Nonfiction Resources C-G
Chiger, K. (2008). The girl in the green sweater: A life in Holocaust’s shadow. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0819/2008022521.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0835/2008022521-b.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0835/2008022521-d.html
Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0901/2008022521-s.html
“In 1943, with Lvóv’s 150,000 Jews having been exiled, killed, or forced into ghettos and facing extermination, a group of Polish Jews daringly sought refuge in the city's sewer system. The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, shares one of the most intimate, harrowing and ultimately triumphant tales of survival to emerge from the Holocaust. The Girl in the Green Sweater is Chiger’s harrowing first-person account of the fourteen months she spent with her family in the fetid, underground sewers of Lvov.
“The Girl in the Green Sweater is also the story of Leopold Socha, the group’s unlikely savior. A Polish Catholic and former thief, Socha risked his life to help Chiger’s underground family survive, bringing them food, medicine, and supplies. A moving memoir of a desperate escape and life under unimaginable circumstances, The Girl in the Green Sweater is ultimately a tale of intimate survival, friendship, and redemption.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/girl-in-the-green-sweater-krystyna-chiger/1100557822?ean=9780312376574
“Jewish Book Month” List for Adults, 2008
Age Range: 14-18 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.8; 1010L
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Choko, I., Lipski, J., Kalina, M. R., Kanana-Aufleger, L., & Irwin, F. (2005). Stolen youth: Five women’s survival in the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Publications.
“Isabelle Choko-Sztrauch-Galewska, My First Life
The memoir vividly describes Isabelle's life as an adolescent in the Lodz ghetto and then her survival in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. In the camps, she stayed close to her mother, but her mother died in her hands in Belsen shortly before liberation. Isabelle recovered from typhus and pleurisy in Sweden and later moved to France to live with her uncle, the only survivor of the family.
“Frances Irwin, Remember to be a Good Human Being: A Memoir of Life and the Holocaust
A fifteen, Frances snuck out of the Konskie ghetto through sewers to get food for her family. After almost two years imprisonment in Auschwitz-Birkenau, she endured a death march to Mauthausen and was liberated from that camp’s Lenzing sub-camp. She immigrated to the U.S., where she became a lecturer on the Holocaust for Facing History and Ourselves and a member of the board and executive committee of Hillel at Brooklyn College.
“Lotti Kahana-Aufleger, Eleven Years of Suffering
The inspiring story of a woman willing to make almost any sacrifice to save her ill husband, six-year-old daughter, and elderly parents from the Romanian-run (and Ukrainian-assisted) camps in Transnistria. With resourcefulness and courage, Lotti and Sigfried rescued the family from extreme brutality and from the murderous Aktions, in which the camp inmates were taken across the Bug River to be killed.
“Margit Raab Kalina, Surviving a Thousand deaths (Memoir: 1939-1945)
At the war’s outbreak, a 16-year-old Margit and her family fled Karvina (Czech Silesia) to Eastern Poland. After her father was killed in a bomb-raid, the family fled westward to Tarnow, where the Gestapo shot Margit’s mother. Margit worked at the Madritsch textile factory there and then in the Paszow labor camp, was deported to Auschwitz, and from there to Bergen-Belsen. After liberation, she joined her only surviving relatives in Bratislava.
“Jane Lipski, My Escape into Prison and Other Memories of a Stolen Youth, 1939-1948
The story of a young woman surviving both the Nazis and Soviet prisons. Part of the Bedzin ghetto resistance, after her family was deported to Auschwitz she escaped to Slovakia, where she met her future husband. Soviet partisans took them to Moscow to be honored as heroes, but imprisoned them instead; she never saw her husband again. Jane bore her son in prison, and miraculously they both survived. Repatriated to Poland in 1948, she later settled in the U.S.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stolen-youth-isabelle-choko/1112681210?ean=9780976073925
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Cohen, S. K. (2005). Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Israel, “finding their voice”: Social dynamics and postwar experiences. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
“The life stories of child survivors who rebuilt their post-war lives in Israel have been largely left untold. This work is the first exploration into the experience of child survivors in Israel, focusing on the child survivors’ experience in telling his/her past to a wider audience and in publicly identifying themselves as Holocaust survivors. … Whilst psychological research focuses on the survivor’s personal inhibitions and motivations in retelling his/her pasts, The Life Stories of Child Survivors in Israel attempts to understand the impact that the post-war environment has had on the individual’s relationship to it. Using a qualitative narrative approach, this study examines the dynamics of ‘silence’ and ‘retelling’ in the post-war experience of child survivors. This work demonstrates the ways in which social dynamics, as well as internal motivations, had an impact on the extent to which these people were likely to speak publicly about their war-time experience or whether they were more inclined to remain silent. … The interviews with survivors are presented ‘using their own voice’, and can thereby be understood in their own unique context. The result is a unique work that synthesizes social science fields as disparate as history and psychology.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/child-survivors-of-the-holocaust-in-israel-sharon-kangisser-cohen/1115995825?ean=9781845190880
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Cretzmeyer, S. (1994). Your name is Renée: Ruth’s story as a hidden child: The wartime experiences of Ruth Kapp Hartz. Brunswick, ME: Biddle.
