Nonfiction Resources H-K
Halter, R. (2007). Roman’s journey: A memoir of survival. New York: Arcade Pub.
“In the late 1930s, anti-Semitism infects the Polish village of Chodecz, where Halter had lived in a tight Jewish clan rocked only by sibling spats. Synagogues are torched; Jews endure humiliations; and after the 1939 invasion, Halter, a schoolboy, is pressed into service as a flunky for the German town kapo. Slipping into prayer to staunch his panic, Halter braves deportation to the Lodz ghetto, where his family survives on scraps while somehow keeping its dignity; Halter’s dying grandfather recites grace even over his last morsels. Halter ascribes his survival to the resilience shared by other child prisoners who ‘after every knock-out blow, sprang back to life.’ After being sent to Auschwitz, Stutthof and Dresden, where he barely survived the bombing of early 1945, Halter risks an audacious escape and returns to Chodecz, his bittersweet homecoming cut with profound sorrow for a town irrevocably changed and bereft of Jewish community. Halter stubbornly conveys both harrowing loss and hunger for renewed life with measured matter-of-factness that allows his ordeals to speak for themselves.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/romans-journey-roman-halter/1008504204?ean=9781559708548
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Handler, A. & Meschel, S. V. (Eds.). (1993). Young people speak: Surviving the Holocaust in Hungary. New York: Franklin Watts.
“Eleven survivors of the Holocaust in Hungary recollect their childhood experiences during the implementation of Hitler’s Final Solution.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/young-people-speak-andrew-handler/1000575684?ean=9780531110447
Age Range: 14-17 years
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_____. (1997). Red star, blue star: The lives and times of Jewish students in communist Hungary, 1948-1956. New York: Columbia University Press.
Book review (H-Net) http://www.h-net.org/review/hrev-a0a7d5-aa
Book review (H-Net) http://www.h-net.org/review/hrev-a0a9g9-aa
“During the darkest years of Stalinist Communism in Hungary, the contributors to this book managed to preserve freedom of speech and action, as well as their Jewish self-awareness. In the introduction, the editors trace the evolution of Communism in post-war Hungary. They identify the distinctive features of the Jewish community and describe the relationship of the Jewish leadership, and pinpoint the difficulties of Jewish students in all walks of life. Part two contains the recollections of seventeen men and women, all survivors of the Holocaust, who faced the threat of Communism with courage, resolve, and ingenuity, and who fought individual battles to retain their social and religious identities.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/red-star-blue-star-andrew-handler/1112681270?ean=9780880333849
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Harris, S. R. (2011). Sammy: Child survivor of the Holocaust. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
“Sammy: Child Survivor of the Holocaust is the remarkable story of a child who was saved because of the persistence of his sister and the cooperation of so many who wanted to enable at least one child to defeat the German plan to destroy all the Jews. What gives the story its remarkable poignancy is that the child’s voice has been preserved, the innocence of his perceptions, the simplicity of his emotions and the acuteness of his sense of danger. Sammy did know pretend to know more than he knew or see history in all its complexity; rather the child is our guide to a world than even the most sophisticated of adults could not understand. The book is both haunting and humbling.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sammy-samuel-r-harris/1112681566?ean=9781463659967
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ISBN-13: 9781463656256
Heberer, P. (2011). Children during the Holocaust. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“Children During the Holocaust, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, tells the story of the Holocaust through the eyes, and fates, of its youngest victims. The ten chapters follow the arc of the persecutory policies of the Nazis and their sympathizers and the impact these measures had on Jewish children and adolescents-from the years leading to the war, to the roundups, deportations, and emigrations, to hidden life and death in the ghettos and concentration camps, and to liberation and coping in the wake of war. This volume examines the reactions of children to discrimination, the loss of livelihood in Jewish homes, and the public humiliation at the hands of fellow citizens and explores the ways in which children’s experiences paralleled and diverged from their adult counterparts. Additional chapters reflect upon the role of non-Jewish children as victims, perpetrators, and bystanders during World War II. Offering a collection of personal letters, diaries, court testimonies, government documents, military reports, speeches, newspapers, photographs, and artwork, Children During the Holocaust highlights the diversity of children's experiences during the nightmare years of the Holocaust.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-during-the-holocaust-patricia-heberer/1101958799?ean=9780759119840
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Hillman, L. (2005). I will plant you a lilac tree: A memoir of a Schindler’s list survivor. New York: Antheneum Books for Young Readers.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0631/2004010534-d.html
Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0641/2004010534-s.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1107/2004010534-b.html
“In the spring of 1942 Hannelore received a letter from Mama at her school in Berlin, Germany—Papa had been arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Six weeks later he was sent home; ashes in an urn.
