Since Polish Catholics embraced some anti-Jewish notions and actions prior to WWII, many intertwined the Nazi death camps in Poland with Polish anti-Semitism. As a result, more so than local non-Jewish population in other Nazi-occupied countries, Polish Catholics were considered active collaborators in the destruction of European Jewry. Through the presentation of these negative images in Holocaust literature, documentaries, and teaching, these stereotypes have been sustained and infect at...

_____________________________________THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE JQ WINGATE PRIZE 2015SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD'A gripping thriller, an unspeakable crime, an essential history.' JOHN LE CARRÉ_____________________________________Hanns Alexander was the son of a prosperous German family who fled Berlin f...

Selected as the Sunday Times History Book of the Year for 2012, this is a meticulous work of scholarship from the foremost historian of 20th-century Spain.The culmination of more than a decade of research, ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ seeks to reflect the intense horrors visited upon Spain during its ferocious civil war, the consequences of which still reverberate bitterly today.The brutal, murderous persecution of Spaniards between 1936 and 1945 is a truth that should have been...

My Wounded Heart tells the heart-breaking story of a gifted Jewish doctor, the mother of five children, who, after being divorced by her Aryan husband, is arrested on an absurd charge and sent to a corrective labour camp in 1942. Lilli was a prolific letter writer and miraculously almost all her letters to her children and friends, together with a huge number of their letters to her (smuggled out of the camp at Breitenau before she was sent to Auschwitz), survived the Second World...

Alice Herz-Sommer, 1903-2014The pianist Alice Herz-Sommer survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp, attended Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem, and along the way befriended some of the most fascinating historical figures of our time, from Franz Kafka to Gustav Mahler, Leonard Bernstein and Golda Meir.A Century of Wisdom is her story: a testament to the bonds of friendship, the power of music and the importance of leading a life of maternal simpli...

The Boy in the Suitcase: Holocaust Family Stories of Survival is a uniquely different Holocaust book. It reads like an intriguing novel, such as the title chapter which tells the story of an infant smuggled out of Germany in a suitcase and raised in the Dominican Republic. Each chapter tells a different story of families throughout the world who have been affected by the Holocaust. This book also covers the trauma of second generation children of Holocaust survivors and the bravery of Chri...

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...

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Man's Search for Meaning tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Viktor E. Frankl's book.Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.This short summary and analysis of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl includes:Historical contextChapter-by-chapter...

A young boy who loved soccer as much as he loved to write, John Freund describes how his joyful childhood is shattered by the German invasion of his homeland, Czechoslovakia. Hoping at first that the conflict and persecution would soon blow over, John’s Jewish family suffers through the systematic erosion of their rights only to be deported to Theresienstadt – en route to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. John’s loss of innocence and suffering are made all the more poignant as his vivid w...

Follow the shocking but true story of Joseph Gavi, a small Jewish boy growing up in Minsk, Byelorussia, during the German invasion of WWII. Relive unspeakable horrors surrounding him as he at first struggles to simply survive and then to overcome his brutal oppressors through covert action with the "Freedom Fighters," rescuing more than 200 of his people from the imprisoning ghetto while constantly evading immediate death by execution. Read with spellbinding detail of each harrowing escape...

An only child, fifteen-year-old Zuzana Sermer did what she could to protect her father and ailing mother when the Nazis set up a fascist regime in her native Slovakia in 1939. Four years later, after fleeing to the supposed safety of Budapest, Zuzana and her fiancé, Arthur, instead navigated one treacherous situation after another. Survival Kit is both Sermer’s thoughtful reflections on the miracles of her survival and a testament to the power of courage, love and determination.

In 1944, twenty-year-old Leslie Vertes escapes from a forced labour detail in Budapest and miraculously survives by assuming a false identity. About to taste freedom as the end of the war nears, his liberation is shortlived when he is caught by the new Soviet regime and sent for two years of back-breaking labour and captivity. Years later, when he and his family flee to Canada, Leslie finally finds true freedom.