Holocuast books for young adults

Gold Member Joined: Nov 22 2006 Posts: 1733

hi guys... I hope this is in the right section.. iy"h next yr I will b teaching a 1x a week class about the holocaust to 12th grade kiruv students.. im very excited.. I want them to do a book report and need to compile a list of books for them to choose from.. maybe you can help .. this is what I have so far

The Youngest partisan
the warsaw ghetto diaries
the diary of ann frank
operation Torah rescue..

what else?
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Posted: Wed, Jun 25 2008, 9:30 pm Post subject:

Alone in the forest is great
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Gold Member Joined: Mar 08 2008 Posts: 2200

Counterfeit Lives
Sisters in a Storm
To Vanquish a Dragon
Lidingo
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Gold Member Joined: Nov 22 2006 Posts: 1733

I know not everyone has time but do u mind writing a bit abt. each book cuz I wont have time to read them all b"h my twins keep me quite busy

The Wall by John Hersey (about the Waraw Ghetto uprising)

the Maus books

The Night trilogy by Elie Wiesel

To Vanquish the Dragon - by Pearl Beinisch - Publisher: Feldheim

The stirring memoir of the courage and strength of Beth Jacob students and the acts of kindness and heroism they performed even while caught between the jaws of the Nazi monster. In the ghettos and in the concentration camps, the fire of Torah and faith burned strong and clear in the hearts of these young martyrs and survivors.

The Klausenberger Rebbe Vol 1 - The War Years
by Aharon Surasky / Translated by: Judah Lifschitz

The life story of Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, zt"l , is an inspiration to all. In this scrupulously researched and beautifully written biography, we meet this towering giant, whose faith in the face of the overwhelming adversity of the Holocaust will uplift and inspire all to reach for greater spiritual heights.

Go, My Son - By Chaim Shapiro - publ. Feldheim
The true story of a yeshiva student's adventure-filed odyssey through both war-torn Europe and Asiatic Russia. The author describes his many dramatic, and sometimes humorous encounters, as he flees from the Nazis, in a vivid and engrossing personal memoir.

Lieutenant Birnbaum - By Meyer Birnbaum Yonason Rosenblum (Artscroll)
A soldier's story. Growing up Jewish in America, liberating the D.P. camps, and a new home in Jerusalem

LIDINGO - by Chana Mantel (ed. Machon Yachdav / Feldheim):
The small Swedish island of Lidingo became a haven for the homeless, shattered girls saved from the ravages of the Holocaust. There they received the warmth, love, and Jewish education they so desperately needed in order to rebuild thieir lives. A beautifully written historical account of chilling memoirs, poignant recollections of the past, and stories of the healing years in Lidingo.

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The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 (Paperback) - by Wladyslaw Szpilman (again, the hero is not frum and the risk is that your students will base themselves on the movie instead of the book).

Schindler´s List is a must, but really too long to read. When the movie came out, I remember schools sent their students with whole busloads to go and see it - at least in Europe. Very moving.

The Maus Books : two volume "comics" about the Holocaust, but from the point of view of an old man whose only son, the writer, smokes non-stop and lives with a goya. A classic for non jews but I wouldn´t study it with jews.

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As an extra material about the Holocaust, about frum jews - since most stories of the holocaust are told by non-frum survivors, not much people know stories about frum jews who survived or not - I recommend following books, maybe not as a reading material, but certainly to show and at the disposal of the students for consultation in class:

Hasidic tales of the holocaust (Yaffa Eliach)
In the extensive literature on the Holocaust, this is a unique book. Through it we can attain a glimpse of the victims' inner life and spiritual resources. Yaffa Eliach has done a superb job." -- Jehuda Reinharz

Shema Yisrael - Testimonies of devotion, courage and self-sacrifice (Targum/Feldheim)
With black and white images inside too.
Compiled under the auspices of the Kaliver Rebbe Shlita, himself a survivor of Hitler's inferno, it is a collection of more than five hundred first-person accounts of mesiras nefesh, self-sacrifice under the most dire conditions.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

wow sho, with pictures and all!

