have the ingredients of suspense thriller, war movie, historical tragedy, intimate drama, romantic comedy and scenes of terror.- O Globo, BrazilA thrilling book.- la Repubblica Federal, ItalyKaminsky has lived, in the shadows, the brightest hours of the Resistance.- Le MondeBest-selling author Sarah Kaminsky takes readers through her father Adolfo Kaminsky's perilous and clandestine career as a real-life forger for the French Resistance, the FLN, and numerous other freedom movements of the twentieth century. Recruited as a young Jewish teenager for his knowledge of dyes, Kaminsky became the primary forger for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Then, as a professional photographer, Kaminsky spent the next twenty-five years clandestinely producing thousands of counterfeit documents for immigrants, exiles, underground political operatives, and pacifists across the globe. Kaminsky kept his past cloaked in secrecy well into his eighties, until his daughter convinced him to share the details of the life-threatening work he did on behalf of people fighting for justice and peace throughout the world.
A Hundred Feet Over Hell: Flying With the Men of the 220th Recon Airplane Company Over I Corps and the DMZ, Vietnam 1968-1969
Jim Hooper - 2009
Flying over Vietnam in two-seater Cessnas, they often made the difference between a soldier returning alive to his family or having the lonely sound of “Taps” played over his grave. Based on extensive interviews, and often in the men’s own words, A Hundred Feet Over Hell puts the reader in the plane as this intrepid band of U.S. Army aviators calls in fire support for the soldiers and marines of I Corps.
Cutthroats: The Adventures of a Sherman Tank Driver in the Pacific
Robert C. Dick - 2006
With the Japanese deeply entrenched and determined to die rather than surrender, Robert Dick and his fellow soldiers quickly realized that theirs would be a war fought inch by bloody inch–and that their Sherman tanks would serve front and center. As driver, Dick had to maneuver his five-man crew in and out of dangerous and often deadly situations.Whether crawling up beaches, bogged down in the mud-soaked Leyte jungle, or exposed in the treacherous valleys of Okinawa, the Sherman was a favorite target. A land mine could blow off the tracks, leaving its crew marooned and helpless, and the nightmare of swarms of Japanese armed with satchel charges was all too real. But there was a war to be won, and Americans like Robert Dick did their jobs without fanfare, and without glory. This gripping account of tanker combat is a ringing testament to the awe-inspiring bravery of ordinary Americans.From the Paperback edition.
Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth (Stories, Humor Music)
Dion DiMucci - 2011
He continued to make great music while slowly returning to his Catholic roots. His hard-won wisdom filters through his stories whether he's recalling how he went shopping with John Lennon and ended up on the cover of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band or what it was like to travel in the Jim Crow South with Sam Cooke.Praise for Dion... "To this day nobody, nobody can rock like Dion."—Lou Reed "He always had the name that said it all...Dion."—Bruce Springsteen "If you want to hear a great singer, listen to Dion. His genius has never deserted him."—Bob DylanThe audio edition of this book can be downloaded via Audible.
And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II
Jacques Lusseyran - 1963
He finished his schooling determined to participate in the world around him. In 1941, when he was seventeen, that world was Nazi-occupied France. Lusseyran formed a resistance group with fifty-two boys and used his heightened senses to recruit the best. Eventually, Lusseyran was arrested and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in a transport of two thousand resistance fighters. He was one of only thirty from the transport to survive. His gripping story is one of the most powerful and insightful descriptions of living and thriving with blindness, or indeed any challenge, ever published.* Chosen as one of the 100 Best Spiritual Books of the Twentieth Century by a jury of writers including Harold Kushner, Thomas Moore, Huston Smith, and Natalie Goldberg* This fourth edition includes a new insert of photographs“One of the most powerful memoirs I’ve ever encountered...[Lusseyran’s] experience is thrilling, horrible, honest, spiritually profound, and utterly full of joy.”— Ethan Hawke, in the Village Voice
A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII.
Sarah Helm - 2005
Throughout the war, Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored the agents for the SOE's French Section, which sent more than four hundred young men and women into occupied France, at least one hundred of whom never returned and were reported MPD (missing presumed dead) after the war. Twelve of these were women and among Atkins' most cherished spies. When the war ended in 1945, she made it her personal mission to find out what happened to them and the other agents lost behind enemy lines, tracing rigorously their horrific final journeys. But as the woman who carried out this astonishing search appeared quintessentially English, Atkins was nothing of the sort. As we follow her through the devastation of postwar Germany, we learn Atkins herself covered her life in mystery so that even her closest family knew almost nothing of her past.In A Life in Secrets Sarah Helm has stripped away Vera Atkins' many veils. Drawing on recently released sixty-year-old government files and her unprecedented access to the private papers of the Atkins family, Helm vividly reconstructs a complex and extraordinary life.
Admiral Halsey's Story
William F. Halsey - 1976
“Bull” Halsey earned a legendary reputation for daring and boldness as commander of the U.S. Third Fleet.
Admiral Halsey’s Story is this admiral’s record of his actions through the course of his remarkable career in the U.S. Navy. The account begins with a brief overview of his years in school and early years with the navy where he fought in the First World War and served in Mexico and Greece as he rose through the ranks to become vice admiral just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Halsey’s life was dramatically altered with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as through the next four years he rose from relative obscurity to become one of the most famous allied naval figures in the war. The events of Halsey’s life through World War Two are split into three sections in the book and are covered in wonderful detail: Firstly he uncovers the details of his command of a carrier task force in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor until May 1942. Next the book discusses his life as Commander of the South Pacific Area and its forces which lasted until June 1944. And finally the book gives an in-depth overview of the final year of the war when Halsey was commander of the U.S. Third Fleet. During the war Halsey had continually acted with bravery and speed and all of his most famous actions are covered through the book such as how he directed the campaigns in the Solomons and led the attacks on the Carolines and New Britain. “The book is pure Halsey — the personal yarn of a seagoing, fighting admiral who was forthright, honest, often brilliant, sometimes rash, but who possessed above all else, a natural modesty that enhanced his uncommon valor.” Naval War College Review “To learn what went on behind the wartime newspaper reports, her is an incomparable document. Admiral Halsey has written simply and modestly a book that will further enhance the Halsey legend.” The Saturday Review “he knew far better than armchair historians do that the best defense is a good offense. That is the legacy of Bull Halsey.” Warfare History Network William F. Halsey was an American admiral in the United States Navy during World War II. In 1943 he was made commander of the Third Fleet, the post he held through the rest of the war. He was promoted to fleet admiral in December 1945 and retired from active service in March 1947. Admiral Halsey's Story was first published in 1947 and Halsey passed away in 1959. The book was written with Lieutenant Commander J. Bryan III, USNR, who during the war had served a lieutenant commander assigned to naval air combat intelligence in the Pacific. In civilian life he was a journalist and writer who was born into the influential Bryan family of newspaper publishers and industrialists. He passed away in 1993.
Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography
Meryle Secrest - 2014
Her collaborations with artists such as Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau and Alberto Giacometti elevated the field of women's clothing design into the realm of art.Her story is one of pluck, determination and talent with scandal as spice. As the daughter of minor Italian nobility whose disastrous first marriage to a Theosophist caused near penury, she transformed herself into a designer of great imagination and, along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she was one of the few female figures in the field at that time