Book picks similar to
A Nurse in Action by Evelyn Prentis


non-fiction
biography
evelyn-prentis
wwii

Diary of a Man in Despair


Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen - 1947
    His insider observations are set down with passion, with outrage, and almost unbearable sadness.

Nisei Daughter


Monica Itoi Sone - 1979
    Along with some 120,000 other persons of Japanese ancestry—77,000 of whom were U.S. citizens—she and her family were uprooted from their home and imprisoned in a camp. In this book, first published in 1952, she provides a unique personal account of these experiences.Replaced by ISBN 9780295993553

Sliding on the Snow Stone


Andy Szpuk - 2011
    It is even more astonishing that anyone survived it. Stefan grows up in the grip of a raging famine. Stalin’s Five Year Plan brings genocide to Ukraine – millions of people starve to death. To free themselves from the daily terrors of Soviet rule, Stefan and his friends fight imaginary battles in nearby woods to defend their land. The games they play are their only escape. ‘Sliding on the Snow Stone’ is the true story of Stefan's extraordinary journey across a landscape of hunger, fear and devastating loss. With Europe on the brink of World War Two, Stefan and his family pray they'll survive in their uncertain world. They long to be free. (In 1932-33, as part of their drive towards industrialisation, the Soviet Union demanded impossibly high requisitions of grain from rural areas in Ukraine. In a deliberate act of genocide, Ukrainian smallholdings were stripped of food, and the population began to perish, with some estimates as high as 10 million deaths, from starvation. In Ukraine, this atrocity became known as the Holodomor (death by hunger). The following years saw Soviet purges and terrors resulting in the elimination of academics and intellectuals, or of anyone who spoke out against Soviet rule. When World War Two arrived on Ukraine’s doorstep, many people viewed the Nazis as liberators – a view that was quickly proved wrong. ‘Sliding on the Snow Stone’ is Stefan’s personal account of a historical period drenched in the blood of a nation, and of his yearning for freedom).

Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II


Mitchell Zuckoff - 2011
    . . . This is atrue story made in heaven for a writer as talented as Mitchell Zuckoff. Whew—what an utterly compelling and deeplysatisfying read!" —Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic Award-winning former Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoffunleashes the exhilarating, untold story of an extraordinary World War IIrescue mission, where a plane crash in the South Pacific plunged a trio of U.S.military personnel into a land that time forgot. Fans of Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers, Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, and David Grann’s The Lost Cityof Z will be captivated by Zuckoff’s masterfullyrecounted, all-true story of danger, daring, determination, and discovery injungle-clad New Guinea during the final days of WWII.

The Saddest Girl in the World


Cathy Glass - 2009
    The bestselling author of 'Damaged' tells the true story of Donna, who came into foster care aged ten, having been abused, victimised and rejected by her family.

Ludwika: A Polish Woman's Struggle To Survive In Nazi Germany


Christoph Fischer - 2015
    There, she must walk a tightrope, learning to live as a second-class citizen in a world where one wrong word could spell disaster and every day could be her last. Based on real events, this is a story of hope amid despair, of love amid loss . . . ultimately, it’s one woman’s story of survival.Editorial Review:"This is the best kind of fiction—it’s based on the real life. Ludwika’s story highlights the magnitude of human suffering caused by WWII, transcending multiple generations and many nations.WWII left no one unscarred, and Ludwika's life illustrates this tragic fact. But she also reminds us how bright the human spirit can shine when darkness falls in that unrelenting way it does during wartime.This book was a rollercoaster ride of action and emotion, skilfully told by Mr. Fischer, who brought something fresh and new to a topic about which thousands of stories have already been told."

