autobiography books on the holocaust

Best Sellers in Holocaust Biographies

• ← Previous page
• Next page →

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

• Get tickets
• Accessibility

25 Books About the Holocaust

• Vision, Mission, Public Value Statement, Diversity Statement
• History of the Museum
• Boards & Leadership
• Museum Brochure
• Strategic Plan
• Inclusion Plan
• 25th Anniversary

In celebration of our 25th Anniversary, each month we’ll highlight 25 features from our history. This month, we’re sharing 25 books about the Holocaust, including four memoirs written by local Holocaust Survivors. The majority of the books listed below can all be found in the Boniuk Library collection.

1. Why? Explaining the Holocaust by Peter Hayes

2. when hitler stole pink rabbit by judith kerr, 3. survival in auschwitz by primo levi, 4. ordinary men: reserve police battalion 101 and the final solution in poland by christopher browning, 5. t4: a novel by ann clare lezotte, 6. the diary of a young girl by anne frank, 7. number the stars by lois lowry, 8. the whispering town by jennifer elvgren, 9. but you did not come back: a memoir by marceline loridan-ivens, 10. defying hitler by sebastian haffner, 11. the ravine: a family, a photograph, a holocaust massacre revealed by wendy lower, 12. the eichmann trial by deborah lipstadt, 13. neighbors: the destruction of the jewish community in jedwabne, poland by jan gross, 14. ghettostadt: lodz and the making of a nazi city by gordon j. horwitz, 15. kl: a history of the nazi concentration camps by nikolaus wachsmann, 16. the nightingale: a novel by kristin hannah, 17. between dignity and despair: jewish life in nazi germany by marion kaplan, 18. the book smugglers: partisans, poets, and the race to save jewish treasures from the nazis by david fishman, 19. the book thief by markus zusak, 20. the death of democracy: hitler’s rise to power and the downfall of the weimar republic by benjamin carter hett, 21. the choice by dr. edith eger.

Internationally acclaimed psychologist Dr. Edith Eger shares her powerful story of survival in her memoir.

“At the age of sixteen, Edith Eger, a trained ballet dancer and gymnast, was sent to Auschwitz. Hours after her parents were sent to the gas chamber, the “Angel of Death,” Nazi officer Dr. Josef Mengele, forced Edie to dance for his amusement—and her survival. He rewarded her with a loaf of bread that she shared with her fellow prisoners—an act of generosity that would later save her life.”

MEMOIRS BY LOCAL HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

22. anna’s story by anna steinberger, 23. my dream of freedom: from holocaust to my beloved america by helen colin, 24. my father’s blessings by celina fein, 25. forgive but never forget by ruth steinfeld and cindy levin moulton.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Remembering the Holocaust: 9 Must-Read Memoirs Written by Survivors and Their Families

There are periods in history that redefine what is imaginable. On the 75 th  anniversary of the liberation of Dachau, and a few days before VE Day, we want to highlight nine memoirs that attempt to communicate the seemingly inexpressible: The Holocaust and the scars it left behind. These vivid, unforgettable, and candid accounts grapple with concepts of remembrance and loss, the will to survive in the face of devastation, and the extremes of our own humanity and inhumanity. As memoirs, they struggle to convey what cannot be simply captured by locating the heart of personal experience and combating the impersonal documentation of a depersonalized event.  

An award-winning,  New York Times  bestseller, THE CHOICE details the inspirational journey of Edith Eger’s survival and her life-long process of healing. At the age of sixteen, Edith was sent to Auschwitz where her parents were killed. Upon the camp’s liberation in 1945, a soldier pulled Edie from a pile of corpses. In the years the followed, Edie struggled with survivor’s guilt and only began to forgive herself after revisiting Auschwitz decades later. As Eger meditates on the psychology behind her journey, she shares the stories of other survivors she has since helped heal.    

In her incredible, unforgettable memoir, Dr. Edith Eger chronicles her harrowing experience at Auschwitz at just 16, her path to healing in the years since, and the stories of others she's been able to help along the way. This National Jewish Book Award winner has been rightfully praised for the inspiration that it offers to anyone who's struggling and in need of comfort and hope.

