Jewish Adult Fiction


Showing 1 - 20 of 22  There are a total of 305 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Beyond the wire"
Star rating for Beyond the wire
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"October 1944: In the long, narrow undressing rooms in Auschwitz-Birkenau, prisoner Jakub Bak toils under the scrutiny of SS guards. Like other members of the Sonderkommando, Jakub was selected on arrival for an unthinkable job: sorting through the clothes of the dead and moving their bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoriums. In this hell within a hell, Jakub clings to the promise he made to his murdered father--to live, at any cost--and to...
Book cover for "The book of Aron"
Star rating for The book of Aron
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Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Aron, one of the children of the Warsaw Ghetto who smuggle and trade things through the "quarantine walls" to keep their people alive, is rescued by a Jewish-Polish doctor who instills within him the importance of revealing to the world the atrocities they have all suffered.
Book cover for "The books of Jacob, or, A fantastic journey across seven borders, five languages, and three major religions, not counting the minor sects"
Star rating for The books of Jacob, or, A fantastic journey across seven borders, five languages, and three major religions, not counting the minor sects
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"In the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas ... begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires with throngs of disciples in his...
Book cover for "City of laughter"
Star rating for City of laughter
Description:
"A rich and riveting debut marrying centuries-old folklore to twenty-first-century queer literary fiction, City of Laughter spans four generations of Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years. Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an eighteenth century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to bring laughter to the...
Book cover for "The Death's Head chess club"
Star rating for The Death's Head chess club
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
"A novel of the improbable friendship that arises between a Nazi officer and a Jewish chessplayer in Auschwitz SS Obersturmfuhrer Paul Meissner arrives in Auschwitz from the Russian front wounded and fit only for administrative duty. His most pressing task is to improve camp morale and he establishes a chess club, and allows officers and enlisted men to gamble on the games. Soon Meissner learns that chess is also played among the prisoners, and there...
Book cover for "Eli's promise"
Star rating for Eli's promise
Average Rating:
1 stars
Description:
"A "fixer" in a Polish town during World War II, his betrayal of a Jewish family, and a search for justice 25 years later--by the winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Eli's Promise is a masterful work of historical fiction spanning three eras--Nazi-occupied Poland, the American Zone of post-war Germany, and Chicago at the height of the Vietnam War. Award-winning author Ronald H. Balson explores the human cost of war, the mixed blessings of survival,...
Book cover for "The ghetto within"
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Description:
"A critical sensation in France, Santiago Amigorena re-imagines his Jewish grandfather--a Polish immigrant in Argentina in the 1930s--and the tragic events that defined his life as he fails to rescue his mother and siblings from a Warsaw ghetto in this novel about identity, guilt, and the unshakable power of love"--
Book cover for "The good doctor of Warsaw"
Star rating for The good doctor of Warsaw
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Set in the ghettos of wartime Warsaw, this is a sweeping, poignant, and heartbreaking novel inspired by the true story of one doctor who was determined to protect two hundred Jewish orphans from extermination. Deeply in love and about to marry, students Misha and Sophia flee a Warsaw under Nazi occupation for a chance at freedom. Forced to return to the Warsaw ghetto, they help Misha's mentor, Dr Janusz Korczak, care for the two hundred children in...
Book cover for "In the land of armadillos"
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Description:
"A ... debut collection of linked stories from a two-time Pushcart nominee set in the German-occupied town of Wlodawa, Poland, where mythic tales of Jewish folklore meet the real-life monsters of the Nazi invasion"--
Book cover for "Irena's war"
Star rating for Irena's war
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"September 1939: The conquering Nazis swarm through Warsaw as social worker Irena Sendler watches in dread from her apartment window. Already, the city's poor go hungry. Irena wonders how she will continue to deliver food and supplies to those who need it most, including the forbidden Jews. The answer comes unexpectedly. Dragged from her home in the night, Irena is brought before a Gestapo agent, Klaus Rein, who offers her a position running the city's...
Book cover for "The kommandant's girl"
Star rating for The kommandant's girl
Author:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Becoming a spy for the resistance after the Nazi's invade Poland, Emma Bau, taking on a new identity as a gentile, becomes a high-ranking Nazi official's assistant and, leading a double life, compromises her marriage vows, her safety, and the lives of those she loves for the cause.
Book cover for "The lost shtetl"
Star rating for The lost shtetl
Author:
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"For over fifty years the tiny Jewish shtetl of Kreskol has existed virtually untouched and unchanged. Spared of the Holocaust and Cold War, Kreskol has enjoyed an isolated peace. But when a marriage dispute spirals out of control, Kreskol is suddenly rediscovered and brought into the 21st century"--
Book cover for "The midwife of Auschwitz"
Star rating for The midwife of Auschwitz
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Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Ana Kaminski is pushed through the iron gates of Auschwitz beside her frightened young friend Ester Pasternak. As they reach the front of the line, Ana steps forward and quietly declares herself a midwife--and Ester her assistant. Their arms are tattooed and they're ordered to the maternity hut. Holding an innocent new-born baby, Ana knows the fate of so many are in her hands, and vows to do everything she can to save them. When two guards in their...
Book cover for "Mischling"
Star rating for Mischling
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
It's 1944 when the twin sisters arrive at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and shared games of their childhood. As part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, the girls experience privileges and horrors unknown to others, and they find themselves changed, stripped of the...
Book cover for "Once we were brothers"
Star rating for Once we were brothers
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"The gripping tale about two boys, once as close as brothers, who find themselves on opposite sides of the Holocaust. Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and wealthy philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, "the butcher of Zamosc." Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser, Ben Solomon, is convinced he is right. Solomon persuades...
Book cover for "Poland, a green land"
Star rating for Poland, a green land
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"A Tel Aviv shopkeeper visits his parents' Polish birthplace in an attempt to come to terms with their complex legacy-and is completely unprepared for what he finds there. Yaakov Fine's practical wife and daughters are baffled by his decision to leave his flourishing dress shop for a ten-day trip to his family's ancestral village in Poland. Struggling to emerge from a midlife depression, Yaakov is drawn to Szydowce, intrigued by the stories he'd heard...
Book cover for "Schindler's list"
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The story of a Catholic war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who risked his life and went bankrupt in order to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps. He employed Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army. At the same time he tries to stay solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant and negotiates business with a vicious Nazi commandant who enjoys shooting Jews as target practice from the balcony...
Book cover for "The tattooist of Auschwitz"
Star rating for The tattooist of Auschwitz
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism--but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion....
Book cover for "The teacher of Warsaw"
Star rating for The teacher of Warsaw
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"International bestselling author Mario Escobar captures the strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of kindness in this moving novel based on the true story of a brave Polish teacher who cared for hundreds of orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto"--
Book cover for "The Warsaw orphan"
Star rating for The Warsaw orphan
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Set during World War II in Poland, a novel based on real-life heroes follows Elzbieta Rabinek over the course of the war, her involvement with the Resistance, and her love for a young man imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto whose passion leads him to fight in the Warsaw Uprising.