“Soon another letter arrived. ‘The Gestapo has notified your brothers and me that we are to be deported to the East—whatever that means.’ Hannelore knew: labor camps, starvation, beatings . . . How could Mama and her two younger brothers bear that? She made a decision: She would go home and be deported with her family. Despite the horrors she faced in eight labor and concentration camps, Hannelore met and fell in love with a Polish POW named Dick Hillman.
“Oskar Schindler was their one hope to survive. Schindler had a plan to take eleven hundred Jews to the safety of his new factory in Czechoslovakia. Incredibly both she and Dick were added to his list. But survival was not that simple. Weeks later Hannelore found herself, alone, outside the gates of Auschwitz, pushed toward the smoking crematoria.
“I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree is the remarkable true story of one young woman’s nightmarish coming-of-age. But it is also a story about the surprising possibilities for hope and love in one of history’s most brutal times.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-will-plant-you-a-lilac-tree-laura-hillman/1102343711?ean=9781416953661
Age Range: 14-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.1; 740L
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Hochberg-Mariańska, M. & Grüss, N. (Eds.) (1996). The children accuse. (B. Johnson, trans.) Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell.
“This most unusual book contains evidence collected by the author in 1945 in Poland from children and teenagers who surfaced from hiding in forests and bunkers and told the story of their survival as it happened. The interviews, expertly translated from the original Polish, document life in the ghettos, the camps, in hiding, in the resistance and in prison. There is also a series of interviews with adults who lived and worked alongside children in wartime Poland.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-children-accuse-maria-hochberg-marianska/1001707691?ean=9780853033127
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Holliday, L. (1995) Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries. New York: Pocket Books.
“Children in the Holocaust and World War II is an extraordinary, unprecedented anthology of diaries written by children all across Nazi-occupied Europe and in England.
“Twenty-three young people, ages ten through eighteen, recount in vivid detail the horrors they lived through, day after day. As powerful as The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata’s Diary, here are children’s experiences—all written with an unguarded eloquence that belies their years. The diarists include a Hungarian girl, selected by Mengele to be put in a line of prisoners who were tortured and murdered; a Danish Christian boy executed by the Nazis for his partisan work; and a twelve-year-old Dutch boy who lived through the Blitzkrieg in Rotterdam. In the Janowska death camp, eleven-year-old Pole Janina Heshele so inspired her fellow prisoners with the power of her poetry that they found a way to save her from the Nazi ovens. Mary Berg was imprisoned at sixteen in the Warsaw ghetto even though her mother was American and Christian. She left an eyewitness record of ghetto atrocities, a diary she was able to smuggle out of captivity. Moshe Flinker, a sixteen-year-old Netherlander, was betrayed by an informer who led the Gestapo to his family’s door; Moshe and his parents died in Auschwitz in 1944. They come from Czechoslovakia, Austria, Israel, Poland, Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, England, and Denmark. They write in spare, searing prose of life in ghettos and concentration camps, of bombings and Blitzkriegs, of fear and courage, tragedy and transcendence. Their voices and their vision ennoble us all.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-in-the-holocaust-and-world-war-ii-laurel-holliday/1112681241
?ean=9780671520557
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_____. (1999). Why do they hate me?: Young lives caught in war and conflict. New York: Pocket Books.