MENTIONED IN:

7 Essential Books to Read on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

By Alice Martin | January 24, 2022

By Alice Martin | April 29, 2020

16 Remarkable Stories by Jewish Authors

By Erin Madison | November 12, 2015

In May 1939, ten-year-old Ivan Backer boarded one of the final  Kindertransport  trains out of Czechoslovakia, bound for the United Kingdom. From this dangerous escape, Ivan went on to spend his boarding school years in England and then journeyed to America in 1944. In the years that followed, Ivan became an award-winning humanitarian and Episcopal priest who continued to grapple with the question of  why   he was  spared from the Holocaust .  In  M Y TRAIN TO FREEDOM ,  Backer’s unforgettable tale is brought together with other historical contexts and harrowing first-person accounts from his family.   

The breathtaking memoir by a member of “Nicky’s family,” a group of 669 Czechoslovakian children who escaped the Holocaust through Sir Nicholas Winton’s Kindertransport project, My Train to Freedom relates the trials and achievements of award-winning humanitarian and former Episcopal priest, Ivan Backer.

As Backer recounts in his memoir, in May of 1939 as a ten-year-old Jewish boy, he fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia for the United Kingdom aboard one of the Kindertransport trains organized by Nicholas Winton, a young London stockbroker. The final train was canceled September 1 when Hitler invaded Poland. The 250 children scheduled for that train were left on the platform and later transported to concentration camps and presumably perished.

Detailed in this page-turning true story is Backer’s dangerous escape, his boyhood in England, his perilous 1944 voyage to America, and his mantra today. Now he is an eighty-six-year-old who remains an activist for peace and justice. He has been influenced by his Jewish heritage, his Christian boarding school education in England, and the always present question, “For what purpose was I spared the Holocaust?”

My Train to Freedom was thoroughly researched and shaped by Backer’s own memories. It includes interviews he conducted in 1980 in Czech with his mother and her sister, later translated into English; a collection of conversations he had with his older brother and cousin; insights gained from the Czech film, Nicky’s Family , about the Kindertransport; and concludes with never-before-published death march accounts by two family members.

Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Before the war,  Jean  Hélion  was a French painter who helped to shape the foundations of modern art. But like many in his generation,  Hélion ’s  life and future w ere  reshaped by the war in which he became a soldier. After  Hélion ’s  platoon was captured by the German army, he was sent to a hard labor, prisoner-of-war camp. In his sensational, bestselling memoir,  T HEY SHALL NOT HAVE ME , he details not only the surreal ism of  life within the camp, but the unbelievable, explosive adventure of his escape from the Nazis.   

A daring story of imprisonment and escape under the Nazi regime and a moving and engrossing symbol of resilience and integrity.

The French painter Jean Hélion’s unique and deeply moving account of his experiences in Nazi prisoner of war camps prefigures the even darker stories that would emerge from the concentration camps. This serious adventure tale begins with Hélion’s infantry platoon fleeing from the German army and warplanes as they advanced through France in the early days of the war. The soldiers chant as they march and run, “They shall not have me!” but are quickly captured and sent to hard labor.

Writing in English in 1943, after his risky escape to freedom in the United States, Hélion vividly depicts the sights, sounds, and smells of the camps, and shrewdly sizes up both captors and captured. In the deep humanity, humor, and unsentimental intelligence of his observations, we can recognize the artist whose long career included friendships with the likes of Mondrian, Giacometti, and Balthus, and an important role in shaping modern art movements. Hélion’s picture of almost two years without his art is a self-portrait of the artist as a man.

In this tale of legacy, remembrance, and the bond between a mother and her daughter, Ann Kirschner lovingly shares the story   her indomi t able mother, Sala, kept a lifelong secret. Sala, who survived five years in seven different Nazi workcamps, moved to America after the war. There, she raised a family and never spoke a word of her horrific  journey, but silently collected letters, diaries, and photographs that documented it. On the eve of heart surgery, she finally shared the materials that would later become this heartbreaking, intimate memoir with her daughter.  