“True story of Ruth Kapp Hartz, a hidden child in Vichy, France, protected by villagers in small towns and briefly in the convent of Sorenze. The attitude of the townspeople is contrasted to that of Frenchmen in Paris who turned in their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/your-name-is-renee-stacy-cretzmeyer/1014657039?ean=9781879418127
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Reading Level: AR Level – 5.4
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ISBN 9780981941769
David, R. L. (2003). Child of our time: A young girl’s flight from the Holocaust. London: I. B. Tauris.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/hol051/2003501394.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hol041/2003501394.html
“Child of Our Time is the inspiring story of a little girl caught in the vortex of one of history’s great horrors. Plucked from deep rural Germany, after witnessing the horror of Kristallnacht and her family’s eviction from its village, Ruth David was sent to England as part of the Kindertransport—one of the few routes to safety and survival for many children who were to lose their parents in the Holocaust.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/child-of-our-time-ruth-l-david/1112493214?ean=9781860647895
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Defonseca, M. (1997). Misha: A mémoire of the Holocaust years. Bluebell, PA: Mt. Ivy Press.
“Misha was 7 years old when her mother and father were taken away and she was hidden in a ‘safe’ home her parents secretly had arranged for her. But when the child overheard her stepmother planning to turn her over to the Germans, she took off on foot to find her parents. Hiding in the forest, she survived by stealing from farm kitchens along her way and pilfering crops in the field. Often she was near starvation and many times nearly froze to death. In the course of her travels she was befriended by wolves, and among their family she experienced the happiest moments of her troubled life. ‘I never remember being hungry in the company of wolves,’ she writes. Through all her trials Misha continued to believe she could find her parents and so she kept walking for four years across war-ravaged Europe, witnessing first-hand the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. Before the end of the war she would be captured by partisans, trapped in the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, forced to kill a Nazi soldier in self-defense, and swept up by her first love. This inspiring story, full of passion, terror and courage is a classic in the manner of Anne Frank's Diary, with the difference that in this tale the narrator survives.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/misha-misha-defonseca/1112681441?ean=9780963525772
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Denes, M. (1997). Castles burning: A child’s life in war. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
“There are few figures in literature as riveting as the precocious nine-year-old Magda Denes who narrates this story. Her stubborn self-command and irrepressible awareness of the absurd make her in her mother's eyes ‘impossibly sarcastic, bigmouthed, insolent, and far too smart’ for her own good. When her family goes into hiding from the fascist Arrow-Cross, she is torn from the ‘castle’ of intimacies shared with her adored and adoring older brother and plunged into a world of incomprehensible deprivation, separation, and loss. Her rage, and her ability to feel devastating sorrow and still to insist on life, will reach every reader at the core. Recounting an odyssey through the wreckage and homelessness of postwar Europe, Castles Burning embodies a powerful personality, a stunning gift for prose and storytelling, a remarkable sense of humor, and true emotional wisdom and makes a magnificent contribution to the literature of childhood and war.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/castles-burning-magda-denes/1103523806?ean=9780393336979
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DeSaix, D. D. & Ruelle, K. G. (2007). Hidden on the mountain: Stories of children sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon. New York: Holiday House.
Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip067/2006002033.html
“The poignant stories of desperate children were collected through interviews both of survivors and the families who helped Jewish families during World War II in a small village in southern France.”
summary from http://www.arbookfind.com/bookdetail.aspx?q=112714&l=EN&slid=474318589
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Teen Readers, 2008
Age Range: 10-14 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.6; 830L
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Dittman, A. (2005). Trapped in Hitler’s hell: A young Jewish girl discovers the Messiah’s faithfulness in the midst of the Holocaust. Silverton, OR: Lighthouse Trails Pub.
Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0517/2005022449.html
“Anita Dittman was just a little girl when the winds of Hitler and Nazism began to blow through Germany. Raised by her Jewish mother, she came to believe that Jesus was her Messiah at seven years old. By the time she was twelve the war had begun.
“Trapped in Hitler’s Hell is the true account of Holocaust horror but also of God’s miraculous mercy on a young girl who spent her teenage years desperately fighting for survival yet learning to trust in the One she had come to love.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/trapped-in-hitlers-hell-anita-dittman/1117319028?ean=9781936488124
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Drucker, O. L. (1992). Kindertransport. New York: H. Holt.
“The author describes the circumstances in Germany after Hitler came to power that led to the evacuation of many Jewish children to England and her experiences as a young girl in England during World War II.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=olga+levy+drucker&searchCode=GKEY^*
&searchType=0&recCount=25&sk=en_US
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.6; 690L
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Dublon-Knebel, I. (Ed.). (2010). A Holocaust crossroads: Jewish women and children in Ravensbrück. London: Vallentine Mitchell.