Mala's Cat: A Memoir of Survival in World War II


Mala Kacenberg - 2022
    But at the age of twelve, as the German invasion begins, her beloved village becomes a ghetto and her family and friends reduced to starvation. She takes matters into her own hands and bravely removes her yellow star, risking sneaking out to the surrounding villages to barter for food. It is on her way back that she sees her loved ones rounded up for deportation, and receives a smuggled letter from her sister warning her to stay away. In order to survive, she walks away from everything she holds dear to live by herself in the forest, hiding not just from the Nazis but hostile villagers.  She is followed by a stray cat who stays with her—and seems to come to her rescue time and time again. "Malach" the cat becomes her family and her only respite from painful loneliness, a guide, and areminder to stay hopeful even when faced with unfathomable darkness.  Filled with remarkable spiritual strength that allows readers to see the war through the innocence of a child's eyes, Mala's Cat is a powerful and unique addition to the Holocaust canon.

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II


Liza Mundy - 2017
    Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

As Always, Jack: A Wartime Love Story


Emma Sweeney - 2002
    They have a brief two weeks together before he is shipped off to the South Pacific. This is an engaging collection of his letters, compiled by the daughter he never got to meet. Full of poignant detail—a chronicle of the passions and fears of wartime—the book is the ultimate love story of America's “greatest generation.

The Journal of Hélène Berr


Hélène Berr - 2008
    Berr brought a keen literary sensibility to her writing, a talent that renders the story it relates all the more rich, all the more heartbreaking. The first day Berr has to wear the yellow star on her coat, she writes, “I held my head high and looked people so straight in the eye they turned away. But it’s hard.” More, many more, humiliations were to follow, which she records, now with a view to posterity. She wants the journal to go to her fiancé, who has enrolled with the Free French Forces, as she knows she may not live much longer. She was right. The final entry is dated February 15, 1944, and ends with the chilling words: “Horror! Horror! Horror!” Berr and her family were arrested three weeks later. She went — as was discovered later — on the death march from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhus in April 1945, within a month of Anne Frank and just days before the liberation of the camp.The journal did eventually reach her fiancé, and for over fifty years it was kept private. In 2002, it was donated to the Memorial of the Shoah in Paris. Before it was first published in France in January 2008, translation rights had already been sold for twelve languages.

Silver Like Dust: One Family's Story of America's Japanese Internment


Kimi Cunningham Grant - 2012
    Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisine and her grandfather’s attempts to teach her the language.But there was one part of Obaachan’s life that had fascinated and haunted Kimi ever since the age of eleven—her gentle yet proud Obaachan had once been a prisoner, along with 112,000 Japanese Americans, for more than five years of her life. Obaachan never spoke of those years, and Kimi’s own mother only spoke of it in whispers. It was a source of haji, or shame. But what had really happened to Obaachan, then a young woman, and the thousands of other men, women, and children like her?Obaachan would meet her husband in the camps and watch her mother die there, too. From the turmoil, racism, and paranoia that sprang up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the terrifying train ride to Heart Mountain, to the false promise of V-J Day, Silver Like Dust captures a vital chapter of the Japanese American experience through the journey of one remarkable woman.Her story is one of thousands, yet is a powerful testament to the enduring bonds of family and an unusual look at the American dream.

Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany


Richard Lucas - 2010
    Despite the richness of her life story, there has never been a full-length biography of the ambitious, star-struck Ohio girl who evolved into a reviled disseminator of Nazi propaganda.At the outbreak of war in September 1939, Mildred had been living in Germany for five years. Hoping to marry, she chose to remain in the Nazi-run state even as the last Americans departed for home. In 1940, she was hired by the German overseas radio, where she evolved from a simple disc jockey and announcer to a master propagandist. Under the tutelage of her married lover, Max Otto Koischwitz, Gillars became the personification of Nazi propaganda to the American GI.Spicing her broadcasts with music, Mildred used her soothing voice to taunt Allied troops about the supposed infidelities of their wives and girlfriends back home, as well as the horrible deaths they were likely to meet on the battlefield. Supported by German military intelligence, she was able to convey personal greetings to individual US units, creating an eerie foreboding among troops who realized the Germans knew who and where they were.After broadcasting for Berlin up to the very end of the war, Gillars tried but failed to pose as a refugee, but was captured by US authorities. Her 1949 trial for treason captured the attention and raw emotion of a nation fresh from the horrors of the Second World War. Gillars s twelve-year imprisonment and life on parole, including a stay in a convent, is a remarkable story of a woman who attempts to rebuild her life in the country she betrayed.Written by Richard Lucas, a freelance writer and lifelong shortwave radio enthusiast, Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany is the first thoroughly documented look at this mythologized figure of World War II."

