Survivors of the Holocaust: True Stories of Six Extraordinary Children, by Kath Shackleton
“Between 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party were responsible for the persecution of millions of Jews across Europe. This extraordinary graphic novel tells the true stories of six Jewish children who survived the Holocaust. From suffering the horrors of Auschwitz, to hiding from Nazi soldiers in war-torn Paris, to sheltering from the Blitz in England, each true story is a powerful testament to the survivors' courage. These remarkable testimonials serve as a reminder never to allow such a tragedy to happen again. Features a current photograph of each contributor and an update about their lives, along with a glossary and timeline to support reader understanding of this period in world history.”
A Picture Book of Anne Frank, by David Adler
“Anne and her Jewish family hid in a secret apartment in Amsterdam from 1942 through 1944, when they were discovered by the Nazis. During those harrowing years, Anne kept a diary with her innermost thoughts and fears. She later died in a German concentration camp, but her voice has inspired millions of children across the world through several generations. David A. Adler's biography series is a beloved classroom tool for introducing the lives of important figures in history. This entry addresses the difficult subject matter of the Holocaust in a way that children will understand.”
What Was the Holocaust?, by Gail Herman
“The Holocaust was a genocide on a scale never before seen, with as many as twelve million people killed in Nazi death camps—six million of them Jews. Gail Herman traces the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, whose rabid anti-Semitism led first to humiliating anti-Jewish laws, then to ghettos all over Eastern Europe, and ultimately to the Final Solution. She presents just enough information for an elementary-school audience in a readable, well-researched book that covers one of the most horrible times in history.”
Who Was Anne Frank?, by Ann Abramson
“In her amazing diary, Anne Frank revealed the challenges and dreams common for any young girl. But Hitler brought her childhood to an end and forced her and her family into hiding. Who Was Anne Frank? looks closely at Anne’s life before the secret annex, what life was like in hiding, and the legacy of her diary. Black-and-white illustrations including maps and diagrams provide historical and visual reference in an easy-to-read biography written in a way that is appropriate and accessible for younger readers.”
The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank (Author), Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor)
“At last, in a new translation, this definitive edition of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been a beloved and deeply admired monument to the indestructible nature of the human spirit, read by millions of people and translated into more than fifty-five languages. Doubleday, which published the first English translation of the diary in 1952, now offers a new translation that captures Anne’s youthful spirit and restores the original material omitted by Anne’s father, Otto—approximately thirty percent of the diary. The elder Frank excised details about Anne’s emerging sexuality, and about the often-stormy relations between Anne and her mother.”
Night, by Elie Wiesel
“Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's capacity for inhumanity to man. Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.”
The Hell of Treblinka, by Vasily Grossman (Author), Martin Zwinkler (Editor), Olga Reznik (translator)
“It is the writer’s duty to tell the terrible truth, and it is a reader’s civic duty to learn this truth. To turn away, to close one’s eyes and walk past is to insult the memory of those who have perished.” Vasily Grossman, an official journalist with the Red Army and one of the first Russians to enter the Treblinka death camp, struggles to comprehend the barbarity and the inhuman atrocities committed by the Nazis. An excellent journalist, he presents the facts as reported to him by the survivors and the captured Nazis. As he writes it is “a story so unreal that it seems like the product of insanity and delirium.”
A Promise To My Father, Israel Arbeiter, film
“This film chronicles Israel Arbeiter's incredible survival as a Jewish teen in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. The story begins in a Jewish ghetto in Poland with a few words from his father, before his parents and brother were sent to a death camp.”
Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History, by Steven J. Zipperstein
“So shattering were the aftereffects of Kishinev, the rampage that broke out in late-Tsarist Russia in April 1903, that one historian remarked that it was “nothing less than a prototype for the Holocaust itself.” In three days of violence, 49 Jews were killed and 600 raped or wounded, while more than 1,000 Jewish-owned houses and stores were ransacked and destroyed. Recounted in lurid detail by newspapers throughout the Western world, and covered sensationally by America’s Hearst press, the pre-Easter attacks seized the imagination of an international public, quickly becoming the prototype for what would become known as a “pogrom,”… Using new evidence culled from Russia, Israel, and Europe, distinguished historian Steven J. Zipperstein’s wide-ranging book brings historical insight and clarity to a much-misunderstood event that would do so much to transform twentieth-century Jewish life and beyond.”
The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, by Martin Gilbert
“Deftly weaving together historical research and survivors' testimonies, The Holocaust is Gilbert's acclaimed and definitive history of the European Jews, from Hitler's rise to power to Germany's surrender to the liberation of the prisoners of the concentration camps."
Schindler’s List, by Steven Spielberg (Director, Producer)
“Commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Steven Spielberg's cinematic masterpiece, Schindler's List, one of the most historically significant films of all time. Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, this incredible true story follows the enigmatic Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust. It is the triumph of one man who made a difference and the drama of those who survived one of the darkest chapters in human history because of what he did. Meticulously restored from the original film negative and supervised by Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List is a powerful story whose lessons of courage and faith continue to inspire generations.”
Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939, by Saul Friedländer
“A great historian crowns a lifetime of thought and research by answering a question that has haunted us for more than 50 years: How did one of the most industrially and culturally advanced nations in the world embark on and continue along the path leading to one of the most enormous criminal enterprises in history, the extermination of Europe's Jews? Giving considerable emphasis to a wealth of new archival findings, Saul Friedlander restores the voices of Jews who, after the 1933 Nazi accession to power, were engulfed in an increasingly horrifying reality. We hear from the persecutors themselves: the leaders of the Nazi party, the members of the Protestant and Catholic hierarchies, the university elites, and the heads of the business community. Most telling of all, perhaps, are the testimonies of ordinary German citizens, who in the main acquiesced to increasing waves of dismissals, segregation, humiliation, impoverishment, expulsion, and violence.”
Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 2: The Years of Extermination 1939-45, by Saul Friedländer
“With The Years of Extermination, Saul Friedländer completes his major historical work on Nazi Germany and the Jews. The book describes and interprets the persecution and murder of the Jews throughout occupied Europe. The enactment of German extermination policies and measures depended on the cooperation of local authorities, the assistance of police forces, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. This implementation depended as well on the victims’ readiness to submit to orders, often with the hope of attenuating them or of surviving long enough to escape the German vise. This multifaceted study—at all levels and in different places—enhances the perception of the magnitude, complexity, and interrelatedness of the many components of this history. Based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices—mainly from diaries, letters, and memoirs—Saul Friedländer avoids domesticating the memory of these unprecedented and horrific events. The convergence of these various aspects gives a unique quality to The Years of Extermination. In this work, the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.”
Shoah (Criterion Collection), directed by Claude Lanzmann
“Over a decade in the making, Claude Lanzmann’s nine-hour-plus opus is a monumental investigation of the unthinkable: the murder of more than six million Jews by the Nazis. Using no archival footage, Lanzmann instead focuses on first-person testimonies (of survivors and former Nazis, as well as other witnesses), employing a circular, free-associative method in assembling them. The intellectual yet emotionally overwhelming Shoah is not a film about excavating the past but an intensive portrait of the ways in which the past is always present, and it is inarguably one of the most important cinematic works of all time.”
Survival In Auschwitz, by Primo Levi
“The true and harrowing account of Primo Levi’s experience at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz and his miraculous survival; hailed by The Times Literary Supplement as a “true work of art, this edition includes an exclusive conversation between the author and Philip Roth. In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and “Italian citizen of Jewish race,” was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi’s classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit. Included in this new edition is an illuminating conversation between Philip Roth and Primo Levi never before published in book form.”
The Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures, by Marilyn J. Harran (Author), John Roth (Author)
“During the Second World War, six million Jews--as well as other targeted groups such as Gypsies, Poles, the handicapped, and homosexuals--were systematically murdered by Adolf Hitter's Nazis and their collaborators. The Holocaust Chronicle, written and fact-checked by top scholars, recounts the long, complex, anguishing story of the most terrible crime of the 20th century. A massive, oversized hardcover of more than 750 pages, The Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures is an excitingly unique, not for-profit endeavor that is a personal project of the publisher, Louis Weber, C.E.O. of Chicago-based Publications International, Ltd. As a book publisher, I am in a unique position to create this ambitious project, Weber says. The son of Polish Jews who settled in America in the 1920s, Weber conceived The Holocaust Chronicle in order to give something back to the Jewish community, and to bring the truth of the Holocaust to as many people as possible. The mission of The Holocaust Chronicle is to report the facts, clearly and free of bias or agenda. Featured are more than 2000 photographs selected after intensive research in the collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, as well as other archives and private collections located around the world.”
The Holocaust: A New History, by Laurence Rees
“In June 1944, Freda Wineman and her family arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous Nazi concentration and death camp. After a cursory look from an SS doctor, Freda's life was spared and her mother was sent to the gas chambers. Freda only survived because the Allies won the war -- the Nazis ultimately wanted every Jew to die. Her mother was one of millions who lost their lives because of a racist regime that believed that some human beings simply did not deserve to live -- not because of what they had done, but because of who they were. Laurence Rees has spent twenty-five years meeting the survivors and perpetrators of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. In this sweeping history, he combines this testimony with the latest academic research to investigate how history's greatest crime was possible. Rees argues that while hatred of the Jews was at the epicenter of Nazi thinking, we cannot fully understand the Holocaust without considering Nazi plans to kill millions of non-Jews as well. He also reveals that there was no single overarching blueprint for the Holocaust. Instead, a series of escalations compounded into the horror. Though Hitler was most responsible for what happened, the blame is widespread, Rees reminds us, and the effects are enduring. The Holocaust: A New History is an accessible yet authoritative account of this terrible crime. A chronological, intensely readable narrative, this is a compelling exposition of humanity's darkest moment.”
The Holocaust Encyclopedia, by Judith Tydor Baumel (Author) and Walter Laqueur (Editor)
“The Holocaust has been the subject of countless books, works of art, and memorials. Fifty-five years after the fact the world still ponders the enormity of this disaster. The Holocaust Encyclopedia is the only comprehensive single-volume work of reference providing both a reflective overview of the subject and abundant detail concerning major events, policy decisions, cities, and individuals. Up-to-date and designed for easy access, the encyclopedia presents information on the major aspects of the Holocaust in essays by scholars from eleven countries who draw on a number of sources—including recently uncovered evidence from the former Soviet bloc—to provide in-depth studies on the political, social, religious, and moral issues of the Holocaust as well as short entries identifying events, sites, and individuals. The book also has more than 250 photographs, many of them rare, and 19 maps.”
KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps, by Nikolaus Wachsmann
“In a landmark work of history, Nikolaus Wachsmann offers an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise, seventy years ago, in the spring of 1945. The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone." In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close-up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.”
The Pianist, by Roman Polanski (Director, Producer)
“Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and winner of 3, The Pianist, stars Oscar winner Adrien Brody in the true-life story of brilliant pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman, the most acclaimed young musician of his time until his promising career was interrupted by the onset of World War II. This powerful, triumphant film follows Szpilman's heroic and inspirational journey of survival with the unlikely help of a sympathetic German officer. A truly unforgettable epic, testifying to both the power of hope and the resiliency of the human spirit, The Pianist is a miraculous tale of survival masterfully brought to life by visionary filmmaker Roman Polanski in his most personal movie ever.”
