Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

California

A Holocaust Journal

The long-hidden diary of a young Polish woman's life during the Holocaust, translated for the first time into English Renia Spiegel was born in 1924 to an upper-middle class Jewish family living in southeastern Poland, near what was at that time the border with Romania. At the start of 1939 Renia began a diary. “I just want a friend. I want somebody to talk to about my everyday worries and joys. Somebody who would feel what I feel, who would believe me, who would never reveal my secrets. A human being can never be such a friend and that’s why I have decided to look for a confidant in the form of a diary.” And so begins an extraordinary document of an adolescent girl’s hopes and dreams. By the fall of 1939, Renia and her younger sister Elizabeth (née Ariana) were staying with their grandparents in Przemysl, a city in the south, just as the German and Soviet armies invaded Poland. Cut off from their mother, who was in Warsaw, Renia and her family were plunged into war. Like Anne Frank, Renia’s diary became a record of her daily life as the Nazis spread throughout Europe. Renia writes of her mundane school life, her daily drama with best friends, falling in love with her boyfriend Zygmund, as well as the agony of missing her mother, separated by bombs and invading armies. Renia had aspirations to be a writer, and the diary is filled with her poignant and thoughtful poetry. When she was forced into the city’s ghetto with the other Jews, Zygmund is able to smuggle her out to hide with his parents, taking Renia out of the ghetto, but not, ultimately to safety. The diary ends in July 1942, completed by Zygmund, after Renia is murdered by the Gestapo. Renia's Diary has been translated from the original Polish, and includes a preface, afterword, and notes by her surviving sister, Elizabeth Bellak. An extraordinary historical document, Renia Spiegel survives through the beauty of her words and the efforts of those who loved her and preserved her legacy.

Renia's Diary

1d2ba75c-ece5-414e-955e-9f7ac6c2c7c6-1

Florida

The World That We Knew ♻️ (Last Chance!)

Washington

The Lady Is a Spy is the audacious and riveting true story of Virginia Hall, America's greatest spy and unsung hero, brought to vivid life by acclaimed author Don Mitchell. When Hitler invaded Poland, Virginia Hall was traveling in Europe. Which was dangerous enough, but as fighting erupted, instead of returning home, she headed to France. In a country divided by freedom and fascism, Virginia was determined to do her part for the Allies. An ordinary woman from Baltimore, Maryland, she dove into the action, first joining a French ambulance unit and later becoming an undercover agent for both the British Office of Strategic Services and the US Office of Strategic Services. Working as a spy in the intelligence network, she made her way to Vichy, coordinating Resistance movements, assisting in Nazi sabotage, and rescuing downed Allies. She passed in plain sight of the enemy and soon found herself being hunted by the Gestapo. But Virginia cleverly evaded discovery and death, often through bold feats and escapes. Her covert operations, efforts with the Resistance, and risky work as a wireless telegraph operator greatly contributed to the Allies' eventual win.

The Lady Is a Spy: Virginia Hall, World War II Hero of the French Resistance (Scholastic Focus)

3ed01c42-9517-484e-8f4d-82b6ab25013b-1

New Jersey

The Hinge of History

Acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author Craig Shirley delivers a compelling account of 1945, particularly the watershed events in the month of April, that details how America emerged from World War II as a leading superpower. In the long-awaited follow-up to the widely praised December 1941, Craig Shirley's April 1945 paints a vivid portrait of America--her people, faith, economy, government, and culture. The year of 1945 bought a series of watershed events that transformed the country into an arsenal of democracy, one that no longer armed the world by necessity but henceforth protected the world by need. At the start of 1945, America and the rest of the world were grieving millions of lives lost in the global conflict. As President Roosevelt was sworn into his fourth term, optimism over an end to the bloody war had grown--then, in April, several events collided that changed the face of the world forever: the sudden death of President Roosevelt followed by Harry S. Truman's rise to office; Adolph Hitler's suicide; and the horrific discoveries of Dachau and Auschwitz. Americans doubled down on their completion of the atomic bomb and their plans to drop them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the destruction ultimately leading the Japanese Empire to surrender on V-J day and ending World War II for good. Combining engaging anecdotes with deft research and details that are both diminutive and grand, April 1945 gives readers a front-row seat to the American stage at the birth of a brand-new world.

