Jazz in Nazi-era and postwar Germany, as lived by a Jewish prodigy who survived the horrors of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz."Coco, it's not important what you play. It's important how you play it," said Louis Armstrong to jazz and swing guitarist Coco Schumann during a break between sessions. Recalling this episode Schumann reminds readers that even in the midst of real-world nightmares, music is alive and musicians experience this essential freedom and hope, which...

Born in Germany in 1936, three year old Susi Bechhofer and her twin sister Lotte were among thousands of children evacuated on the now famous Kindertransport as the country fell into the cruel grip of Nazism. Adopted by the Manns, a childless Welsh Baptist minister and his wife on their arrival in Britain, the two girls were given a new identity in an attempt to erase all traces of their previous existence: Susi and Lotte became Grace and Eunice. Only 50 years later did Susi begin ...

The story of a young boy who escaped Hitler and the Holocaust-and lived happily ever after.Escaping Hitler is the true story, covering ninety years, of Günter Stern who, at fourteen, when Adolf Hitler threatened his family, education, and future, resolved to escape from his rural village of Nickenich in the German Rhineland. In July 1939, Günter boarded a bus to the border of Luxembourg, illegally crossed the river, and walked alone for seven days through ...

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 Na...

A history of how anti-Semitism evolved into the Holocaust in Germany: "If any book can tell what Hitlerism was like, this is it" (Alfred Kazin).Lucy Dawidowicz's groundbreaking The War Against the Jews inspired waves of both acclaim and controversy upon its release in 1975. Dawidowicz argues that genocide was, to the Nazis, as central a war goal as conquering Europe, and was made possible by a combination of political, social, and technological factors. Sh...

Mona Golabek describes the inspirational true story of her mother's escape from Nazi-controlled Austria to England on the famed Kindertransport.Jewish musical prodigy Lisa Jura has a wonderful life in Vienna. But when the Nazis start closing in on the city, life changes irreversibly. Although he has three daughters, Lisa's father is only able to secure one berth on the Kindertransport. The family decides to send Lisa to London so that she may pursue her dreams of a ...

Unlock the more straightforward side of The Diary of a Young Girl with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, which was written while Anne was confined to a series of hidden rooms in a warehouse in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Along with her mother, father, older sister Margot and four other Jews, Anne spent two years in the “Secret Annexe” before being ar...

The first eye-witness account ever published of life in the Warsaw GhettoMary Berg was fifteen when the German army poured into Poland in 1939. She survived four years of Nazi terror, and managed to keep a diary throughout.This astonishing, vivid portrayal of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto ranks with the most significant documents of the Second World War. Mary Berg candidly chronicles not only the daily deprivations and mass deportations, but also the resist...

Travelers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, fascists, artists, tourists, and even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler—one so palpable that the reader will ...

Among the first written accounts of the concentration camps—a major literary and historical discovery.While in a Russian-administered holding camp in Katowice, Poland, in 1945, Primo Levi was asked to provide a report on living conditions in Auschwitz. Published the following year, it was subsequently forgotten and remained unknown to a wider public.Dating from the weeks and months immediately after the war, Auschwitz Report details the authors’ ha...

The following book was translated and published in English: Ewa Kurek, YOUR LIFE IS WORTH MINE - How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, foreword by Prof. Jan Karski, New York 1998. She has also contributed articles in English that were published in Polin (Oxford: Institute for Polish Jewish Studies), Embracing the Other (New York University Press) and From Shtetl to Socialism (LondonWashington). Her research on the subject of Polish-Jewish rel...

Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camps were notorious places of torture for both Jewish and Allied prisoners. My e-book considers the testimony of survivors. They graphically depict the atrocious scenes they witnessed and describe the daily lives they endured.After being transferred from Auschwitz Josef Kramer served as commandant at Belsen. A ruthless tyrant he was known as "the Beast of Belsen". Kramer was assisted by a 22-year-old blonde German woman named Irma Grese. She carried a ri...