The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them, by Eugen Kogon (Author), Heinz Norden (Translator)
“By the spring of 1945, the Second World War was drawing to a close in Europe. Allied troops were sweeping through Nazi Germany and discovering the atrocities of SS concentration camps. The first to be reached intact was Buchenwald, in central Germany. American soldiers struggled to make sense of the shocking scenes they witnessed inside. They asked a small group of former inmates to draft a report on the camp. It was led by Eugen Kogon, a German political prisoner who had been an inmate since 1939. The Theory and Practice of Hell is his classic account of life inside. Unlike many other books by survivors who published immediately after the war, The Theory and Practice of Hell is more than a personal account. It is a horrific examination of life and death inside a Nazi concentration camp, a brutal world of a state within state, and a society without law. But Kogon maintains a dispassionate and critical perspective. He tries to understand how the camp works, to uncover its structure and social organization. He knew that the book would shock some readers and provide others with gruesome fascination. But he firmly believed that he had to show the camp in honest, unflinching detail. The result is a unique historical document?a complete picture of the society, morality, and politics that fueled the systematic torture of six million human beings. For many years, The Theory and Practice of Hell remained the seminal work on the concentration camps, particularly in Germany. Reissued with an introduction by Nikolaus Waschmann, a leading Holocaust scholar and author of Hilter's Prisons, this important work now demands to be re-read.”
Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949, by David Cesarani
“David Cesarani’s Final Solution is a magisterial work of history that chronicles the fate of Europe’s Jews. Based on decades of scholarship, documentation newly available from the opening of Soviet archives, declassification of Western intelligence service records, as well as diaries and reports written in the camps, Cesarani provides a sweeping reappraisal that challenges accepted explanations for the anti-Jewish politics of Nazi Germany and the inevitability of the “final solution.” The persecution of the Jews, as Cesarani sees it, was not always the Nazis’ central preoccupation, nor was it inevitable. He shows how, in German-occupied countries, it unfolded erratically, often due to local initiatives. For Cesarani, war was critical to the Jewish fate. Military failure denied the Germans opportunities to expel Jews into a distant territory and created a crisis of resources that led to the starvation of the ghettos and intensified anti-Jewish measures. Looking at the historical record, he disputes the iconic role of railways and deportation trains. From prisoner diaries, he exposes the extent of sexual violence and abuse of Jewish women and follows the journey of some Jewish prisoners to displaced persons camps. David Cesarani’s Final Solution is the new standard chronicle of the fate of a heroic people caught in the hell that was Hitler’s Germany.”
Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, by Peter Longerich
“This masterful history uses an unrivalled range of sources to lay out in clear detail the steps taken by the Nazis that would lead ultimately to the Final Solution. Focusing closely on the perpetrators and exploring the process of decision making, Longerich convincingly shows that anti-Semitism was not a mere by-product of the Nazis' political mobilization or an attempt to deflect the attention of the masses. Rather, from 1933, anti-Jewish policy was a central tenet of the Nazi movement's attempts to implement, disseminate, and secure National Socialist rule--and one which crucially shaped Nazi policy decisions. Holocaust is perhaps most remarkable for its extensive use of the 1930s archives of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, which re-emerged in the 1990s after years languishing in Moscow. The letters and reports from this archive document in detail the attacks suffered by ordinary Jewish people from their German neighbors. They show how, contrary to what has been believed in the past, the German populace responded relatively enthusiastically to Nazi anti-Semitism. This long-awaited English edition has been fully updated by Longerich himself. It features revised appendices with notes and further reading, as well as a new preface by the author. In addition, Longerich has added new material on the Jewish victims and on the camps and the ghettos, and has extended the story from the end of the war right up to the present day. In all, it is the most complete treatment ever published on the history of this monumental tragedy.”
Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, by Timothy Snyder
“In this epic history of extermination and survival, Timothy Snyder presents a new explanation of the great atrocity of the twentieth century, and reveals the risks that we face in the twenty-first. Based on new sources from Eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors, Black Earth recounts the mass murder of the Jews as an event that is still close to us, more comprehensible than we would like to think, and thus all the more terrifying.”
Theme From Schindler’s List, performed by Itzhak Perlman
Click the image to listen.