Publisher description: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/simon032/2002562665.html
“From the centuries-old enmities of Northern Ireland, to the Holocaust and World War II, to the Israel-Palestine conflict, young people share their innermost secrets of growing up. On these pages they vividly record their experiences and offer eyewitness accounts of fear and courage, tragedy and triumph.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/why-do-they-hate-me-laurel-holliday/1004834530?ean=9780671034542
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.8; 980L
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Huber, I. T. (2013). Isabelle’s attic: The story of a young Jewish girl’s survival against the Nazis. Mazo Publishers.
“From 1942 to 1945, three-year-old Isa Hauser was hidden by a Polish Catholic family in their attic in Czortkov, Poland, her birthplace. She was one of only three Jewish children from Czortkov known to have survived the Nazi atrocities.
“Until the early 1990s, the author, Isabelle Teresa Huber, did not speak about her story of survival, and did not associate herself as a Holocaust survivor.
“Finally able to confront her truths, the floodgates opened. Encouraged by her family, she and her close friend, Nan Miller, collaborated to write the complete account of this part of her life.
“Through this collaboration she has now given her children and grandchildren meaning to the idea of how dear life really is.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/isabelles-attic-isabelle-teresa-huber/1115751058?ean=9781936778270
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Iglinski-Goodman, L. (2002). For love of life. London: Vallentine Mitchell.
“During the Nazi occupation of Belgium in 1942, two sisters – Leah, aged three, and her older sister, Sylvia, aged seven – were hidden in a convent cellar. Their mother reassured Sylvia that, at the end of the war, they would all be reunited. Sylvia was instructed to keep alive for both of the girls the spirit of what had been their joyful extended family life, and their Jewish background. For three years, the sisters stayed together in the cellar. Leah, the child through whose eyes this story is told, describes their constant struggle against fear and the shock of their ‘abandonment’. Yet, this is also contrasted with the astonishing resilience, courage, and playfulness that enabled the sisters to give one another strength and hope. However, Leah then endured a year of solitary confinement, during which she became delirious and experienced mystical revelations that gave her new reassurance. In 1946, just a few months after liberation, Leah’s father reclaimed her from the convent. He then traced Sylvia, and the two sisters were finally reunited and brought to live in London.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/for-love-of-life-leah-iglinsky-goodman/1004663111?ean=9780853034131
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Jacobsen, R. (2001). Rescued images: Memories of a childhood in hiding. New York: Miyaka Press.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0612/2001030298-d.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0612/2001030298-b.html
“Ruth Jacobsen spent her first childhood in Germany. It ended one night when she was six years old and hiding in terror as she watched people being thrown from windows. It was Kristallnacht, the Night of Breaking Glass.
“Her family fled and found haven in the idyllic Dutch village of Oud Zuylen. There Ruth became a child again.
“When she was eight, the Germans invaded Holland. When she was nine, her grandmother was put on a train and never seen again. Soon she was wearing a Jewish star on her coat. When she was 10, she was separated from her parents. Frightened and alone, she went from house to house, hiding from the Nazis in the homes of strangers. Ruth Jacobsen’s childhood was over forever. For the rest of her life she tried to forget her loss.
“One day, forty years after the war, she opened an album of family photographs that had lain in a box at the bottom of a closet, untouched . . . [S]he transformed the images into art, creating a series of vivid collages that pieced together her shattered childhood. As she worked, long suppressed memories came to the surface. She wrote them down.
“The result is a unique document of a life and a time. Rescued Images combines Ruth’s collages and her moving memoir of the wrenching events of a half-century ago. Young Ruth Jacobsen is brought back to life on these pages: frightened and bewildered, buffeted by forces she cannot understand or control, bending but never breaking.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rescued-images-ruth-jacobsen/1112956573?ean=9781931414005
Age Range: 12 years & up
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Jaegermann, J. (2004). My childhood in the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Mazo Publishers.