"Ann Kirschner allows her mother's poignant story to emerge from these heartbreaking missives, filling in the gaps with a dignified, quietly eloquent connecting narrative … an incredible journey through hell and back" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

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.

A foundational piece of Holocaust literature,  N IGHT  is the thoughtful and brutal memoir  from  Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.  With unflinching precision, Wiesel recounts his time as a teenager in Nazi death camps, producing a portrait of the nightmarish horrors that became everyday life. Forming the bedrock beneath the narrative, however, are the philosophical and existential questions that haunt both personal experiences and historical remembrances of the Holocaust: How did this happen? What kind of humanity could  have p roduce d  this suffering? And who did we have to be to survive it?   

In Memoriam: 12 Authors We Lost Too Soon in 2016

By Sarah Jane Abbott | December 26, 2016

Finding the Words to Describe a Nightmare

By Pronoy Sarkar | July 31, 2014

A testament to the bonds between wo men,  R ENA’S PROMISE   tells the story of two sisters’ lives together in the Nazi death camps. Rena  Kornreich , after being sent to Auschwitz on the first Jewish transport, reconnects with her sister Danka and is determined to honor her promise to her mother to protect her sister. It is this promise and their bond that keeps Rena going through unimaginable inhumanity. While the memoir focuses on th e bond of sisterhood , it also honors the sometimes fleeting but always life-saving  connects  that  can  form in an instant between strangers during unthinkable times.    

In  F OUR PERFECT PEBBLES , Marion Blumenthal and her family – her mother, father, and brother, Albert – embark on a terrifying, unbelievable  odyssey  through Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. Trapped in Nazi Germany during Marion’s childhood, the family survive s  on scraps only to  make it  to Holland, which was soon occupied by the Nazis. For six and a half years the  Blumenthals  lived in hiding and prison camps,  surviving through love and sheer force of will.  Thi s  moving  memoir traces the story of one family’s survival against all odds.  

Part detective story and part multi-generational saga,  W HEN TIME STOPPED  is Ariana Neumann’s memoir about her father’s incredible survival in 1940s Berlin. Hans Neumann, whose Jewish family members were beginning to perish in the Holocaust, decided that his best chance  at survival was hiding in plain sight in Berlin. Years later, once the war ended and Hans had relocated to Venezuela, he did not share his story with his children but left his daughter clues after his death that would lead her to uncover an  inconceivable  story of horror and bravery.  

In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.

In 1941, the first Neumann family member was taken by the Nazis, arrested in German-occupied Czechoslovakia for bathing in a stretch of river forbidden to Jews. He was transported to Auschwitz. Eighteen days later his prisoner number was entered into the morgue book.

Of thirty-four Neumann family members, twenty-five were murdered by the Nazis. One of the survivors was Hans Neumann, who, to escape the German death net, traveled to Berlin and hid in plain sight under the Gestapo’s eyes. What Hans experienced was so unspeakable that, when he built an industrial empire in Venezuela, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. All his daughter Ariana knew was that something terrible had happened.

When Hans died, he left Ariana a small box filled with letters, diary entries, and other memorabilia. Ten years later Ariana finally summoned the courage to have the letters translated, and she began reading. What she discovered launched her on a worldwide search that would deliver indelible portraits of a family loving, finding meaning, and trying to survive amid the worst that can be imagined.

When Time Stopped is an unputdownable detective story and an epic family memoir, spanning nearly ninety years and crossing oceans. Neumann brings each relative to vivid life. In uncovering her father’s story after all these years, she discovers nuance and depth to her own history and liberates poignant and thought-provoking truths about the threads of humanity that connect us all.

10 True Stories with Narratives So Engrossing They Read Like Novels

By Alice Martin | August 27, 2020

9 Electrifying Reads to Rival Those Moody Summer Thunderstorms

By Hannah Schaffer | July 6, 2020

7 Funny and Feisty Novels about Surviving Difficult Times with Moxie

By Mary Pauline Lowry | April 8, 2020

Helen’s family has mastered the art of secret-keeping. Coping with memories of the Holocaust, her parents have managed to compartmentalize every aspect of their lives, emotions, and memories, and have taught their children the art of self-concealment  as well . Years later, after discovering she’d been disinherited from her mother’s will, Helen begins an exploration into the complex layers of her family’s knotted dynamic  in search of self-revelation and, ultimately,  an  escape from the escapism that kept them all hidden. Caustic, funny, and astute,  T HE ESCAPE ARTIST   is a unique exploration of the Holocaust’s scar tissue.   