“Ravensbrück was the only major Nazi concentration camp built for women. Its history constitutes a crossroads in the various stages of the Third Reich's persecution of women accused of offending the Nazi state and of those ethnically and racially persecuted. Women from different social strata, national, ethnic and religious origins were forced to live together under the most extreme conditions within the social system created by the SS. Among the many crossroads of Ravensbrück was the one in which citizens from the surrounding area, as well as citizens of many of the small towns in which Ravensbrück’s external camps were located, came across the prisoners and witnessed the events. From its first days until its liberation, thousands of Jewish women, girls and children were among Ravensbrück’s prisoners. They were part of the camp's population even when the industrial mass killing was ‘exported’ to the East - and Germany, including its concentration camps, was to be ‘freed’ of all Jews. Against the overall background of the Nazi concentration camps and Holocaust historiography, this collection of essays provides a socio-historical in-depth analysis of the singularity of the female Jewish experience by focusing on the Jewish experience in the microcosm of Ravensbrück.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-holocaust-crossroads-irith-dublon-knebel/1113896411?ean=9780853039914
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Dubrovsky, G. (2004). Six from Leipzig. London: Vallentine Mitchell.
“Between December 1938 and September 1939, 10,000 children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland were placed by their parents on trains – Kindertransport – bound for England, where they survived the Holocaust. Forced to remain behind, their parents were not as fortunate. The children’s care and education in England became the responsibility of the Refugee Children's Movement, which consisted of 12 regional and about 100 local voluntary committees. Six cousins from Leipzig, aged 7 months to 14 years, were among the 2,000 children who arrived in Cambridge, and were under the supervision of both the Movement and of the Cambridge Refugee Children’s Committee. The story of these children brings to life the issues faced by all those who travelled on the Kindertransports and the way in which the Committee tried to cope with their responsibilities. Although a number of memoirs have been written on this topic, Six from Leipzig puts the subject into historical perspective and will be invaluable to those who want to know how rescue was organized, by whom, and under what circumstances. It will be of special value to students of Holocaust history, and for those who are concerned with the care of traumatized children. It also emphasizes the important role played by women in the rescue of these children, and in running refugee children's committees; a fact that has not received the attention that it deserves.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/six-from-leipzig-gertrude-w-dubrovsky/1006043649?ean=9780853034704
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Dunai, E. (2002). Surviving in silence: A deaf boy in the Holocaust: The Harry I. Dunai story. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
“As a deaf, Jewish boy existing under the Nazi regime, Izrael Deutsch endured a mind-numbing series of life-wrenching experiences. In his earliest years, he lived in a rural area of Czechoslovakia, where his father supported his family with a country store and a farm. Stories of this time center around boyish pranks such as setting a haypile on fire and dozing off after eating some toast covered with stolen poppies. His mother set in motion the first jarring change in Izrael’s life by taking him to Budapest, Hungary, to attend a special school for deaf Jewish children.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/surviving-in-silence-eleanor-c-dunai/1115406505?ean=9781563681196
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Dwork, D. (1991). Children with a star: Jewish youth in Nazi Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
“Many books have been written about the experiences of Jews in Nazi Europe. None, however, has focused on the persecution of the most vulnerable members of the Jewish community – its children. This powerful and moving book by Deborah Dwork relates the history of these children for the first time.
“The book is based on hundreds of oral histories conducted with survivors who were children in the Holocaust, in Europe and North America, an extraordinary range of primary documentation uncovered by the author (including diaries, letters, photographs and family albums), and archival records. Drawing on these sources, Dwork reveals the feelings, daily activities, and perceptions of Jewish children who lived and died in the shadow of the Holocaust. She reconstructs and analyzes the many different experiences the children faced. In the early years of Nazi domination they lived at home, increasingly opposed by rising anti-Semitism. Later some went into hiding while others attempted to live openly on gentile papers. As time passed, increasing numbers were forced into transit camps, ghettos, and death and slave labor camps. Although nearly ninety percent of the Jewish children in Nazi Europe were murdered, we learn in this history not of their deaths but of the circumstances of their lives.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-with-a-star-deborah-dwork/1112681245?ean=9780300050547
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Edvardson, C. (1997). Burned child seeks the fire: A memoir. (J. Agee, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press.
“Summoned with her mother to Gestapo headquarters in 1943, fourteen-year-old Cordelia Edvardson was given a terrible choice: to acknowledge her secret Jewish heritage and suffer the consequences or to see her mother charged with treason. Burned Child Seeks the Fire is the true story of the love between this mother and daughter, and a piercing example of the tragedies wrought by Nazi Germany.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/burned-child-seeks-the-fire-cordelia-edvardson/1002345470?ean=9780807070956
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Eichengreen, L. (1994). From ashes to life: My memories of the Holocaust. San Francisco, CA: Mercury House.