“My Childhood In The Holocaust is Judith (Pinczovsky) Jaegermann's account of survival against the Nazi death machine. As a child, when she should have been playing with her dolls and teddy bears, she was fighting off death in the German concentration camps.
“From Theresienstadt to Auschwitz to Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen, she survived the genocide of 6,000,000 Jews that the world kept quiet about for so many years.
“For Judith Jaegermann, having spent most of her childhood in the German concentration camps, the trauma of her experience has been like a bomb inside her waiting to explode.
“Because Mrs. Jaegermann is one of the last surviving eyewitnesses to the Holocaust, she regards it as her duty to tell her story to today’s youth. She actively lectures in high schools and universities, or wherever young people gather to listen, telling about the atrocities committed by a deranged society so that something like the Holocaust should never happen again.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-childhood-in-the-holocaust-judith-jaegermann/1014469318?ean=9789659046225
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Joffo, J. (1974). A bag of marbles. (M. Sokolinsky, Trans.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
“In 1941 in occupied Paris, brothers Maurice and Joseph play a last game of marbles before running home to their father’s barbershop. This is the day that will change their lives forever. With the German occupation threatening their family’s safety, the boys’ parents decide Maurice and Joseph must disguise themselves and flee to their older brothers in the free zone.
“Surviving the long journey will take every scrap of ingenuity and courage they can muster. And if they hope to elude the Nazis, they must never, under any circumstances, admit to being Jewish.
“The boys travel by train, by ferry, and on foot, facing threats from strangers and receiving help from unexpected quarters. Along the way they must adapt to the unfamiliar world beyond their city—and find a way to be true to themselves even as they conceal their identities.
“Based on an autobiographical novel by Joseph Joffo and adapted with the author’s input, this true story offers a harrowing but inspiring glimpse of a childhood cut short.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-bag-of-marbles-joseph-joffo/1114333341?ean=9781467715164
USBBY “Outstanding International Books” List – Grades 6-8, 2014 (adaptation by Kris)
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Reading Level: AR Level – 2.8 (adaptation by Kris)
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Kacer, K. (2003). The underground reporters. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Second Story Press.
“In Budějovice, a quiet village in the Czech republic, laws and rules were introduced to restrict the freedom of Jewish people during the dark days of World War II. In a small shack on the small plot of land allocated to the village’s Jewish youth, some brave young people decided to create a newspaper to show that despite the new dangers in their lives, they were still creative, energetic and adventurous. Though most of the village’s Jews did not survive the war, copies of the newspaper did. The Underground Reporters chronicles how these youth held out hope for a peaceful world to come.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/underground-reporters-kathy-kacer/1100826752?ean=9781896764856
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2004
Age Range: 9-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.1
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*Holocaust Remembrance Series* ISBN-13: 9781897187685 and ISBN-13: 9781897187777
_____. (2006). Hiding Edith. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Second Story Press.
“Hiding Edith tells the true story of Edith Schwalb, a young Jewish Girl sent to live in a safe house after the Nazi invasion of France. Edith’s story is remarkable not only for her own bravery, but for the bravery of those that helped her: an entire village, including its mayor and citizenry, heroically conspired to conceal the presence of hundreds of Jewish children who lived in the safe house. The children went to the local school, roamed the streets and ate good food, all without having to worry about concealing their Jewish identity. And during Nazi raids, the children camped out until the coast was clear.
“Intensively researched and sensitively written, this book, illustrated with photographs and maps, both comforts and challenges a young reader’s spirit, skillfully addressing both the horrors and hope that children experienced during the Holocaust.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hiding-edith-kathy-kacer/1102510044?ean=9781897187067
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2007
Age Range: 9-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.8
Teacher’s Guide:
*Holocaust Remembrance Series* ISBN-13: 9781897187685 and ISBN-13: 9781897187777
_____. (2011). To hope and back: The journey of the St. Louis. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Second Story Press.