I won't do such a fancy job.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

They Called Me Frau Anna" by Chana Marcus Banet (CIS) is the breathtaking account of one valiant Jewish woman and her struggle to save her two small children in the midst of the blazing inferno that was consuming her family and her people. With false identification papers, she wanders from town to town seeking shelter and food for herself and children, always in fear of discovery and betrayal. In episode after hair-rising episode, guided by an unmistakable hashgachah pratis, she manages to elude capture, only to find herself back on the street in search of a new hiding place.

Finally, she finds refuge in Krakow as a housekeeper for Dr. Helmut Sopp, a high-ranking Nazi official who is eventually imprisoned as a war criminal. After earning the respect of Sopp ands his wife Toni, she is allowed to bring her children to stay with her, but her harrowing experiences continues, taking a new dimension as she must constantly deflect the suspicions of the numerous Nazis she comes into contact with in the course of her duties.

Through all her tragedy and heartbreak, she finds in herself deep reservoirs of faith and fortitude that help her keep alive a tiny spark of hope and sanity in her darkest hours.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

SHATTERED CRYSTALS BY MIA AMALIA KANNER (CIS)

the inspiring story of a courageous woman who with steadfast faith in heaven, refused to despair. Taking unbelievable risks, she fought for her own life and that of her family and friends.

After enduring the Nazis in Germany for six years she managed to escape to France where she outwitted their French collaborators as well, becoming one of a handful of survivors of one of France’s most notorious transit camps.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

Behind the Ice Curtain by Dina Gabel (CIS) relates the saga of these exiles. Adrift in an inhospitable land, battling hunger and cold, conscripted into forced labor, constantly in terror of the K.G.B., these people suffered the dual trauma of their own struggle for survival and the anxiety over the fate of their loved ones who had fallen into the grasp of the Germans.

But in the end, they were the fortunate ones who, for the most part, survived to participate in the rejuvenation of the Jewish people.

On a more personal level, Behind the Ice Curtain is the story of an aristocratic young woman who is deported to Siberia together with her mother following the arrest of her beloved father by the Russians. The book begins with a poignant description of her home and family prior to the war, including many warm and vivid vignettes of theChafetz Chaim, Reb Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, Reb Elchanan Wasserman and many other rabbanim and roshe yeshivah with whom her father maintained a close personal relationship. But as the war begins we are presented with vivid images of a different sort, of unwelcome strangers in a harsh land, of chilling encounters with the dreaded K.G.B. of ten thousand women conscripted to build a railroad across the vast, frozen steppes, of the numbing isolation from the rest of the world, like islands in an endless ocean of snow and of a gallant young woman, steadfast in her devotion to Torah and mitzvos, who would not allow her spirit to be crushed.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

ALONE IN THE FOREST BY MALA KARENBERG (CIS)

the extraordinary story of a young girl’s heroic survival in the hostile world of Polish peasants, villagers and forest people.

SOMEDAY WE'LL BE FREE by Leibel Sanik (CIS)

For young Leibel Sanik, the prosperous Polish city ofPiotrkow was like a paradise on earth. The Sanik family lived in a spacious and well-appointed apartment which glowed with the warmth of hospitality joy. Life was secure, comfortable and immensely fulfilling, until German bombs began to fall on the fateful first day of September, 1939.

Someday We'll Be Free is the story of the disintegration of Leibel's beloved world. Through his incredulous eyes, we see the instinctive flight in search of a safe haven that did not exist. We see the return to Piotrkow with its harsh new realities of ghetto life and forced labor. We see the demise of the family, one by one, until only young Leibel and his brother survive the liquidation of Piotrkow and the deportation to the concentration camps.

In many ways, Leibel's story mirrors the experiences of many other holocaust survivors. What makes this memoir remarkable, however, is its intense focus on the endless battle against hunger, thirst, cold, disease and exhaustion and on the gradual reduction of existence to its most basic elements, bread, water and life. The tortured Jewish prisoners, shadows of human beings, clung to every moment of agony-filled life as if it were the most precious thing in the world, thinking only about the next piece of bread, the next drink of water, the next moment of life.