A luminous family memoir from the author of the critically acclaimed Boston Globe bestseller, After Long Silence , lauded as “mesmerizing” ( The Washington Post Book World ), “extraordinary” ( The Philadelphia Inquirer ), and “a triumphant work of art” ( Publishers Weekly , starred review).

In the tradition of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home or George Hodgman’s Bettyville , Fremont writes with wit and candor about growing up in a household held together by a powerful glue: secrets. Her parents, profoundly affected by their memories of the Holocaust, pass on, to both Helen and her older sister, a penchant for keeping their lives neatly, even obsessively compartmentalized, and a zealous determination to protect themselves from what they see as danger from the outside world.

She delves deeply into the family dynamic that produced such a startling devotion to secret keeping, beginning with the painful and unexpected discovery that she has been disinherited in her mother’s will. In scenes that are frank, moving, and often surprisingly funny, Fremont writes about growing up in such an intemperate household, with parents who pretended to be Catholics but were really Jews—survivors of Nazi-occupied Poland. She shares tales of family therapy sessions, disordered eating, her sister’s frequently unhinged meltdowns, and her own romantic misadventures as she tries to sort out her sexual identity.

In a family devoted to hiding the truth, Fremont learns the truth is the one thing that can set you free. Scorching, witty, and ultimately redemptive, The Escape Artist is a powerful contribution to the memoir shelf.

8 Must-Read Books If You Love EDUCATED

By Off the Shelf Staff | January 8, 2020

You must be logged in to add books to your shelf.

Please log in or sign up now.

•   Sixteen essential books about the Holocaust

Sixteen essential books about the Holocaust

Our pick of the most informative books about the holocaust to help you learn, reflect and remember..

Here, Journalist Arielle Tchiprout reflects on the importance of remembering the Holocaust, and shares an essential reading list to educate readers on one of the darkest periods of human history. 

It’s easy enough to think that the Holocaust is simply a relic of the past; that it belongs only in history textbooks or in museum displays. Yet, the devastation and destruction it caused lives on today, which is why remembering it is so important.

Of course, you’ll already know what the Holocaust was – the genocide carried out by the Nazis during World War II, in which six million Jews were murdered – but you won’t necessarily know the myriad stories behind those numbers, and the stories of millions more people who managed to survive. Like my grandfather, who ran away from a forced labour camp in Bulgaria in 1945. He kept the yellow star he was forced to wear until he passed away in Israel in his nineties. Or my cousin’s grandparents, who managed to flee Vienna for the United States, after they lost their basic human rights in the place they had called home. Or my colleague, who has no extended family past her grandparents, because they all perished in Auschwitz. It’s hard to find a Jewish person living in Britain today who doesn’t have their own story to tell; often, like mine, it’s a story of luck that their family tree still exists at all. For many second- or third-generation survivors, the trauma lives on inside our hearts.

So although the Holocaust is history, it’s really not so distant. In fact, some survivors are still alive to tell the tale – memoirists like Dr Edith Eger and Eddie Jaku can still recall the horrors with burning clarity. And with the rising tide of antisemitism and fascism around the world, it feels more pertinent than ever to remember those whose lives were stolen (both physically and mentally), to ensure such hatred never seeps so deeply into society again. 

In my opinion, the best way to remember is to immerse yourself in the stories of people who were there. People with hopes and dreams, anxieties and insecurities, humour and resilience; people who loved, were loved and are still loved by those who are living today. Read on for my pick of the best true-story accounts, to learn about the Holocaust. 

The best memoirs and biographies for learning about the Holocaust

A little girl in auschwitz, by lidia maksymowicz.