“Lisa and Sol board the luxury ship St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany, on May 13, 1939. Lisa and her family are in first class; Sol and his parents are below in tourist class. The children have mixed feelings—they’re excited to be beginning this voyage to a better life and sad to be leaving their old lives behind. They are Jewish, as are almost all of the 937 passengers on board, and although war has not been officially declared in Europe, the Nazis have been persecuting Jews for years. As they set sail for Cuba, the atmosphere on the ship is optimistic, led by the German captain Gustave Shröder, who is determined to see his passengers to safety. But as they learn that Hitler’s propaganda has turned the country against them, the mood changes to despair. They are turned away—first from Cuba, then the United States, and then Canada.
“The story of Lisa and Sol is set against the tragic true history of the St. Louis. Denied entry from port after port, the captain was forced to return his Jewish passengers to Europe, where many died in the Holocaust. Through the eyes of Sol and Lisa, we see the injustice and heartbreak that were caused by the prejudice and hatred of so many.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/to-hope-and-back-kathy-kacer/1102147649?ean=9781897187968
Age Range: 9-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.0
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_____. (2012). We are their voice: Young people respond to the Holocaust. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Second Story Press.
“Do young people today find meaning in the Holocaust?
“That’s the question that prompted a writing project across North America, Italy, and Australia asking young people to write about this time in history. Students wrote short stories. Some read novels and wrote about the messages that they understood from these books. Several interviewed survivors and recorded their impressions. Many talked about this history and how they have tried to make sense of it in the world in which they now live. Children wrote from their hearts with sensitivity, thoughtfulness and great insight. Their teachers saw this opportunity as a gift. Young people can make a meaningful connection to the Holocaust. And perhaps, with that in mind, they will be able to create a more peaceful future. Read their stories. Listen to their perceptions and observations. We have so much to learn from them.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/we-are-their-voice-kathy-kacer/1110787443?ean=9781926920771
Age Range: 11-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.2; 880L
Teacher’s Guide:
Katin, M. (2006). We are on our own. Montréal: Drawn & Quarterly.
“In this captivating and elegantly illustrated graphic memoir, Miriam Katin retells the story of her and her mother’s escape on foot from the Nazi invasion of Budapest. With her father off fighting for the Hungarian army and the German troops quickly approaching, Katin and her mother are forced to flee to the countryside after faking their deaths. Leaving behind all of their belongings and loved ones, and unable to tell anyone of their whereabouts, they disguise themselves as a Russian servant and illegitimate child, while literally staying a few steps ahead of the German soldiers.
“We Are on Our Own is a woman’s attempt to rebuild her earliest childhood trauma in order to come to an understanding of her lifelong questioning of faith. Katin’s faith is shaken as she wonders how God could create and tolerate such a wretched world, a world of fear and hiding, bargaining and theft, betrayal and abuse. The complex and horrific experiences on the run are difficult for a child to understand, and as a child, Katin saw them with the simple longing, sadness, and curiosity she felt when her dog ran away or a stranger made her mother cry. Katin’s ensuing lifelong struggle with faith is depicted throughout the book in beautiful full-color sequences.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/we-are-on-our-own-miriam-katin/1100947174?ean=9781896597201
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Reading Level: AR Level – 2.1
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Kaufman, L. R. (2010). The hidden girl: A true story of the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic, Inc.
“When her mother is killed by the Gestapo, a Jewish girl named Lola is sent into hiding. At first, Lola secretly lives in the home of a Ukrainian woman. But when someone threatens to expose her to the Nazis, Lola must flee again, this time hiding with another family in a dirt hole beneath a barn.