“In this disturbing but inspirational account of her experiences of the Holocaust, Lucille Eichengreen relates her journey as a young Jewish girl through Nazi Germany and Poland – including internment in the camps at Auschwitz, Neuengamme, and Bergen-Belsen. It was a journey that began in 1933, when she was eight years old and witnessed the beginnings of Jewish persecution, a journey along which she suffered the horrible deaths of her father, mother and sister. Sustained by great courage and resourcefulness, Lucille Eichengreen emerged from her nightmare with the inner strength to build a new life for herself in the United States. Only in 1991 did she return to Germany and Poland to assess the Jewish situation there. Her story is a testament to the very thing the Holocaust sought to destroy: the regeneration of Jewish life. Blessed with a remarkable memory that made her one of the most effective witnesses in the postwar trial of her persecutors, Eichengreen has composed a memoir of exceptional accuracy. As important as its factual accuracy is its emotional clarity and truth. Simple and direct, Eichengreen's words compel with their moral authority.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/from-ashes-to-life-lucille-eichengreen/1112681225?ean=9781562790523
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_____. (2000). Rumkowski and the orphans of Łòdź. San Francisco, CA: Mercury House.
“Rumkowski and the Orphans of Łòdź is a chilling account of a young woman’s experiences in the notorious Łódź Ghetto. The ghetto was lorded over by Chaim Rumkowski, Nazi-appointed Jewish Elder of Łódź and former head of the orphanage. Many have long hailed Rumkowski as a hero who did the best he could leading his community through the worst of circumstances. Now Lucille Eichengreen shares, with firsthand evidence, how Chaim Rumkowski flouted his authority through collaboration, corruption, and the abuse of its children.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rumkowski-and-the-orphans-of-lodz-lucille-eichengreen/1003006037?ean=9781562791155
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Eisen, G. (1988). Children and play in the Holocaust: Games among the shadows. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
“My main theme deals primarily with experiences in the Holocaust, but the study offers also a certain universality, for it addresses as well the basic theorem of play under adverse circumstances, under stress, and under in-human conditions, the conditions of children in war.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/childrens-play-in-holocaust-george-eisen/1101617307?ean=9780870237089
NOTE: This book was also published in 1990 under the name Children’s Play in the Holocaust.
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Elefant, I. E. (2011). A time of silence: A story of a childhood Holocaust survivor. AuthorHouse.
“Ingrid Epstein Elefant survived the Holocaust in Germany through the kindness and generosity of non-Jews, many of whom put their own lives at risk by helping her and her mother. From a young child shielded by her parents and others from the horror going on around her, and not understanding the painful things happening to her family, Ingrid becomes a young woman struggling to adjust to a new country, and then a mature woman desperately trying to establish her own identity. The entire story is a testament to human kindness and the ability of one person to gain acceptance and to create a place for herself in a welcoming community. Ingrid’s writing speaks directly to the reader’s emotions, and the last part of her memoir focuses on the deep spiritual quality which suffuses and animates her life.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/time-of-silence-ingrid-epstein-elefant/1100382956?ean=9781452098807
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Elster, A. & Miller, Ph.D., J. E. (2007). I still see her haunting eyes: The Holocaust and a hidden child named Aaron. Turning Empathy into Action.
“The book, told in the voice of young Aaron Elster, takes a unique and unflinching look into a boy’s fight for survival. In his solitude, the boy questions why his mother abandoned him and his very existence in this world.”
summary from http://www.amazon.com/Still-See-Her-Haunting-Eyes/dp/0975987526/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394045662&sr=1-1&keywords=aaron+elster
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Fischler-Martinho, J. (1998). Have you seen my little sister? London: Vallentine Mitchell.
“Janina Fischler embarks on perhaps the most courageous of all her journeys to date. Forced to grow up quickly in a world which had no room for Jewish children – certainly not orphans – Janina displays a remarkable will to survive, a need to live, which shines through every one of her wartime experiences. Here, Janina recounts her escapades, posing as an Aryan orphan, moving from house to house and away from her beloved Cracow to the sometimes more anonymous countryside, always on the run from one thing that truly spelled terror. Striving to reveal the truth, but fighting with herself less she tarnish the names of those people whose lives were so cruelly terminated, Janina deals honestly and bravely with those she lost and presents the reader with a valued glimpse into her life and the lives of those she loved and lost.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/have-you-seen-my-little-sister-janina-fischler-martinho/1112681570?ean=9780853033349
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Fitzgerald, S. (2011). Children of the Holocaust. Mankato, MN: Compass Point Books.
“At the start of World War II, there were about 1.6 million Jewish children living in Europe. Fewer than one in 10 of those children survived German leader Adolf Hitler's reign of terror. More than 100,000 Jewish children did survive, however through a combination of strength, cleverness, the help of others, and, more often than not, simple good luck. Children of the Holocaust tells the stories of these young people.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-of-the-holocaust-stephanie-fitzgerald/1102588546?ean=9780756544423
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Reading Level: AR Level – 6.4; 920L
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Forman, F. (2009). Jewish refugees in Switzerland during the Holocaust: A memoir of childhood and history. London: Vallentine Mitchell.
