Book picks similar to
The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust by Martin Gilbert
history
holocaust
non-fiction
hist
Holocaust Scream
Rachel Rosenberg - 2013
Learn about her remarkable experience during the Holocaust and its long-term aftereffects. Some of Rachel's struggles within the Nazi SS final solution were similar to the tragic experience of Anne Frank. Both found poignant but fleeting young love. Each had an attic experience and both were chronicler-victims of World War 2. While Anne Frank survives in her diary, Rachel survived and is telling her story. Rachel endured 6 long years in Hitler's death camps. Rachel's remarkable saga didn't end with her liberation at the end of World War 2. Rachel had lost her idyllic community, her strong Jewish spiritual roots, her adolescence and most of her immediate family. So thorough and diabolical was the Nazi Holocaust that Rachel even lost her birthday! Rachel tells us about those terrible personal moments in the camps when Life and Love struggled against Death personified. On one of these struggles with Death, Rachel's Love experienced that scream. That powerful Holocaust Scream is her biggest hurt. You can find out about that scream for yourself. Prepare to cry. Rachel was clever and resourceful. She was able to hide in the camps. How could she do that? You will find out. When the camp gates were finally thrust open, Rachel had to reconnect to all those things that we take for granted. It wasn't easy. Rachel had to take charge in order to get through the post-war turmoil. Rachel became a beacon of help to many in need. Rachel and her husband Carl were interviewed by movie director Steven Spielberg. Some of her concentration camp and ghetto experiences served as background for the movie, "Schindler's List." Learn about Rachel's encounters with Nazis in the United States. Rachel is witty and charming. Her attitude toward her Holocaust experience is truly remarkable. Find out how Rachel feels about the German people. Rachel is an example of the "leading lady" persona. What does it mean to be a "leading lady?" Rachel's story unfolds like a kaleidoscope of images. There is a rhythm to her story, one that defies organization. The rhythm creates a remarkable connection with the reader. You will sense the rhythm as you resonate with it. Get ready. The story includes several dialogues with Rachel. In the dialogues, Rachel tells her story in her own words as much as possible. These dialogues reveal Rachel's keen memory, insight, honesty and vulnerability. Rachel has some advice for those who may be in terrible circumstances. You can meet this remarkable women and follow the gripping tale of her life's struggles. It's time for you to meet Rachel. Come on in.
Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War
Ben Macintyre - 2016
So began the most celebrated and mysterious military organisation in the world: the SAS.Now, 75 years later, the SAS has finally decided to tell its astonishing story. It has opened its secret archives for the first time, granting historian Ben Macintyre full access to a treasure trove of unseen reports, memos, diaries, letters, maps and photographs, as well as free rein to interview surviving Originals and those who knew them.The result is an exhilarating tale of fearlessness and heroism, recklessness and tragedy; of extraordinary men who were willing to take monumental risks. It is a story about the meaning of courage.
Isaac's Army: A Story of Courage and Survival in Nazi-Occupied Poland
Matthew Brzezinski - 2012
For the next six years, separately and in concert, they waged a heroic war of resistance against Hitler’s war machine that culminated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In Isaac’s Army, Matthew Brzezinski delivers the first-ever comprehensive narrative account of that struggle, following a group of dedicated young Jews—some barely out of their teens—whose individual acts of defiance helped rewrite the ending of World War II. Based on first-person accounts from diaries, interviews, and surviving relatives, Isaac’s Army chronicles the extraordinary triumphs and devastating setbacks that befell the Jewish underground from its earliest acts of defiance in 1939 to the exodus to Palestine in 1946. This is the remarkable true story of the Jewish resistance from the perspective of those who led it: Isaac Zuckerman, the confident and charismatic twenty-four-year-old founder of the Jewish Fighting Organization; Simha Ratheiser, Isaac’s fifteen-year-old bodyguard, whose boyish good looks and seeming immunity to danger made him an ideal courier; and Zivia Lubetkin, the warrior queen of the underground who, upon hearing the first intimations of the Holocaust, declared: “We are going to defend ourselves.” Joined by allies on the left and right, they survived Gestapo torture chambers, smuggled arms, ran covert printing presses, opened illegal schools, robbed banks, executed collaborators, and fought in the two largest rebellions of the war. Hunted by the Germans and bedeviled by the “Greasers”—roving bands of blackmailers who routinely turned in resistance fighters for profit—the movement was chronically short on firepower but long on ingenuity. Its members hatched plots in dank basements, never more than a door knock away from summary execution, and slogged through fetid sewers to escape the burning Ghetto to the forests surrounding the city. And after the initial uprising was ruthlessly put down by the SS, they gambled everything on a bold plan for a citywide revolt—of both Jews and Gentiles—that could end only in victory or total destruction. The money they raised helped thousands hide when the Ghetto was liquidated. The documents they forged offered lifelines to families desperate to escape the horror of the Holocaust. And when the war was over, they helped found the state of Israel. A story of secret alliances, internal rivalries, and undying commitment to a cause, Isaac’s Army is history at its most heart-wrenching. Driven by an unforgettable cast of characters, it’s a true-life tale with the pulse of a great novel, and a celebration of the indomitable spirit of resistance.Advance praise for Isaac’s Army “Told with care and compassion, Matthew Brzezinski’s Isaac’s Army is a riveting account of the Jewish resistance in wartime Poland. This is an intense story that transcends the horror of the time and finds real inspiration in the bravery of those who fought back—some of whom lived to tell their stories. Highly recommended.”—Alan Furst, author of Mission to Paris
The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz: A True Story of Family and Survival
Jeremy Dronfield - 2018
Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, they miraculously survive the Nazis’ murderous brutality.Then Gustav learns he is being sent to Auschwitz—and certain death.For Fritz, letting his father go is unthinkable. Desperate to remain together, Fritz makes an incredible choice: he insists he must go too. To the Nazis, one death camp is the same as another, and so the boy is allowed to follow. Throughout the six years of horror they witness and immeasurable suffering they endure as victims of the camps, one constant keeps them alive: their love and hope for the future. Based on the secret diary that Gustav kept as well as meticulous archival research and interviews with members of the Kleinmann family, including Fritz’s younger brother Kurt, sent to the United States at age eleven to escape the war, The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is Gustav and Fritz’s story—an extraordinary account of courage, loyalty, survival, and love that is unforgettable.