The extraordinary story of Lidia Maksymowicz , who survived at the hands of Auschwitz's 'Angel of Death' Dr Mengele, A Little Girl in Auschwitz has touched hearts around the world. Brought to the infamous Nazi death camp with her mother when she was just three years old, Lidia experienced unimaginable horror daily, until the camp was liberated in 1945. Through her own words, Lidia tells her moving true story and shares how her experiences have shaped the rest of her life. 

The Happiest Man on Earth

By eddie jaku.

100-year-old Eddie Jaku survived the horrors of Auschwitz, yet he now believes he is the ‘happiest man on Earth.’ Eddie’s inspirational memoir, published last year, tells the story of losing those he loved, but never losing hope, and it’s full of wisdom about finding happiness even in the darkness.

Lily's Promise

By lily ebert.

This is the moving story of Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, written with her great-grandson Dov. When Lily was liberated at the end of the Second World War, a Jewish-American soldier handed her a banknote with the words ‘the start to a new life, good luck and happiness!’ written on it. Decades later, when Lily was 96, Dov decided to track down the family of that soldier. Lily finally told her life story to the world, from her childhood in Hungary to the deaths of her family members in Auschwitz to her new life in Israel and then London, fulfilling the promise she made to her 16-year-old self to share the horrors of the holocaust.

A Mother's Courage

By malka levine.

A powerful and moving tribute to a determined and resourceful woman who refused to give up hope so long as her children needed her. Malka was two when the Nazi invaders forced her family into the Jewish ghetto in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, a small city in present-day Ukraine. Of the 25,000 Jews in the city in 1939, only 30 would survive. Rivka kept Malka and her two older brothers alive through eighteen terrifying months, as the Nazis systematically killed the inhabitants of the ghetto. In the midst of the inhumanity, a few people risked their lives to help. A Mother’s Courage is Malka’s chance at long last to thank not only her brave mum but all the heroes who opened their hearts to her and her family.

How to Be a Refugee

By simon may.

While we often hear stories of those who escaped or perished during the Holocaust, Simon May tells a very different, much rarer story: of those who refused to believe they were Jewish. May tells the gripping story of his mother and his two aunts, whose trajectories included converting to Catholicism and securing ‘Aryan’ status with high-ranking help in the Nazi regime. After the war, May’s mother continued to conceal her identity, leading him on an illuminating quest into what constitutes belonging, and home.

A Garden of Eden in Hell: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer

By melissa muller.

This is the story of Alice Herz-Sommer, who was one of the best-known pianists in Prague. When she, her husband and their six-year-old son were deported to the concentration camp Theresienstadt, music was her salvation, and her concerts gave her fellow prisoners hope in a world of pain and death. 

by Edith Eger

Hungarian-born Edie was just like any other teenager – she dreamed of being a ballerina, and she was head-over-heels in love with her first boyfriend. Until, aged sixteen, she was sent to Auschwitz, where she watched her mother enter the gas chambers, and she was forced to dance for notorious Nazi Dr Josef Mengele. Edie went on to become an acclaimed clinical psychologist, and this is her incredible story of resilience and healing.

Man's Search For Meaning

By viktor e frankl.

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was able to observe the way he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn’t) with the experience. He came to believe that humans’ deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding book (which has sold 16 million copies) transcends its time and place; it’s an exploration of what it truly means to live.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

By heather morris.

This unforgettable book has sold five million copies, and for good reason. Through this fictional account, Heather Morris tells the beautiful true story of Lale Sokolov, whose job in Auschwitz was to tattoo prisoners’ arms. Waiting in line to be tattooed was a young woman named Gita. For Lale it was love at first sight, and he became determined to not only survive himself but to ensure she did too.   

The Diary of a Young Girl

By anne frank.

Anne Frank’s diary has become one of the most famous books about the Holocaust, and it remains one of the most introspective, enlightening accounts of what it was like to be a Jewish child living in hiding. A must-read for both children and adults.

The Little Girl Who Could Not Cry

Lidia Maksymowicz was just three years old when she arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with her family. Once there, Lidia was picked by Dr Josef Mengele for his experiments and survived eighteen months of unimaginable trauma, while her mother risked her life to secretly visit her. By the time Birkenau was liberated her family had disappeared, and Lidia was adopted by a loving family, but in 1962, she discovered that her birth parents were still alive and she faced an agonising choice. In this powerful, moving and ultimately hopeful autobiography, Lidia comes to terms with the past and finds the strength to share her story, saying: ‘Hate only brings more hate. Love, on the other hand, has the power to redeem.’