April 1945

04f1b944-b1a8-49b5-82a2-083729197e86-1

This heroic true story of the three youngest children of a bourgeois Catholic family who worked together in the French Resistance is told by an American writer who has known and admired the family for five decades  

In the autumn of 1943, André Boulloche became de Gaulle’s military delegate in Paris, coordinating all the Resistance movements in the nine northern regions of France only to be betrayed by one of his associates, arrested, wounded by the Gestapo, and taken prisoner. His sisters carried on the fight without him until the end of the war. André survived three concentration camps and later became a prominent French politician who devoted the rest of his life to reconciliation of France and Germany. His parents and oldest brother were arrested and shipped off on the last train from Paris to Germany before the liberation, and died in the camps. Since then, silence has been the Boulloches’s answer to dealing with the unbearable. This is the first time the family has cooperated with an author to recount their extraordinary ordeal.

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

In the autumn of 1943, Andre Boulloche became de Gaulle's military delegate in Paris, coordinating all the Resistance movements in the nine northern regions of France only to be betrayed by one of his associates, arrested, wounded by the Gestapo, and taken prisoner. His sisters carried on the fight without him until the end of the war. Andre survived three concentration camps and later became a prominent French politician who devoted the rest of his life to reconciliation of France and Germany. His parents and oldest brother were arrested and shipped off on the last train from Paris to Germany before the liberation, and died in the camps. Since then, silence has been the Boulloches's answer to dealing with the unbearable. This is the first time the family has cooperated with an author to recount their extraordinary ordeal.

The Cost of Courage

17790dd7-8978-4dd4-8a39-de1986f79bfb-1

Oregon

Milkweed

Heather Morris

A Novel

From the author of the multi-million copy bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz comes a new novel based on an incredible true story of love and resilience. Her beauty saved her — and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival. When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was send to Auschwitz when she was stil a child? In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions. Confronting death and terror daily, Cilka discovers a strength she never knew she had. And when she begins to tentatively form bonds and relationships in this harsh, new reality, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love. From child to woman, from woman to healer, Cilka's journey illuminates the resilience of the human spirit—and the will we have to survive.

Cilka's Journey

77090f10-7f87-43b0-99b3-b568c011dfaf-1

Mary Doria Russell

Missouri

Set in Italy during the dramatic finale of World War II, this new novel is the first in seven years by the bestselling author of "The Sparrow" and "Children of God." High school & older.

A Thread of Grace

32242a2d-468a-48b9-85cf-9db842d6797f-1

#hardcover #ya #realisticfiction #holocaust #youngadult #contempoary

In the vein of the classic The Wave and inspired by a real-life incident, this riveting novel explores discrimination and antisemitism and reveals their dangerous impact. SENIOR YEAR. When an assignment given by a favorite teacher instructs a group of students to argue for the Final Solution, a euphemism used to describe the Nazi plan for the genocide of the Jewish people, Logan March and Cade Crawford are horrified. Their teacher cannot seriously expect anyone to complete an assignment that fuels intolerance and discrimination. Logan and Cade decide they must take a stand. As the school administration addressed the teens' refusal to participate in the appalling debate, the student body, their parents, and the larger community are forced to face the issue as well. The situation explodes, and acrimony and anger result. What does it take for intolerance, justice, and love to prevail?

The Assignment

4ab5b0f3-002f-4254-9afc-a4e8f0fd8b61-1

John Cornwell

The Pope, the People, and the Fate of Catholicism

"Breaking Faith addresses issues that range from the core concepts of everyday practice to the organization of the Church worldwide - the "graying" of the priesthood, the growing discontent among women religious, the determination of the hard-line conservative movement to close ranks against any hint of dissent - and finally, the power of Rome, the role of the Pope, and the lasting effects of John Paul II's autocratic rule."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Breaking Faith

bd844c7b-c8e6-4ebb-b7a1-efa7aa724b64-0

Norman Davies

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

The Battle for Warsaw

In August 1944, Warsaw presented the last major obstacle to the Red Army’s triumphant march from Moscow to Berlin. When the Wehrmacht was pushed back to the Vistula River, the Polish Resistance poured forty thousand fighters into the streets to drive out the hated Germans. But Stalin halted the Russian offensive, allowing the Wehrmacht to regroup and destroy the city. For sixty-three days Soviet troops and other Allied forces watched from the sidelines as tens of thousands of Poles were slaughtered and Warsaw was reduced to rubble.Like Antony Beevor’s bestselling The Fall of Berlin, Rising ’44is a brilliant narrative of one of the most dramatic episodes in twentieth-century history.