“Struggling against cold and hunger, the hidden family lives under the constant threat of discovery. Lola has lost everything—her home and her family. All she has left is one article of clothing, a dress lovingly embroidered by her mother. Will Lola ever find safety—or freedom?”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-hidden-girl-lola-rein-kaufman/1110864853?ean=9780545200530
Age Range: 9-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.7; 750L
Teacher’s Guide:
Kimmelman, M. R. (1997). Echoes of the Holocaust: A memoir. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
“The daughter of a Jewish seed exporter, the author was born Mira Ryczke in 1923 in a suburb of the Baltic seaport of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). Her childhood was happy, and she learned to cherish her faith and heritage. Through the 1930s, Mira’s family remained in the Danzig area despite a changing political climate that was compelling many friends and neighbors to leave. With the Polish capitulation to Germany in the autumn of 1939, however, Mira and her family were forced from their home. In calm, straightforward prose—which makes her story all the more harrowing—Kimmelman recalls the horrors that befell her and those she loved. Sent to Auschwitz in 1944, she escaped the gas chambers by being selected for slave labor. Finally, as the tide of war turned against Germany, Mira was among those transported to Bergen-Belsen, where tens of thousands were dying from starvation, disease, and exposure. In April 1945, British troops liberated the camp, and Mira was eventually reunited with her father. Most of the other members of her family had perished.
“In the closing chapters, Kimmelman describes her marriage, her subsequent life in the United States, and her visits to Israel and to the places in Europe where the events of her youth transpired. Even when confronted with the worst in humankind, she observes, she never lost hope or succumbed to despair.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/echoes-from-the-holocaust-mira-ryczke-kimmelman/1001800497?ean=9780870499562
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Kirschner, A. (2006). Sala’s gift: My mother’s Holocaust story.New York: Free Press.
Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0710/2006043743.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0666/2006043743-d.html
Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0702/2006043743-s.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1107/2006043743-b.html
“For nearly fifty years, Sala Kirschner kept a secret: She had survived five years as a slave in seven different Nazi work camps. Living in America after the war, she kept hidden from her children any hint of her epic, inhuman odyssey. She held on to more than 350 letters, photographs, and a diary without ever mentioning them. Only in 1991, on the eve of heart surgery, did she suddenly present them to Ann, her daughter, and offer to answer any questions Ann wished to ask.
“When Sala first reported to a camp in Geppersdorf, Germany, at the age of sixteen, she thought it would be for six weeks. Five years later, she was still at a labor camp and only she and two of her sisters remained alive of an extended family of fifty.
“Sala’s Gift is a heartbreaking, eye-opening story of survival and love amidst history's worst nightmare.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/salas-gift-ann-kirschner/1100329586?ean=9781416541707
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Klajman, J. (2000). Out of the ghetto. London: Vallentine Mitchell.
“Out of the Ghetto is the compelling, true story of Jack Klajman’s childhood. Jack was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931, as the fourth of five children, to poor, working-class Jewish parents. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the apartment building Jack lived in was bombed, sending his family scrambling to seek food and shelter with relatives. Then, after Poland surrendered, life became even more difficult as the Jews of Warsaw found themselves closed in by ghetto walls and being starved to death. To feed his family, Jack crept through holes in the walls to get to the Aryan side of the city, where he begged for food posing as a Christian boy. Undeterred by near-death encounters with Nazi soldiers, these smuggling efforts kept his family alive until 1942, when the Germans decided to implement The Final Solution and transport all the Jews of the ghetto to nearby extermination camps. Jack survived by staying in the hiding places of a few leaders of the ghetto underworld, who had taken him under their wing. During the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, Jack experienced both the euphoria of Jewish resistance, and the horrors of mass murder. He survived the annihilation of the ghetto first by hiding amongst dead bodies, and later fleeing through the sewers. He ended up on the streets of Warsaw, pretending to be a Christian boy, and trying to elude the authorities whenever his true identity came under suspicion. Jack made it through the war, escaping on many occasions what seemed to be certain death. His story is a powerful and dramatic affirmation that a steely desire to survive, combined with a great deal of luck and the strength and energy of youth, can overcome even the most desperate and horrific of circumstances.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/out-of-the-ghetto-jack-klajman/1101237109?ean=9780853033899
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Klein, G. W. (1957). All but my life. New York: Hill and Wang.
