Jewish Non-fiction

4.8 stars

"On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women--many of them teenagers--were sent to Auschwitz. Their government...

"On March 28, 1944, six-year-old Tati, her four-year-old sister Andra, and other members of the family were deported to Auschwitz. Their mother Mira was determined to keep track of her girls. After being tattooed with their inmate numbers, she made them memorize her number and told them to "always remember your name." In keeping this promise to their mother, the sisters were able to be reunited with their parents when WWII ended. An unforgettable...

5 stars

"Klara Wizel is full of life at sixteen years old. But a horrific chain of events puts her in one of the most terrifying places imaginable: Auschwitz-Birkenau. There she comes face to face with one of history's most infamous Nazi doctors, nicknamed the Angel of Death, Josef Mengele. With her parents and two of her siblings already killed in the gas chambers, Klara and her two remaining sisters struggle to survive in the women's barracks until Mengele...

5 stars

This autobiography of Canadian Max Eisen details the rural Hungarian deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau, back-breaking slave labour in Auschwitz I, the infamous 'death march' of January 1945, the painful aftermath of liberation, and a journey of physical and psychological healing.

5 stars

A survivor of the Holocaust describes how he learned through his darkest experiences of the human capacity to rise above even the bleakest circumstances, and later used that knowledge to help underprivileged youth in Boston for more than forty years.

4.7 stars

"Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on the Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays...

"Investigative journalist Judy Rakowsky and her elderly cousin Sam, a Holocaust survivor, never knew what happened to their family during the Holocaust. All they knew was that their relatives were hidden away from the Nazis by neighbors, and then they were never heard from again. Over the course of two decades, the two traveled back to Sam's hometown in Poland in search of clues to what became of their lost family-but when they asked questions, doors...

"The "mesmerizing and inspirational" (Judy Batalion) true story of two Holocaust survivors who fell in love in Auschwitz, only to be separated upon liberation and lead remarkable lives apart following the war--and then find each other again more than 70 years later. Zippi Spitzer and David Wisnia were captivated by each other from the moment they first exchanged glances across the work floor. It was the beginning of a love story that could have happened...

"Growing up in the Polish village of Tarnogrod on the fringes of a deep pine forest, Mala Szorer had the happiest childhood she could have hoped for. But at the age of twelve, as the German invasion begins, her beloved village becomes a ghetto and her family and friends reduced to starvation. She takes matters into her own hands and bravely removes her yellow star, risking sneaking out to the surrounding villages to barter for food. It is on her way...

5 stars

In a comic-book-style tale of the author's parents, Vladek and Anja, Vladek survives Auschwitz, is reunited with Anja, and sires young Art An autobiographical and biographical cartoon in which the author explores his strained relationship with his father, an Auschwitz survivor, while also relating the story of his parent's experiences as Jews in wartime Poland, as told to him by his dad during a series of conversations they had years later in New...