Book picks similar to
A Hidden Child in Greece: Rescue in the Holocaust by Yolanda Avram Willis
historical-fiction
holocaust
partially-read
war-on-terror
But You Did Not Come Back
Marceline Loridan-Ivens - 2015
It is the profoundly moving and poetic memoir by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, who at the age of fifteen was arrested in occupied France, along with her father. Later, in the camps, he managed to smuggle a note to her, a sign of life that made all the difference to Marceline—but he died in the Holocaust, while Marceline survived. In But You Did Not Come Back, Marceline writes back to her father, the man whose death overshadowed her whole life. Although her grief never diminished in its intensity, Marceline ultimately found her calling, working as both an activist and a documentary filmmaker. But now, as France and Europe in general faces growing anti-Semitism, Marceline feels pessimistic about the future. Her testimony is a memorial, a confrontation, and a deeply affecting personal story of a woman whose life was shattered and never totally rebuilt.
Boy 30529: A Memoir
Felix Weinberg - 2013
The typical camp story of the millions ended in death ... We, the few who survived the war and the majority who perished in the camps, did not use and would not have understood terms such as 'holocaust' or 'death march.' These were coined later, by outsiders.In 1939 twelve-year-old Felix Weinberg fell into the hands of the Nazis. Imprisoned for most of his teenage life, Felix survived five concentration camps, including Terezin, Auschwitz, and Birkenau, barely surviving the Death March from Blechhammer in 1945. After losing his mother and brother in the camps, he was liberated at Buchenwald and eventually reunited at seventeen with his father in Britain, where they built a new life together. Boy 30529 is an extraordinary memoir of the Holocaust, as well as a moving meditation on the nature of memory.
Fever at Dawn
Péter Gárdos - 2010
Here he is sentenced to death again: he is diagnosed with tuberculosis and his doctors inform him that he has six months to live. But Miklós decides to wage war on his own fate: he writes 117 letters to 117 Hungarian girls, all of whom are being treated in the Swedish camps, with the aim of eventually choosing a wife from among them.Two hundred kilometres away, in another Swedish rehabilitation camp, nineteen-year-old Lili receives Miklós’s letter. Since she is bedridden for three weeks due to a serious kidney problem, out of boredom — and curiosity — she decides to write back.The slightly formal exchange of letters becomes increasingly intimate. When the two finally manage to meet, they fall in love and are determined to marry, despite the odds that are against them.Based on the original letters written by Miklós and Lili (ninety-six altogether), Fever at Dawn is a tale of passion, striving, and betrayal; true and false friendships; doubt and faith; and the redeeming power of love.
I Am Juden: Undercover in the SS
Stephen Uzzell - 2019
One of the more impressive books based on the horrors of WW2. I AM JUDEN is an extraordinary reading experience... Stephen Uzzell has woven facts with the skill of a documentarian and enhanced those facts with the burnish of a thriller. Highly recommended." The San Francisco Review of BooksInspired by the life of forgotten hero Haim Michael Klar, I Am Juden is the triumphant, epic tale of one man's incredible courage and resistance during the twentieth century's darkest days.Jozef Siegler leads a perilous double life as an SS officer in Krakow and ultimately Auschwitz. His life is a tightrope walk through the Holocaust unlike any other. Nazi by day and resistance agent by night, any false move would result in certain death and exposure of the Jewish underground.Kiel, Germany, 1938. Jozef Siegler has been a pacifist since his father died fighting in the anti-Jewish pogroms of the Russian Empire. Jozef now leads a quiet life as a university professor, but his days of innocence are numbered. With the final tightening of the Nuremberg Race Laws, he loses his job and flees Germany with his younger sister Shoshana. Aided by their Aryan looks and gift for languages, they are recruited into the Jewish resistance to transport orphans across the border into neutral Lithuania. But war soon envelops the continent. Brother and sister become separated. Jozef's quest to find Shoshana begins. Constantly on the move, never certain who to trust, it is his inventive ingenuity, the kindness of strangers, and the most hair-raising strokes of luck that ensure his survival. When Jozef stumbles upon the dead body of SS Oberfuhrer Harry Mohnke, he faces the biggest decision of his life. If he can bring himself to wear the hated uniform and impersonate a Nazi, how many lives could he save ?Fans of Schindler's List, All The Light We Cannot See and The Tattooist of Auschwitz are gripped by this riveting saga of history, suspense and heroism.
Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II
Ram Oren - 2007
His father, desperate to settle his business affairs, travels to France, leaving Michael in the care of his mother and Gertruda Bablinska, a Catholic nanny devoted to the family. When Michael's mother has a stroke, Gertruda promises the dying woman that she will make her way to Palestine and raise him as her own son. Written with the invaluable assistance of Michael, now seventy-two and living in New York City, GERTRUDA'S OATH re-creates Michael and Gertruda's amazing journey. Gripping vignettes bring to life the people who helped ensure their survival, including SS officer Karl Rink, who made it his mission to save Jews after his own Jewish wife was murdered; Rink's daughter, Helga, who escaped to a kibbutz, where she lived until her recent death; and the Jewish physician Dr. Berman, who aided Michael and Gertruda through the worst of times. GERTRUDA'S OATH is a story of extraordinary courage and moral strength in the face of horrific events. Like "Schindler's List," it transcends history and religion to reveal the compassion and hope that miraculously thrives in a world immersed in war without end.
Silver Fountains (A Roses Have Thorns Saga Book 2)
Beverley Hughesdon - 1994
What she doesn’t have is Frank, father of her first-born son, the dashing army officer she has always loved.It is 1916 and with the Battle of the Somme approaching, and the casualty list lengthening, Amy must take charge of her husband’s estate, to grow the food her country needs in a time of crisis. But Amy is troubled, with her loyalties torn between her middle-aged husband and her young hero. She turns for comfort to the story of Beauty and the Beast, which seems to mirror her own dilemma: she too is trapped with a man she cannot love.Amy’s conflict drives her to enter the maelstrom of the war itself and face up to its terrors. Her courage does not fail her, but leads her on to discover the shocking secrets of the past, and through them, to the opportunity of lasting happiness that she so deserves. But can she find it, and just who will her future be with?Silver Fountains is an absorbing reimagining of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale, and a fitting sequel to the much-loved Roses Have Thorns. It is an intimate story told with touching honesty, packed full of the passion and tragedy of its time.
A Bookshop in Berlin
Françoise Frenkel - 1945
She opens La Maison du Livre, Berlin's first French bookshop, attracting artists and diplomats, celebrities and poets. The shop becomes a haven for intellectual exchange as Nazi ideology begins to poison the culturally rich city. In 1935, the scene continues to darken. First come the new bureaucratic hurdles, followed by frequent police visits and book confiscations.Françoise's dream finally shatters on Kristallnacht in November 1938, as hundreds of Jewish shops and businesses are destroyed. La Maison du Livre is miraculously spared, but fear of persecution eventually forces Françoise on a desperate, lonely flight to Paris. When the city is bombed, she seeks refuge across southern France, witnessing countless horrors: children torn from their parents, mothers throwing themselves under buses. Secreted away from one safe house to the next, Françoise survives at the heroic hands of strangers risking their lives to protect her.Published quietly in 1945, then rediscovered nearly sixty years later in an attic.
The Storm over Paris
William Ian Grubman - 2018
Mori Rothstein, an art dealer and expert in master paintings from Rococo to Realism, has been sought after by every major museum in the world. Also seeking his expertise is Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering. As his friends and fellow Jews disappear one by one, Mori struggles to protect himself and his family by cooperating with the Germans to catalogue stolen paintings for the Fuhrer’s museum. Mori is neither a prisoner nor a free man as he forges a questionable relationship with one of the most notorious Nazis in Europe—his fidelity and morals tested daily. His once-charmed life transforms into a web of intrigue, kidnapping, and murder, against the backdrop of the world’s most treasured art. How does he get himself and his family out the other side of the war, while also attempting to rescue some of the greatest paintings of all time?