“This is the first English-language memoir of the Jewish refugee experience in wartime Switzerland focusing on children’s experiences and daily life in the refugee camps. The author integrates her memories of a refugee childhood with archival and historical research, including interviews. Fleeing the Nazis, the author’s family was among the 25,000 Jews who sought refuge in Switzerland. The refugee camps were administered by Swiss government authorities with a peculiar mix of rigidity and compassion. Families were frequently separated, with men in one camp, and women and children in another. Thousands of refugee children were placed in foster care; many of them with non-Jewish foster families. At the same time, the refugees were allowed unparalleled scope for religious and cultural expression. Torn from a Jewish world that was fast disappearing, the refugees created a remarkable cultural life in the camps including educational programs for children and adults, vocational training, art classes for children, newspapers, theater productions, religious programs, music, lectures, and study groups. Paying particular attention to the experiences of women and children, the author explores the response of the Swiss Jewish community, and interviews some of the men and women who dealt with the refugees, including former welfare workers, camp administrators, and foster families. Research in the archives of the Swiss government, as well as of Jewish organizations, uncovers a treasure trove of official documents, along with refugee correspondence, photographs and children’s art created in the camps. Original French, German, and Yiddish documents are translated into English for the first time to reveal the heated public debates about Switzerland's refugee policy and about the treatment of Jewish refugees.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/jewish-refugees-in-switzerland-during-the-holocaust-frieda-johles-forman/1114320536?ean=9780853039518
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Fox, A. L. (1996). My heart in a suitcase. Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell.
“This is the story of a child, uprooted from a loving and protected home, who was sent to strangers in a strange country to fend for herself. In this memoir, Anne L. Fox has written about her childhood in Nazi Germany and her subsequent departure to England with the Kindertransport. As a 12-year-old girl, she came to live with a Jewish family in London until the outbreak of World War II when she was evacuated to the countryside. Although she missed her parents terribly, her stay in the village of Swineshead in Bedfordshire was a happy one. Her village education came to an end when she turned 14, however, and she was sent to the Bunce Court Boarding School in Shropshire. After graduating, she worked in a public library in Cardiff where she met her husband, a soldier in the US Army. She came to America as a GI bride and has made her home in Philadelphia.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-heart-in-a-suitcase-anne-l-fox/1001707689?ean=9780853033110
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Fox, A. L. & Abraham-Podietz, E. (1999). Ten thousand children: True stories told by children who escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House.
“Tells the true stories of children who escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport, a rescue mission led by concerned British to save Jewish children from the Holocaust.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=286396&recCount=25&recPointer=1&bibId=4034623
Age Range: 9-12 years
Reading Level: 860L
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Frank, A. (1952). The diary of a young girl. (M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, Trans.). New York: Modern Library.
“The journal of a Jewish girl in her early teens describes both the joys and torments of daily life, as well as typical adolescent thoughts, throughout two years spent in hiding with her family during the Nazi occupation of Holland.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/anne-frank-the-diary-of-a-young-girl-anne-frank/1003006523?ean=9780812415087
NOTE: There are dozens of editions of this same title, but this is considered “the original”.
“Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners” – Biography
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Reading Level: AR Level – 6.5; 1080L
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(SparkNotes) http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/annefrank/
(CliffsNotes) ISBN-13: 9780544181212
Ganor, H. (2007). Four letters to the witnesses of my childhood. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0724/2007032502.htm
“A vivid and poignant chronicle of one woman’s childhood amid the horror of Nazi occupation.
“The evocation of memory is wrought with emotional and historical significance in this distinctive Holocaust memoir. With lyrical prose and remarkable candor, Helena Ganor narrates her story through a series of recently penned letters to the significant people in her life during her wartime girlhood: her sister, mother, father, and stepmother. Both Ganor’s mother and sister perished during the Holocaust.
“The author’s letters reveal much about living in pre-war Lvov, Poland, and its surrounding area. Her descriptions of relationships between local Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, and Gypsies in southeastern Poland lend a broad historical context to the Holocaust. Ganor combines deeply personal reminiscences of struggling as a Jewish child cast out alone to survive under Nazi occupation with reflections on the varied ways that humans respond to impending catastrophe. Punctuating her letters with poems, Ganor’s story is an inspiring contribution to Holocaust literature.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/four-letters-to-the-witnesses-of-my-childhood-helena-ganor/
1008586536?ean=9780815608691
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Garner, F. (2010). Amazing journey: Metamorphosis of a hidden child. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
“Amazing Journey: Metamorphosis of a Hidden Child is a tale of parallel odysseys: one, across countries and cultures, from surviving Nazi occupation, to living a rich, full life in America; the other, a compelling coming-of-age story of a shy Polish child who transforms herself in her sixties into a successful, well-rounded woman. If there is such a genre as a ‘feminist Holocaust memoir’, Amazing Journey is its finest example.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/amazing-journey-felicia-graber/1115443591?ean=9781451542769
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Giddens, S. (1999). Escape: Teens who escaped from the Holocaust to freedom. New York: Rosen Publishers.