ITZIK, BE STRONG! by Yitzchok Pomerantz (CIS)

Itzik, Be Strong, is the story of a yeshivah bachur from a small town on the outskirts of Warsaw, whose family was uprooted from its home and driven into exile in the Russian zone. The oppressive Communist regime, however, proved less than hospitable for Jews devoted to the Torah. With Vilna and its yeshivos beckoning to him, Itzik decided to steal across the border into Lithuania. But it was not to be. The time for easy entry into Lithuania had passed. The Russians were now guarding the border closely, and Itzik's ill-fated dash for freedom turned into the start of a long imprisonment and exile.

Devastated, his family watched as he was sent off to begin a five-year sentence of backbreaking labor in Siberia, with his physical and spiritual survival highly in question. But how was one to know that he was in fact the fortunate one, that most Jews who remained in Poland would perish at the hands of the Nazis?

When the amnesty for Polish prisoners was finally declared, Itzik was set free, free to join countless other refugees wandering across the vast expanses of Russia in search of a crust of bread, free to pass endless days in lonely isolation, not knowing if he had a family and home to which to return.

But even this freedom did not last for long. With the war at a critical stage, all able bodied young men were drafted into the Russian army, and the young yeshivah student, after acquitting himself well in his training, became a sergeant in the artillery.

Itzik, Be Strong is the story of a determined young man who, despite torture, starvation and exile, stays true to his ideals and steadfast in his conviction that Heaven would protect him no matter what the future had to offer.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

Dare to Survive, the third volume in The Holocaust Diaries (CIS), is the amazing and deeply inspiring memoir of Chaim Shlomo Friedman, a young Belzer chassid from Cracow who survived the holocaust through a combination of resourcefulness, cunning, tenacity, sheer endurance and an indomitable spirit buttressed by unshakable faith.

His powerful narrative, written with deep humility and a very convincing authenticity, evokes countless disturbing images of a world gone mad. Flight along refugee-choked roads. Running through the fields before a hail of German bullets. Conscription into forced labor battalions. Frightening arrests and brutal beatings in the heavily guarded ghettos. Concealment in makeshift bunkers during murderous ghetto liquidations. Hazardous midnight flights across the mountains. False senses of security in Slovakia and Hungary as late as 1944.

And throughout this interminable ordeal, the author is strengthened, inspired and consoled by his faith in the Creator and his adherence to the holy Torah. Dare to Survive also features vignettes of the author's personal encounters with the saintly Belzer Rebbe, who was constantly being moved from one precarious hiding place to another by his devoted chassidim, as well as a first-hand account of the Rebbe's dramatic escape from Poland, an audacious operation in which the author played a major role.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

COUNTERFEIT LIVES by Avraham Krakowsky (CIS), is the incredible story of a young man who was deported to Auschwitz and did not know what to expect from the future. But then he was chosen as a part of a specially selected group of thirty-one prisoners to be sent off for a special assignment.

Their destination was the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Every man who was drafted into this ultra secret operation knew that he would never be allowed to leave that camp alive.

Read this book about the miraculous events that led to the author’s survival.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

"Sisters in the Storm," the fifth volume in "The Holocaust Diaries," by Anna Eilenberg (CIS) is set primarily in the ghetto of Lodz, Poland, one of the largest, most vibrant Jewish communities of pre-war Europe. It tells the dramatic story of a sheltered young girl who lived through the heartbreak of the ghetto and was eventually deported to Auschwitz.

"Sisters in the Storm" begins in Lodz during the fading peace when the author was little more than a child, a time when the sounds of Torah and tefillah and animated conversation reverberated through the teeming Jewish streets of Lodz. Then the Nazi juggernaut struck. The roseate hues of the author's sheltered life exploded into shock, violence and desperation, but she responded with resourcefulness and courage remarkable for a girl in her early teens. When the first Germans appeared on the streets of Lodz, she went out to forage for food so that her bearded father and brother could remain out of sight, and when the ghetto walls were erected, she and her sister became the family breadwinners.