“All But My Life is the unforgettable story of Gerda Weissmann Klein’s six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. From her comfortable home in Bielitz (present-day Bielsko) in Poland to her miraculous survival and her liberation by American troops—including the man who was to become her husband—in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in 1945, Gerda takes the reader on a terrifying journey.
“Gerda’s serene and idyllic childhood is shattered when Nazis march into Poland on September 3, 1939. Although the Weissmanns were permitted to live for a while in the basement of their home, they were eventually separated and sent to German labor camps. Over the next few years Gerda experienced the slow, inexorable stripping away of ‘all but her life’. By the end of the war she had lost her parents, brother, home, possessions, and community; even the dear friends she made in the labor camps, with whom she had shared so many hardships, were dead.
“Despite her horrifying experiences, Klein conveys great strength of spirit and faith in humanity. In the darkness of the camps, Gerda and her young friends manage to create a community of friendship and love. Although stripped of the essence of life, they were able to survive the barbarity of their captors. Gerda's beautifully written story gives an invaluable message to everyone. It introduces them to last century's terrible history of devastation and prejudice, yet offers them hope that the effects of hatred can be overcome.
“Klein’s openness and warmth are reflected everywhere in her famous book, from the opening account of her family in prewar Poland to her three-year imprisonment in German work camps. On May 7, 1945, she was liberated by the U.S. Army and rescued by Lt. Kurt Klein, whom she married.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/all-but-my-life-gerda-weissmann-klein/1100191750?ean=9780809015801
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Reading Level: AR Level – 5.9; 780L
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(BookRags) BN ID: 2940012461032
(SparkNotes) http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/allbutmylife/
Kluger, R. (2001). Still alive: A Holocaust girlhood remembered. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.
“Ruth Kluger’s story of her years in several concentration camps, and her struggle to establish a life after the war as a refugee survivor in New York, has emerged as one of the most powerful accounts of the Holocaust. Still Alive is a memoir of the pursuit of selfhood against all odds, a fiercely bittersweet coming-of-age story in which the protagonist must learn never to rely on comforting assumptions, but always to seek her own truth.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/still-alive-ruth-kluger/1101159113?ean=9781558614369
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_____. (2003). Landscapes of a memory: A Holocaust girlhood remembered. London: Bloomsbury.
“Ruth Kluger is one of the child-survivors of the Holocaust. In 1942, at the age of eleven, she was deported to the Nazi ‘family camp’ Theresienstadt with her mother.
“Landscapes of Memory is the story of Ruth's life. Of a childhood spent in the Nazi camps and her refusal to forget the past as an adult in America. ‘It is not in our power to forgive: memory does that for us,’ says Kluger. Not erasing a single detail, not even the inconvenient ones, she writes frankly about the troubled relationship with her mother even through their years of internment, and of her determination not to forgive and absolve the past.
“It is this memory, pure and harsh, that makes Kluger’s memoir so unforgettable.”
summary from http://books.google.com/books/about/Landscapes_of_Memory.html?id=8GAfqKSYhRUC
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Kor, E. M. & Buccieri, L. R. (2009). Surviving the angel of death: The story of a Mengele twin in Auschwitz. Terre Haute, IN: Tanglewood Pub.
“Eva Mozes Kor was just ten years old when she arrived in Auschwitz. While her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, she and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man known as the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele. Subjected to sadistic medical experiments, she was forced to fight daily for her and her twin’s survival. In this incredible true story written for young adults, readers learn of a child’s endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.