Rising '44

cad2de9b-9343-4d6c-94ab-785a3f09d7cf-1

Tobias Buck

Texas

The Holocaust on Trial in the 21st Century

The gripping narrative of one of the last Nazi criminal trials in Germany--that of Bruno Dey, a 93-year-old former concentration camp guard charged with accessory to the murder of more than 5,000 people--and a larger exploration of Germany's reckoning with the Holocaust, from silence to memory to today's rising tide of fascism and antisemitism. Bruno Dey's trial surfaced at a pivotal moment for Germany and its thinking about the Nazi genocide. The Holocaust continues to occupy a crucial space in German public life, but country's near-universal commitment to Vergangenheitsbewältigung (dealing with the past through commemoration and atonement) has recently showed signs of fraying. This reflects in part the passage of time, and the fact that the last surviving witnesses--victims and perpetrators alike--are rapidly fading away. But it's also the result of profound changes in German politics and society. The far-right has made electoral gains and is openly challenging the country's consensus around the Holocaust. At the same time, there is a small but vociferous group of intellectuals on the left who question Germany's memory culture from a different angle, asking whether the Holocaust was indeed a singular crime. What does the Holocaust mean for the country's new Muslim citizens from Syria and Afghanistan, many of whom arrived with their own traumas? Final Verdict investigates questions that touch not just on German history, politics, and memory culture, but also on the author's own family history. Buck revisits the silence that surrounds his own family's experiences--and culpability--during the Nazi period. In the face of rising anti-Semitism in Germany, the United States, and globally, Final Verdict examines whether remembrance can bear the weight of warning and witness to prevent future atrocities.

Final Verdict

29798f17-ee2c-45ef-b78c-64683aaae107-1

New York

Holocaust

David A. Adler

Children of the Holocaust

Hilde Rosenzweig was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1923. As a young child, she loved to ride her tricycle and play with dolls. Eli Laz was born in Zarich, Czechoslovakia in 1932. He studied hard in school and loved animals. Both were children during the early years of Nazi rule in Germany. They were among the one-and-a-half million Jewish children who were victims of the Holocaust. This is their story.

Hilde and Eli

fb453a46-e61f-44e9-b0ac-1d6b1c8af3df-0

Book is in great condition with no markings or highlights. 

#hardcover #jewishcatastrophe #holocaust #jews #Hilberg #bookscoffeelove 

Pennsylvania

The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945

A narrative of the Nazis' destruction of European Jewry in the twentieth century discusses the victims, the killers, and those who saw but did nothing. By the author of The Destruction of the European Jews. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders

dffbb817-8a3a-4caf-a1cd-0dc007d1da00-1

Anita Diamant

Michigan

A tale inspired by the post-Holocaust experience is set in an immigrant holding camp in 1945 Palestine, where four women, refugees from Nazi Europe, find healing in the bonds of friendship that are forged while recounting their losses.

Day after Night

6c0f1498-9065-45a5-b64f-6a82c06b8acb-1

#hardcover #auschwitz #holocaust #nonfiction #truestory #worldwar #war #youngadult 

Illinois

In short, poignant chapters, Elly Gross beautifullyand plainly tells us her gripping personal history.A happy childhood soon turned into terror andtragedy when the Nazi regime began persecutingJewish families like Elly's. We are taken intothe depths of horror, into Auschwitz itself, asElly describes her everyday struggles to survive.Though wracked by the pain of losing her family,Elly was able to cling to hope and begin a new lifein America. And indeed, her book is infused withhope--her lyrical poetry, a heartfelt essay fromher daughter, and an afterword explaining Elly'sinvolvement in Steven Spielberg's Survivorsof the Shoah Visual History Foundation anda lawsuit against Volkswagen round out thismemoir. An important work for any age.

Elly - My True Story of the Holocaust

70d00de4-cfba-4a59-b311-77ce638df1b5-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #history #jewishhistory #holocaust

Huge Hardcover (6 to 8 lbs)

Facing the Holocaust

Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

"We were both small nations whose existence could never be taken for granted," Vaclav Havel said of the Czechs and the Jews of Israel in 1990, and indeed, the complex and intimate link between the fortunes of these two peoples is unique in European history. This book, by one of the world's leading authorities on the history of Czech and Slovak Jewry during the Nazi period, is the first to thoroughly document this singular relationship and to trace its impact, both practical and profound, on the fate of the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia during the Holocaust.


Livia Rothkirchen provides a detailed and comprehensive history of how Nazi rule in the Czech lands was shaped as much by local culture and circumstances as by military policy. The extraordinary nature of the Czech Jews' experience emerges clearly in chapters on the role of the Jewish minority in Czech life; the crises of the Munich agreement and the German occupation, the reaction of the local population to the persecution of the Jews, the policies of the London-based government in exile, the question of Jewish resistance, and the special case of the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto. The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia is based on a wealth of primary documents, many uncovered only after the 1989 November Revolution. With an epilogue on the post-1945 period, this richly woven historical narrative supplies information essential to an understanding of the history of the Jews in Europe.