When the author and her sister arrived in Auschwitz, they were the only remnants of the family, and they clung to each other with the fierce devotion and selfless sacrifice characteristic of numerous other siblings and close relatives and friends who endured the nightmare together.

In this darkest hour, with the specter of death a constant companion, the instinct for self-preservation was transcended by the finer instincts of humanity, and concern for a sibling, a parent, a child or a close friend became more important than survival itself.

"Sisters in the Storm" is a deeply moving story that provides insight into the thoughts and feelings of all those who passed through the inhuman crucible of German fiendishness, of those who perished and those who survived.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

A Sun and a Shield by Devora Gliksman (Feldheim): through the forests of of Transylvania, the Paneth family of Dej escapes to freedom

The Scarlet Thread by Rivka Feigenbaum Deutsch (Feldheim)
This is the amazing, true story of one family's miraculous rescue from the devastation of the Holocaust. Told with sensitivity, emotion, and indomitable faith in G-d

Shefford by Dr. Judith Grunfeld (Feldheim)
The extraordinary, true story of a Jewish school community in evacuation during World War II, from 1939 until 1945. Written by the esteemed head of London's Jewish Secondary School, who oversaw the evacuation and education of five hundred Jewish schoolchildren in the tiny village of Shefford, England, this book is heartwarming and inspiring.

Gutta Memories of a Vanished World, by Gutta Sternbuch; David Kranzler (Feldheim)
The gripping, poignant, and honest memoir of a Bais Yaakov teacher. The detailed account of Chassidic life in pre-war Poland, the spine-tingling description of the poverty, fear, and the unfailing spiritual heroism, make this account particularly exceptional. With numerous original and rare photographs, and its strikingly readable style, this book tells the tale of the war years with a historical overview.

Twice Buried, Still Alive
Yitzchok Donath's Miraculous Story of Faith and Survival as told to his granddaughter
By Rivky Weinstock

The Unheeded Cry By Abraham Fuchs (Artscroll)

the gripping story of Rabbi Weissmandl, the valiant Holocaust leader who battled both Allied indifference and Nazi hatred.

Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl hatched imaginative plans to save millions of lives, but was thwarted by those who should have helped.

Heroine Of Rescue By Joseph Friedenson / Dr. David Kranzler (Artscroll)

The incredible story of Recha Sternbuch who saved thousands from the Holocaust

The Final Solution Is Life (Artscroll)
A Chassidic Dynasty's Story of Survival and Rebuilding
By Laura Dekelman / Rebbetzin Chana Rubin

This is a story of travails, survival and renaissance. It is the story of the Muzsayer Rebbetzin and her husband, scions of distinguished rabbinic and chassidic families in Hungary, families that exemplified scholarship, piety, generosity and aristocracy of merit.

Going ForwardA true story of courage, hope and perseverence (Artscroll)
By Peska Friedman

Peska Friedman's inspiring odyssey begins in the home of a chassidic rebbe in Poland, continues through the Holocaust, and on to postwar America where she starts life anew.

Beginner Joined: May 04 2008 Posts: 2

"The Book Thief" - Amazing book! Young adult fiction about a German girls during the Holocaust, & a Jewish man her family tried to save. This book is unlike anything else you've ever read--and is one of the best books *I've* ever read.

Tehilla V.

Posted: Thu, Jul 31 2008, 12:11 pm Post subject:

A place we called home

It's about 4 boys who come from different backgrounds, in germany and I think Austria, but all end up in England by the kinder transport and their stories as they go along during the years.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

myfriends715 - did you notice that we responded?

Silver Member Joined: Nov 12 2006 Posts: 534

tell the world -the story of the sobibor revolt by shaindy perl
distributed by Israel book shop
I found it to be an extremely good book to read

Gold Member Joined: Nov 22 2006 Posts: 1733

just bumping this up in case someone has other ideas