According to Jewish tradition, 36 "just men" are born in every generation to take the burden of the world's suffering upon themselves. This book tells the story of two Jews, divided by eight centuries, who are persecuted to death, becoming part of the catastrophic history of the Jewish people.

The Goncourt Prize–winning novel of Jewish life and persecution from the twelfth century to WWII: "a powerful book—an eloquent and enduring testament" ( Kirkus, starred review),On March 11, 1185, in the old Anglican city of York, the Jews of the city were brutally massacred by their townsmen. As legend has it, God blessed the only survivor of this medieval pogrom, Rabbi Yom Tov Levy, as one of the Lamed-Vov, the thirty-six Just Men of Jewish tradition, a bl...

William & Rosalie is the gripping and heartfelt account of two young Jewish people from Poland who survive six different German slave and prison camps throughout the Holocaust. In 1941, newlyweds William and Rosalie Schiff are forcibly separated and sent on their individual odysseys through a surreal maze of hate. Terror in the Krakow ghetto, sadistic SS death games, cruel human medical experiments, eyewitness accounts of brutal murders of men, women, children, and even infants, and the me...

"Shocking. Revelatory. Compelling. A truly authentic and riveting read. A milestone in WWII and Holocaust history."-- Damien Lewis, author: The Nazi HuntersA harrowing, beautifully written and extremely well-researched account of a little-known aspect of the Holocaust. Patricia Posner's fine prose style grips from page one, and the horror will stay with you long after you finish the book." -- Andrew Roberts, author: The Storm of War"A grues...

A true and touching human tale of survival and achievement.When John Stoessinger was ten years old, Adolf Hitler annexed his homeland of Austria, ripping the boy from his home and his friends in Vienna. His grandparents encouraged his mother and stepfather to take young John somewhere safe. You must have a future,” his grandfather told him before he and his parents boarded the train and waved goodbye.As they trekked across the country, from Vienna to Pragu...

**The acclaimed and comprehensive account of Germany's transformation under Hitler's total rule and the inexorable march to war, by the author of The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich at War, and Hitler's People“[A] masterpiece. Fluidly narrated, tightly organized and comprehensive.” —The New York Times“A major achievement.” —The Boston Globe**By the middle of 1933, the democracy of the Weimar Republic had been transforme...

Baba Schwartz’s story began before the Holocaust could have been imagined. As a spirited girl in a warm and loving Jewish family, she lived a normal life in a small town in eastern Hungary. In The May Beetles, Baba describes the innocence and excitement of her childhood, remembering her early years with verve and emotion.But then, unspeakable horror. Baba tells of the shattering of her family and their community from 1944, when the Germans transported the 3000 Jews of her ...

Sent to Auschwitz on the first Jewish transport, Rena Kornreich survived the Nazi death camps for over three years. While there she was reunited with her sister Danka. Each day became a struggle to fulfill the promise Rena made to her mother when the family was forced to split apart--a promise to take care of her sister. One of the few Holocaust memoirs about the lives of women in the camps, Rena's Promise is a compelling story of the fleeting human connections that fostered de...

In this touching account, veteran New York Times reporter Joseph Berger describes how his own family of Polish Jews -- with one son born at the close of World War II and the other in a "displaced persons" camp outside Berlin -- managed against all odds to make a life for themselves in the utterly foreign landscape of post-World War II America. Paying eloquent homage to his parents' extraordinary courage, luck, and hard work while illuminating as never before the experience of 140,...

May 1940. Edmond Vandievoet is 34 and wishes only one thing: to serve his country.Enrolled in the Belgian army, he will escape captivity a first time and will flee to Paris, where he will specialize in the passing of men and equipment between Brussels and the French capital.Arrested several times, evaded as many times, Edmond Vandievoet will be imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, from which he will be the only one to escape.It is only after an extraordi...

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Treading back across the paths of her ancestors, she travels from Baltimore to the Baltic to London in order to find and understand an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust. Deeply ambitious in its narrative sweep, Jacob's Cane captures the rich textur...

Ten-year-old Felicia Steigman is confused by the sudden disruption to her life when she is expelled from school and forced to wear a yellow star. But she is completely unprepared for what happens next – the forced abandonment of her home and a gruelling journey, overseen by cruel Romanian Nazi collaborators, to Transnistria, a squalid place that doesn’t even exist on a map. Surviving three years surrounded by devastation and death, Felicia’s innocence disappears. When her family’s sufferin...