“The book also includes an epilogue on Eva’s recovery from this experience and her remarkable decision to publicly forgive the Nazis. Through her museum and her lectures, she has dedicated her life to giving testimony on the Holocaust, providing a message of hope for people who have suffered, and working for causes of human rights and peace.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/surviving-the-angel-of-death-eva-mozes-kor/1101373487?ean=9781933718576
Age Range: 12 years & up
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.6; 830L
Teacher’s Guide:
Korman, G. (2005). Nightmare’s fairy tale: A young refugee’s home fronts, 1938-1948. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0512/2005011891.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0622/2005011891-b.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0622/2005011891-d.html
Book review (H-Net) http://www.h-net.org/review/hrev-a0e9s8-aa
“Fleeing the Nazis in the months before World War II, the Korman family scattered from a Polish refugee camp with the hope of reuniting in America. The father sailed to Cuba on the ill-fated St. Louis; the mother left for the United States after sending her two sons on a Kindertransport. One of the sons was Gerd Korman, whose memoir follows his own path—from the family’s deportation from Hamburg, through his time with an Anglican family in rural England, to the family’s reunited life in New York City. His memoir plumbs the depths of twentieth-century history to rescue the remarkable life story of one of its survivors.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nightmares-fairy-tale-gerd-korman/1007362032?ean=9780299210830
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Kramer, C. (2008). Clara’s war: A young girl’s true story of miraculous survival under the Nazis. North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: Ebury Press.
“This heart-stopping story of a young girl hiding from the Nazis is based on Clara Kramer’s diary of her years surviving in an underground bunker with seventeen other people.
“Clara Kramer was a typical Polish-Jewish teenager from a small town at the outbreak of the Second World War. When the Germans invaded, Clara’s family was taken in by the Becks, a Volksdeutsche (ethnically German) family from their town. Mrs. Beck worked as Clara’s family’s housekeeper. Mr. Beck was known to be an alcoholic, a womanizer, and a vocal anti-Semite. But on hearing that Jewish families were being led into the woods and shot, Beck sheltered the Kramers and two other Jewish families.
“Eighteen people in all lived in a bunker dug out of the Becks’ basement. Fifteen-year-old Clara kept a diary during the twenty terrifying months she spent in hiding, writing down details of their unpredictable life—from the house’s catching fire to Mr. Beck’s affair with Clara’s neighbor; from the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room above to the small pleasure of a shared Christmas carp.
“Against all odds, Clara lived to tell her story, and her diary is now part of the permanent collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/claras-war-clara-kramer/1102807909?ean=9780061728617
Honor Book, Sophie Brody Award, 2010
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Reading Level: AR Level – 6.1
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Krinitz, E. N. & Steinhardt, B. (2005). Memories of survival. New York: Hyperion.
“Esther Nisenthal Krinitz was a survivor of the Holocaust in Poland. At the age of 15, in October 1942, having lived under Nazi occupation for three years, she and her sister decided to separate from their family and disguise themselves as Catholic farmhands. Esther never saw her family again. In 1977, at the age of 50, having worked throughout her life as a dressmaker, she began hand-stitching embroidered fabric panels as a way of remembering, healing and sharing her childhood stories. She went on to create 36 pieces chronicling the key moments of her childhood story. Esther passed away in 2001 but lives on through her unforgettable tapestries of survival. Her daughter, Bernice Steinhardt, adds insightful narrative to each panel as she recounts her own recollections of the stories her mother shared with her.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/memories-of-survival-esther-nisenthal-krinitz/1015573674?ean=9780786851263
Age Range: 5-9 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.8
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Kustanowitz, E. (1999). The hidden children of the Holocaust: Teens who hid from the Nazis. New York: Rosen.
“In their own words, Jewish teenagers detail their experiences of hiding from the Nazis.”
summary from http://www.arbookfind.com/advanced.aspx
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.7; 810L
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