Forgotten Voices of The Holocaust: A new history in the words of the men and women who survived
Lyn Smith - 2005
As well as revealing the story of the Holocaust as directly experienced by victims, these testimonies also illustrate how, even enduring the most harsh conditions, degrading treatment and suffering massive family losses, hope, the will to survive, and the human spirit still shine through.
Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife
Francine Prose - 2009
Approved by both the Anne Frank House Foundation in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank-Fonds in Basel, run by the Frank family, this work of literary criticism unravels the complex, fascinating story of the diary and effectively makes the case for it being a work of art from a precociously gifted writer.
What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany
Eric A. Johnson - 2005
Combining the expertise of Eric A. Johnson, an American historian, and Karl-Heinz Reuband, a German sociologist, What We Knew is the most startling oral history yet of everyday life in theThird Reich.
The Cage
Ruth Minsky Sender - 1986
Then the family is rounded up, deported to Auschwitz, and separated. Now Riva is alone. At Auschwitz, and later in the work camps at Mittlesteine and Grafenort, Riva vows to live, and to hope - for Mama, for her brothers, for the millions of other victims of the nightmare of the Holocaust. And through determination and courage, and unexpected small acts of kindness, she does live - to write the unforgettable memoir that is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.
House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family
Hadley Freeman - 2020
Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoebox tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes, taking her from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island to Auschwitz. Freeman pieces together the puzzle of her family’s past, discovering more about the lives of her grandmother and her three brothers, Jacques, Henri, and Alex. Their stories sometimes typical, sometimes astonishing—reveal the broad range of experiences of Eastern European Jews during Holocaust. This thrilling family saga is filled with extraordinary twists, vivid characters, and famous cameos, illuminating the Jewish and immigrant experience in the World War II era. Addressing themes of assimilation, identity, and home, this powerful story about the past echoes issues that remain relevant today.
Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex: A Collection of Her Short Stories, Fables, and Lesser-Known Writings
Anne Frank - 1960
Here, too, are portions of the diary originally withheld from publication by her father. By turns fantastical, rebellious, touching, funny, and heartbreaking, these writings reveal the astonishing range of Anne Frank's wisdom and imagination--as well as her indomitable love of life. Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex is a testaments to this determined young woman's extraordinary genius and to the persistent strength of the creative spirit.From the Paperback edition.
Holocaust: A History
Deborah Dwork - 2002
It is a story of all Europe, of Nazis and their allies, the experience of wartime occupation, the suffering and strategies of marked victims, the failure of international rescue, and the success of individual rescuers. It alone in Holocaust literature negotiates the chasm between the two histories, that of the perpetrators and of the victims and their families, shining new light on German actions and Jewish reactions.No other book in any language has so embraced this multifaceted story. Holocaust uniquely makes use of oral histories recorded by the authors over fifteen years across Europe and the United States, as well as never-before-analyzed archival documents, letters, and diaries; it contains in addition seventy-five illustrations and sixteen original maps, each accompanied by an extended caption. This book is an original analysis of a defining event.
The Hidden Children: The Secret Survivors of the Holocaust
Jane Marks - 1993
For months, even years, they faced the constant danger of discovery, fabricating new identities at a young age, sacrificing their childhoods to save their lives. These secret survivors have suppressed these painful memories for decades. Now, in The Hidden Children, twenty-three adult survivors share their moving wartime experiences -- some for the first time.There is Rosa, who hid in an impoverished one-room farmhouse with three others, sleeping on a clay pallet behind a stove; Renee, who posed as a Catholic and was kept in a convent by nuns who knew her secret; and Richard, who lived in a closet with his family for thirteen months. Their personal stories of belief and determination give a voice, at last, to the forgotten. Inspiring and life-affirming, The Hidden Children is an unparalleled document of witness, discovery, and the miracle of human courage.
Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust
Richard Rhodes - 2002
And he shows how these squads were utilized as the Nazis made two separate plans for dealing with the civilian populations they wanted to destroy. Drawing on Nuremberg Tribunal documents largely ignored until now, and on newly available material from eyewitnesses and survivors, Richard Rhodes has given us a book that is essential reading on the Holocaust the World War II.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Heather Morris - 2018
When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.
The Dentist of Auschwitz: A Memoir
Benjamin Jacobs - 1994
His possession of a few dental tools and rudimentary skills saved his life. Jacobs helped assemble V1 and V2 rockets in Buchenwald and Dora-Mittelbau; spent a year and a half in Auschwitz, where he was forced to remove gold teeth from corpses; and survived the RAF attack on three ocean liners turned prison camps in the Bay of Lubeck. This is