Minding the Manor: The Memoir of a 1930s English Kitchen Maid


Mollie Moran - 2013
    She provides a rare and fascinating insight into a world that has long since vanished. Mollie left school at age fourteen and became a scullery maid for a wealthy gentleman with a mansion house in London’s Knighsbridge and a Tudor manor in Norfolk.            Even though Mollie's days were long and grueling and included endless tasks, such as polishing doorknobs, scrubbing steps, and helping with all of the food prep in the kitchen, she enjoyed her freedom and had a rich life. Like any bright-eyed teenager, Mollie also spent her days daydreaming about boys, dresses, and dances. She became fast friends with the kitchen maid Flo, dated a sweet farmhand, and became secretly involved with a brooding, temperamental footman. Molly eventually rose to kitchen maid for Lord Islington and then cook for the Earl of Leicester's niece at the magnificent Wallington Hall.

The Dead Drink First


Dale Maharidge - 2019
    Steve Maharidge never talked about “the good war.” On the surface, the Maharidges were a normal working-class family in the suburbs of Cleveland. But behind closed doors, even the most mundane moments could trigger Steve’s violent, traumatic episodes, which left his son Dale searching for clues to his past. And yet, there was only one: a black-and-white photograph of Steve with another soldier that hung permanently on the wall in the basement. In The Dead Drink First, Dale Maharidge, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, recounts his 18-year quest to learn everything he could about the man in the photo with the hopes of discovering a side of his late father he never knew. The result was something Dale never expected: Not only would he learn the man’s name - Herman Walter Mulligan - but he would help locate his remains and ultimately bring him home 74 years after he was killed in action. In this deeply personal audio documentary, Dale retraces his journey through never-before-heard conversations with WWII veterans, their children, and the team of strangers that assembled to find Mulligan and bury him on American soil. In an epic search for a lost Marine, Dale finds forgiveness, lifelong friendships, and uncovers the rich, uniquely American truth about how and why we repatriate our fallen soldiers. Please note: This story features explicit language and references to domestic abuse, violence, and war that may be upsetting to some listeners. Discretion is advised.©2019 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2019 Audible Originals, LLC.

A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War, and a Ruined House in France


Miranda Richmond Mouillot - 2015
    Five years later, Anna packed her bags and walked out on Armand, taking the typewriter and their children. Aside from one brief encounter, the two never saw or spoke to each other again, never remarried, and never revealed what had divided them forever.A Fifty-Year Silence is the deeply involving account of Miranda Richmond Mouillot's journey to find out what happened between her grandmother, a physician, and her grandfather, an interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials, who refused to utter his wife's name aloud after she left him.  To discover the roots of their embittered and entrenched silence, Miranda abandons her plans for the future and moves to their stone house, now a crumbling ruin; immerses herself in letters, archival materials, and secondary sources; and teases stories out of her reticent, and declining, grandparents.  As she reconstructs how Anna and Armand braved overwhelming odds and how the knowledge her grandfather acquired at Nuremberg destroyed their relationship, Miranda wrestles with the legacy of trauma, the burden of history, and the complexities of memory.  She also finds herself learning how not only to survive but to thrive – making a home in the village and falling in love.With warmth, humor, and rich, evocative details that bring her grandparents' outsize characters and their daily struggles vividly to life, A Fifty-Year Silence is a heartbreaking, uplifting love story spanning two continents and three generations.