“Escape chronicles the lives of ‘four survivors who escaped out of the maze to freedom’, the maze being the trap of confinement that surrounded European Jews. Two came from religious Jewish families; two were more secularized. Each shared a strong commitment to family and an invincible will. In their accounts readers will be impressed by the heartbreak of family separation that was usually the experience of survivors: one saved, others lost, their fates unknown until much later. What on the surface appeared to be chance circumstances often meant the difference between life and death for individual members of a family. While the help of others outside of the Jewish community was necessary in some form, for individuals to escape, forms of resistance depended primarily on the will of individual Jews.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/escape-teens-who-escaped-from-the-holocaust-to-freedom-sandra-giddens/1003129597?ean=9780823928439
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 1999
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.5; 770L
Teacher’s Guide:
Ginz, P. (2007). The diary of Petr Ginz, 1941-1942. (C. Pressburger, ed.; E. Lappin, trans.). New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0712/2006047918-d.html
“Not since Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl has such an intimately candid, deeply-affecting account of a childhood compromised by Nazi tyranny come to light. As a fourteen-year-old Jewish boy living in Prague in the early 1940s, Petr Ginz dutifully kept a diary that captured the increasingly precarious texture of daily life. His stunningly mature paintings, drawings, and writings reflect his insatiable appetite for learning and experience and openly display his growing artistic and literary genius. Petr was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz at the age of sixteen. His diaries—recently discovered in a Prague attic under extraordinary circumstances—are an invaluable historical document and a testament to one remarkable child’s insuppressible hunger for life.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/diary-of-petr-ginz-petr-ginz/1102215269?ean=9780802143600
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Glassner, M. I. & Krell, R. (Eds.). (2006). And life is changed forever: Holocaust childhoods remembered. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
Table of contents http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0518/2005024382.html
“This distinctive volume contains twenty first-person narrative essays from Holocaust survivors who were children at the time of the atrocity. As children aged two to sixteen, these authors had different experiences than their adult counterparts and also had different outlooks in understanding the events that they survived.
“While most Holocaust memoirs focus on one individual or one country, And Life Is Changed Forever offers a varied collection of compelling reflections. The survivors come from Germany, Poland, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Italy, Greece, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Latvia, and Czechoslovakia. All of the contributors escaped death, but they did so in myriad ways. Some children posed as Gentiles or were hidden by sympathizers, some went to concentration camps and survived slave labor, some escaped on the Kindertransports, and some were sent to endure hardships in a ‘safe’ location such as Siberia or unoccupied France. While each essay is intensely personal, all speak to the universal horrors and the triumphs of all children who have survived persecution. And Life Is Changed Forever also focuses on what these children became – teachers, engineers, physicians, entrepreneurs, librarians, parents, and grandparents – and explores the impact of the Holocaust on their later lives.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/and-life-is-changed-forever-judith-traub/1115953567?ean=9780814331736
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Golabek, M. & Cohen, L. (2002). The children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A memoir of music, love, and survival. New York: Warner Books.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0914/2002100990-d.html
“Based on the true story of her mother, Mona Golabek describes the inspirational story of Lisa Jura Golabek’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 career as a concert pianist. Separated from her beloved family, Lisa bravely endures the trip and a disastrous posting outside London before finding her way to the Willesden Lane Orphanage. It is in this orphanage that Lisa’s story truly comes to life. Her music inspires the other orphanage children, and they, in turn, cheer her on in her efforts to make good on her promise to her family to realize her musical potential. Through hard work and sheer pluck, Lisa wins a scholarship to study piano at the Royal Academy. As she supports herself and studies, she makes a new life for herself and dreams of reconnecting with the family she was forced to leave behind. The resulting tale delivers a message of the power of music to uplift the human spirit and to grant the individual soul endurance, patience, and peace.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-children-of-willesden-lane-mona-golabek/1110946380?ean=9780446690270
Age Range:
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.2; 920L
Teacher’s Guide:
“Teaching ‘The Children of Willesden Lane’: Resources to Help You Teach the Book” – http://www.learner.org/series/cowl/ (may be subscription-based through Annenberg Learner database)
Gorman, E. (2010). While other children played: A hidden child remembers the Holocaust. (B. J. Kriigel, Ed.). Dearborn: University of Michigan-Dearborn.
“One of the Holocaust’s ‘hidden children’, Erna Blitzer Gorman never spoke to anyone about her traumatic experiences during World War II and its aftermath for nearly 40 years. But a stranger’s vicious words of hate compelled her to sort through her memories and come to terms with her past. Mrs. Gorman’s story of family, fear, and survival is both harrowing and inspiring.”
summary from http://www.amazon.com/While-Other-Children-Played-Remembers/dp/0933691157/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394047557&sr=1-1&keywords=erna+gorman
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Gordon, V. (2010). The experience of being a hidden child survivor of the Holocaust: A phenomenological exploration of the experience of being “hidden” in child survivors of the Holocaust. Lambert Academic Publishing.