Defiance: The Bielski Partisans
Nechama Tec - 1993
Winner of the 1990 Christopher Award. 11 halftones; 2 line drawings.
Or Even Eagle Flew
Harry Turtledove - 2021
As these units join their RAF cousins during the Battle of Britain, famous woman aviator Amelia Earhart (who survived her world-circling flight) emerges as a rallying point for those willing to stand against fascism.
Dear Enemy
Jack Cavanaugh - 2005
But when a rogue rescue mission ends in tragedy, Annie finds herself behind enemy lines, captured and alone with a wounded German soldier. Through shared danger, faith, and a love of music, the two forge a bond that will be tested by prejudice and the separations of time and continents. When Karl is sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, their fragile relationship seems at an end. Annie searches for Karl, but friends--and a new suitor--urge her to get on with her life.Will she ever see her Dear Enemy again?
The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau
Alex Kershaw - 2012
Army officer and his infantry unit as they fought from the invasion of Italy to the liberation of Dachau at war's end.From July 10, 1943, the date of the Allied landing in Sicily, to May 8, 1945, when victory in Europe was declared-roughly 500 days-no regiment saw more action, and no single platoon, company, or battalion endured worse, than the one commanded by Felix Sparks, a greenhorn second lieutenant when The Liberator begins. Historian Alex Kershaw vividly portrays the immense courage and stamina of Sparks and his men as they fought terrifying engagements against Hitler's finest troops in Sicily and Salerno and as they endured attack after attack on the beaches of Anzio (with Sparks miraculously emerging as his 200-man company's sole survivor). In the bloody battle for southern France, Sparks led his reconstituted unit into action against superbly equipped and trained die-hard SS troops and demonstrated how the difference between defeat and victory would be a matter of character, not tactics or hardware. Finally, he and his men were ordered to liberate Dachau, the Nazis' first concentration camp. It would be their greatest challenge, a soul-searing test of their humanity.
Unshed Tears
Edith Hofmann - 2012
It has only very recently been published. Although it has been written as a novel, it details events, which were all too tragically true.Edith Hofmann is a survivor of the Holocaust, born in Prague in 1927 as Edith Birkin. In 1941, along with her parents, she was deported to the Lodz Ghetto, where within a year both her parents had died. At 15 she was left to fend forherself.The Lodz Ghetto was the second-largest ghetto to Warsaw, and was established for Jews and Gypsies in German-occupied Poland. Situated in the town of Lodz in Poland and originally intended as a temporary gathering point for Jews, the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial centre, providing much needed supplies for Nazi Germany and especially for the German Army.Because of its remarkable productivity, the ghetto managed to survive until August 1944, when the remaining population, including Edith, was transported to Auschwitz and Chelmno extermination camp in cattle trucks. It was the last ghetto in Poland to be liquidated due to the advancing Russian army. Edith was only 17, and one of the lucky ones.For the majority, it was their final journey. A small group of them were selected for work. With her hair shaved off and deprived of all her possessions, she travelled to Kristianstadt, a labour camp in Silesia, to work in an underground munitions factory.
Under the SS Shadow
Traugott Vogel - 1977
He sees his father shot down by guerrillas, rebuilds his life from the ruins, leaves Hitler's SS emblem for another symbol. Excerpts from UNDER THE SS SHADOW: * "In an official declaration, my father stated that he and his family had left the state church. We were Gottglaubig. The SS symbol became the point of reference for our family." * "We of the Hitler Youth were going forward with Hitler, we were sure. Several years later, as I huddled in a foxhole, I wondered where we were going or where we could go." *"I feel like a man sitting in a car that's going down a hill," my father said, "but it's too late to get out." * "May 7, 1945, Germany officially surrendered to the Western Allies. On May 9, Russian troops marched into Berlin. I could not even guess what the future held for me." * "Augsburg is about fifty miles from Dachau, location of the infamous concentration camp. Only after the war did we discover what had happened at our doorstep." 27 photos available in printed version.