The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia

06fde337-439b-42ec-a382-38119da35ff8-1

Joshua M. Greene

Deborah E. Lipstadt

Siggi B. Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend

Winner – Best of Los Angeles Award's "Best Holocaust Book - 2021" “A must-read that hopefully will be adapted for the screen. Greene lets Wilzig’s effervescent spirit shine through, and his story will appeal to a wide variety of readers.” - Library Journal Unstoppable is the ultimate immigrant story and an epic David-and-Goliath adventure. While American teens were socializing in ice cream parlors, Siggi was suffering beatings by Nazi hoodlums for being a Jew and was soon deported along with his family to the darkest place the world has ever known: Auschwitz. Siggi used his wits to stay alive, pretending to have trade skills the Nazis could exploit to run the camp. After two death marches and near starvation, he was liberated from camp Mauthausen and went to work for the US Army hunting Nazis, a service that earned him a visa to America. On arrival, he made three vows: to never go hungry again, to support the Jewish people, and to speak out against injustice. He earned his first dollar shoveling snow after a fierce blizzard. His next job was laboring in toxic sweatshops. From these humble beginnings, he became President, Chairman and CEO of a New York Stock Exchange-listed oil company and grew a full-service commercial bank to more than $4 billion in assets. Siggi’s ascent from the darkest of yesterdays to the brightest of tomorrows holds sway over the imagination in this riveting narrative of grit, cunning, luck, and the determination to live life to the fullest.

Unstoppable

8556c73d-01a9-463a-8c15-a534314cf596-1

The Yellow Bird Sings

Is the chance to serve as an extra for Hitler's favorite filmmaker a chance at life - or a detour on the path to inevitable extermination?One ordinary afternoon, fifeen-year-old Lilo and her family are suddenly picked up by Hitler's police and imprisoned as part of the "Gypsy plague." Just when it seems certain that they will be headed to a labor camp, Lilo is chosen by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to work as a film extra. Life on the film set is a bizarre alternate reality. The surroundings are glamorous, but Lilo and the other extras are barely fed, closely guarded, and kept in a locked barn when not on the movie set. And the beautiful, charming Riefenstahl is always present, answering the slightest provocation with malice, flaunting the power to assign prisoners to life or death. Lilo takes matters into her own hands, effecting an escape and running for her life. In this chilling but ultimately uplifting novel, Kathryn Lasky imagines the lives of the Gypsies who worked as extras for the real Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, giving readers a story of survival unlike any other.

The Extra

3d58a6fa-42c9-4468-81c0-2e0cf4de6f83-1

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Ohio

A Novel of Immigration and Survival, 1938-1942

It's 1938, and twelve-year-old Edith is about to move from the tiny German village she's lived in all her life to a place that seems as foreign as the moon: Chicago, Illinois. And she will be doing it alone. This dramatic and chilling novel about one girl's escape from Hitler's Germany was inspired by the experiences of the author's mother, one of twelve hundred children rescued by Americans as part of the One Thousand Children project.

This title has Common Core connections.

Is It Night or Day? is a 2011 Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Renia Spiegel; Elizabeth Bellak (Contribution by); Sarah Durand (Contribution by); Deborah Lipstadt (Introduction by)

Renia's Diary

Alice Hoffman

The World That We Knew ♻️ (Last Chance!)

Don Mitchell

The Lady Is a Spy: Virginia Hall, World War II Hero of the French Resistance (Scholastic Focus)

Craig Shirley

April 1945

Charles Kaiser

The Cost of Courage

Jerry Spinelli

Milkweed

Heather Morris

Cilka's Journey

Mary Doria Russell

A Thread of Grace

Liza Wiemer

The Assignment

John Cornwell

Breaking Faith

Norman Davies

Rising '44

Tobias Buck

Final Verdict

Gerald Green

Holocaust

David A. Adler

Hilde and Eli

Heather Morris

Cilka's Journey

Raul Hilberg

Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders

Anita Diamant

Day after Night

Elly Berkovits Gross

Elly - My True Story of the Holocaust

Livia Rothkirchen

The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia

Joshua M. Greene; Deborah E. Lipstadt

Unstoppable

Jennifer Rosner

The Yellow Bird Sings

Kathryn Lasky

The Extra

Heather Morris

Cilka's Journey

Fern Schumer Chapman

NEW: Is It Night or Day?