“Child survivors of the Holocaust have only recently been recognized as a distinct group of individuals who survived the war with a different experience to the older child survivors. This book focuses on those child survivors who were hidden. In hiding, some remained ‘visible’ by hiding within convents, orphanages or with Christian families. Others were physically hidden and had to disappear from sight. Most children often combined these two experiences in their hiding. Eleven child survivors were interviewed about their experiences and their transcripts were analyzed and organized into meaning units. The analysis revealed that he defining moment of being hidden for these children was the suppression of their identities as Jews. By being hidden, they had to deny the essence of their core selves, including their names, family details and connections to others in an effort to conceal their Jewishness. This book provides a unique insight into these experiences for a group of children, revealing their challenges and ultimate resilience in the most extreme and horrendous of circumstances."
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/experience-of-being-a-hidden-child-survivor-of-the-holocaust-vicki-gordon/1102517818?ean=9783838301228
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Gottfried, T. (2001). Children of the slaughter: Young people of the Holocaust. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-first Century Books.
“Among the victims of the Nazis in World War II were more than a million young people. This includes those who died at the hands of the Nazis directly as well as those who died as a result of the war, whether from disease, neglect, or any number of causes brought on by the horrible conditions that resulted from the war and Nazi aggression.
“But the effect of the Holocaust on children does not begin and end with the war years, nor does it end with those we traditionally view as victims of the Holocaust. The legacy of the Holocaust reaches beyond time and ethnic identity to rob generations of young people of the security of a fully realized childhood.
“The Nazis’ persecution of Jews and others did not exclude children; indeed, children who were too young or weak to be of use to the Nazi war effort were often the most expendable. Jewish children experienced being driven from their homes, and witnessed the breakup of their families, and the death of loved ones, and came to learn that they were hated on the basis of their religion and their ethnicity.
“German children, and those loyal to the Nazi leadership, in turn, were victimized by a society that viewed them as cannon fodder – a resource to be used to insure the future of Adolf Hitler’s vision of a racially purified and powerful Europe. These young people, under the guise of the Hitler Youth, were also robbed of childhood with dire consequences.
“The children of Holocaust survivors and victims bore the brunt of the grief, sadness, and guilt that were by-products of this horrible episode in history. And as modern-day Jewish and German young people, in particular, struggle with the legacy of the Holocaust, all people can benefit from learning of this legacy to help to prevent its happening again.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-of-the-slaughter-ted-gottfried/1102383502?ean=9780761317166
Age Range: 12 years
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Greenfeld, H. (1993). The hidden children. New York: Ticknor & Fields.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm021/93020326.html
“Over a million Jewish children were killed during the Holocaust. From ten thousand to 100 thousand Jewish children were hidden with strangers and survived. In this powerful and compelling work, 25 people share their experiences as hidden children. Black-and-white photos.
“Describes the experiences of those Jewish children who were forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust and survived to tell about it.”
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hidden-children-howard-greenfeld/1101078416?ean=9780395861387
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.7; 980L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2001). After the Holocaust. New York: Greenwillow Books.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hc041/00052798.html
“Listen to the stories of Alicia, Civia, Ann, George, Judith, Akiva, Larry, and Tonia—eight survivors of the Holocaust, and eight of the bravest, most resilient men and women you’ll ever have the privilege to hear. They came from different parts of Europe—Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Romania—but they were all children when war, persecution, and imprisonment interrupted their lives. And when liberation finally came, they were still young people, alone and homeless in a world that didn’t know what to do with them.
“The end of World War II is not the end of the story of the Holocaust. Howard Greenfeld’s groundbreaking book features primary source material, as well as more than 80 archival black-and-white photographs, and presents a chapter in history that is often overlooked: from war to liberation to the DP camps to emigration and beyond.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/after-the-holocaust-howard-greenfeld/1003784621?ean=9780688177522
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2001
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 8.0; 1130L
Teacher’s Guide:
Greschler, L. (2009). The 10,000 children that Hitler missed: Stories from the Kindertransport. BookSurge, LLC.
“The 10,000 Children That Hitler Missed reveals the largest and most poignant rescue of endangered children from the brutal clutches of the Nazi empire. The movement was coined the Kindertransport. Over a nine month period before the outbreak of World War II, Britain heroically brought children from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in an effort to save their lives. Forced to leave their parents behind, the children were torn apart from their loved ones and said their last goodbyes. With few instructions, they boarded trains, sailed by boat, crossed the English Channel, and traveled distances that they could barely comprehend while their parents remained trapped in Nazi territory and many inhaled their final breath under the Nazi regime. Now after seven decades their stories are being told, in their own words from child survivors. The testimonies are chilling and painful; searing with fear and entrenched with tragedy yet beneath their pain they show astonishing resilience.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-10000-children-that-hitler-missed-lori-greschler/1115600653?ean=9781439243336
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Gross, E. (2007). Elly: My true story of the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic.
“At just 15, her mother, and brother were taken from their Romanian town to the Auschwitz-II/Birkenau concentration camp. When they arrived at Auschwitz, a soldier waved Elly to the right; her mother and brother to the left. She never saw her family alive again. Thanks to a series of miracles, Elly survived the Holocaust. Today she is dedicated to keeping alive the stories of those who did not.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/elly-elly-gross/1111838102?ean=9780545231190
Age Range: 9-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.1; 730L
Teacher’s Guide:
Gross, F. (2009). One step ahead of Hitler: A Jewish child’s journey through France. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
“ ‘Fred Gross knew much about the history of the Holocaust, but he didn’t know his own, being a young Jewish child during those terrible years. In the late 1980s, he asked his mother to tell him the story of his family’s flight from the German invasion of Belgium and the Nazi policies that would become the Holocaust. Later, his two older brothers added their memories. But this story is not simply an account of the years spent one step ahead of Hitler. It is about a little boy then grown man coming to know his own story and realizing the tenuousness of memory.’ Most of the Gross’s flight takes place in France during its defeat and collaboration with the Nazis, rounding up more than 75,000 Jews for deportation to the death camps. Gross and his family made it through these anguished years because of their fortitude and ingenuity and the help of brave men and women of other faiths, reverently referred to as The Righteous Among the Nations, who risked their lives standing up to their collaborationist government. One Step Ahead of Hitler is a story of survival told in words and in photographs of a journey beginning in Antwerp and ending with his freedom in America.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-step-ahead-of-hitler-fred-gross/1101376208?ean=9780881461435
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Gruenbaum, T. (2004). Nešarim: Child Survivors of Terezín. London: Vallentine Mitchell.
“Calling themselves the Nešarim (eagles), the Holocaust survivors profiled in this book spend 2-3 years imprisoned together in a Nazi concentration camp in Czechoslovakia named Terezín (called Theresienstadt by the Germans). Having interviewed the ten survivors who later emigrated from Czechoslovakia, including her husband, the author presents their experiences in the camp and later as they tried to reconstruct their lives. Also included are some interviews with some of their wives, a number of whom also were imprisoned at Terezín.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nesarim-thelma-gruenbaum/1112681365?ean=9780853035114
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Gruener, R. (2007). Destined to live: A true story of a child in the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1203/2009280240-d.html
“What would you do if your whole life was shattered, and you were forced into hiding? This gripping, poignant memoir about coming of age during the Holocaust explores that question.
“Pretty, carefree Aurelia Gamser (known today as Ruth Gruener) had an idyllic life in 1930s Poland – until violent acts of anti-Semitism and the deportation of Jewish families to concentration camps changed everything in her world. Hiding out with a gentile family, her very life at risk every day, Ruth struggled to remain strong and sane. And though she was destined to live, her struggle continued after the war, when she began a new life in America, as a teenager who had been through horrors. This memoir will inspire countless readers and bestow important lessons about life, hope, and memory.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/destined-to-live-ruth-gruener/1113196726?ean=9780439892049
Age Range: 9-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.5; 960L
Teacher’s Guide:
Grünfeld, B. (2007). A teenager in Hitler’s death camps. (K. Schubert, Trans.). Dallas: BenBella Books.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0707/2006100195-b.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0707/2006100195-d.htm
“A translation of the widely-read Swedish edition, this autobiography tells this story of a Hungarian teenager swept into the horrors of the Third Reich’s death camps in Auschwitz, Mittelbau, and Belsen. In a calm, matter-of-fact tone that magnifies the nightmares endured, this life story reveals the details of the camps, including the misery and cruelties that encompassed daily life. The author’s own visceral artwork couples with the amazing stories of luck and desperation that resulted in his and his brother’s miraculous survival.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/teenager-in-hitlers-death-camps-benny-grunfeld/1101240295? ean=9781933771199
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Grynberg, H. (1997). Children of Zion. (J. Mitchell, Trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
“In this book, Henryk Grynberg takes an extraordinary collection of interviews conducted by representatives of the Polish government-in-exile in Palestine in 1943 and arranges them in such a way that their voices become unforgettable. The interviewees – all Polish children – tell of their experiences during the war. Grynberg has not used the traditional form, but rather turns the voices of the children into one large ‘choral’ group. This technique gives the reader the impression of overwhelming sameness while paradoxically featuring the subtle differences in the children’s experiences. In the first section, the children recall their lives before the war most were well off. They discuss their memories of when the war broke out, the arrival of the Germans and the Russians, and their journeys into and experiences in, exile. We also hear them talk about the increasingly desperate conditions after the Sikorski Agreement allowed them to leave the work camps, and the ways many of them coped as orphans.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-of-zion-henryk-grynberg/1102825687?ean=9780810113541
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_____. (2001). The Jewish war and the victory. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
(Please refer to separate nonfiction resources document for information on this title.)