If This is a Man

By primo levi.

Primo Levi, an Italian chemist, was arrested as a member of the anti-fascist resistance during the war and deported to Auschwitz. His impassioned attempt to understand the 'rationale' behind the concentration camps was completed shortly before his death in 1987. 'The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers . . . One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice.' – The Guardian

Further non-fiction about the Holocaust

Final solution, by david cesarani.

This is an intelligent and thought-provoking short history by one of this generation’s leading Jewish and Holocaust scholars. David Cesarani adopts a rigorously Judeocentric approach to the whole narrative of the march to genocide and its aftermath, presenting a subtly different timeline which casts afresh the horror of the period and engenders a significant re-evaluation of the how and why.

Novels about the Holocaust

The yellow bird sings, by jennifer rosner.

In Poland in 1941, Róza and her five-year-old daughter Shira spend their days and nights hiding in a farmer's barn after escaping being rounded up with the other Jews in their town. Róza tells her daughter stories of a yellow bird, the only one who can sing the melodies Shira composes in her head. Róza would do anything to keep her daughter safe, but eventually, she is faced with an impossible choice – keep her close, or let her go and give her a chance to survive.

The Tobacconist

By robert seethaler.

The Tobacconist tells a deeply moving story of ordinary lives profoundly affected by the Third Reich. Seventeen-year-old Franz accepts an apprenticeship with elderly tobacconist Otto Trsnyek and is soon supplying the great and good of Vienna with their newspapers and cigarettes.

But it is 1937, and in a matter of months Germany will annex Austria and the storm that has been threatening to engulf the little tobacconist store will descend, leaving the lives of Franz, Otto and their customers irredeemably changed.

The Most Precious of Cargoes

By jean-claude grumberg.

Told with a fairytale-like lyricism, this is a fable of family and redemption set against the horrors of the Holocaust. A poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a forest. Despite their poverty and the war raging around them, the wife prays that they will be blessed with a child. 

A Jewish man rides on a train with his wife and twin babies. When his wife no longer has enough milk to feed them both, in desperation he throws his daughter into the forest, hoping that she’ll be saved. When the woodcutter’s wife finds the baby she takes her home, though she knows the danger this act of kindness may bring. This is literary fiction at its most moving. 

You might also be interested in:

In the midst of civilized europe, by jeffrey veidlinger.

Acclaimed historian Jeffery Veidlinger shows for the first time how a wave of genocidal violence gripped Ukraine and Poland between 1918 and 1921, where unpunished attacks on Jewish families and communities set the conditions for the Holocaust twenty years later. 

Drawing upon long-neglected archival materials, including thousands of newly discovered witness testimonies, trial records and official orders, Veidlinger uses riveting prose to explore and grapple with the horrors of the anti-Jewish pogroms in this important work.

You may also like

The best novels set in world war two, the 50 best history books of all time, 3 lessons i learnt from eddie jaku, survivor of auschwitz.

Trending Topics:

• Say Kaddish Daily
• Healing service Mondays at 12:15 ET

10 Holocaust Memoirs You Should Read

These first-person accounts of Jewish survival and resilience during the Holocaust are powerful, educational and moving.

By My Jewish Learning

Since then, hundreds of Holocaust survivors have published memoirs about their experiences. Here are 10 lesser-known memoirs that provide an unparalleled look into the diversity of Jewish experiences during the Holocaust. 

Love In A World Of Sorrow

by Fanya Gottesfeld Heller

The author was 18 when the Nazis invaded her hometown in what is now Ukraine. Heller details the agony of struggling to survive as she and her family were hidden in a cramped space by a Ukrainian soldier who was in love with her. Heller’s account is not only harrowing, but provides a rare glimpse into the myriad of difficult choices that are made in times of persecution. 

Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop .

Monastir Without Jews: Recollections of a Jewish Partisan in Macedonia

by Žamila Kolonomos

Macedonia’s Jewish community was deported in three transports to Treblinka. Kolonomos is one of just a handful who went into hiding and survived. After escaping from the Nazi deportations, she rose through the ranks of Yugoslavia’s Partisan army and recounts her experience as a Jew in the Yugoslav resistance movement. 

Buy now on Amazon .

Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew: An Italian Story

by Dan Vittorio Segre

Born into a Jewish family that supported fascism in Italy, Segre discovers how quickly he is othered when Italy passed its first round of antisemitic laws in 1938. Segre’s comfortable adolescence ends as he flees to a kibbutz in pre-state Israel. Wiesel himself described Segre’s story and his artful retelling of it as a “captivating narrative.”

We Share the Same Sky: A Memoir of Memory & Migration

by Rachael Cerrotti

While this memoir was written by a 20-something, third-generation Holocaust survivor, Cerrotti tells the story of her grandmother, who survived by winning a lottery run by a Zionist youth group. Cerrotti expertly weaves together her grandmother’s diaries and letters from her family back home, creating a “guidebook on how to live a life empowered by grief.” 

The Girl in the Green Sweater

by Krystyna Chiger and Daniel Paisner

Chiger and her family spent more than a year hiding in the sewers of Lvov after most of the city’s 150,000 Jews were deported or murdered by the Nazis. Only seven at the time, Chiger’s recollection of those 14 months spent underground conveys both the evil of the Holocaust and the kindness of non-Jews who helped the family survive. 

When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains

by Ariana Neumann

While traveling in Prague, Neumann happened upon her father’s name on a memorial for Holocaust victims — despite the fact that he was alive at their home in Venezuela. Her father had evaded all questions about his prior life and it was only after his death that Neumann finds papers from that take her on a journey to uncover the horrors of her family’s history. 

The Choice: Embrace the Possible

by Edith Eger

Deported to Auschwitz at 16, Eger struggled with survivor’s guilt for decades following the liberation of the camp and the murder of her parents. After immigrating to the United States and becoming a clinical psychologist, Eger returned to Auschwitz to confront her past and transform her trauma into a tool to help others. 

Jack and Rochelle : A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance

by Jack and Rochelle Sutin 

Jack and Rochelle first met at a dance as adolescents, but the pair did not cross paths again until 1942, when they were hiding from the Nazis in a forest. This memoir weaves together the couple’s love story with powerful accounts of resistance, grief and the will to keep going.

From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back: Memories of a Survivor from Thessaloniki

by Erika Kounio-Amarilio

While the Holocaust is often remembered for devastating Ashkenazi communities in Europe, Kounio-Amarilio’s memoir is a reminder of the Sephardic culture destroyed by the Nazis. The author describes the thriving Jewish life that existed in Thessaloniki and takes the reader on her journey of survival that spanned Greece, Germany, Poland and Yugoslavia. 

The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

by Edith Hahn Beer

Beer was a law student in Vienna when she was sent to a labor camp. A Christian friend aided her in taking on a different identity so she could move to Munich. While the war continued, a Nazi officer proposed and the pair married, even after she confessed her true identity. The author uses personal documents, photographs, memories and poignant observations to take the reader with her through the years spent living in fear and hiding in plain sight.

Buy now on Amazon or Bookshop.com .

Join Our Newsletter

Empower your Jewish discovery, daily

Discover More

The Sephardic Experience During the Holocaust

The Nazis wiped out several major Sephardic population centers and caused the almost complete demise of Ladino culture.

A Timeline of the Holocaust

From Hitler's rise to power to the Nuremberg trials, key events of the Shoah.

Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust

Jews fought back against the Nazis in ghettos, forests and camps.

• NONFICTION BOOKS
• BEST NONFICTION 2023
• BEST NONFICTION 2024
• Historical Biographies
• The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
• Philosophical Biographies
• World War 2
• World History
• American History
• British History
• Chinese History
• Russian History
• Ancient History (up to 500)
• Medieval History (500-1400)
• Military History
• Art History
• Travel Books
• Ancient Philosophy
• Contemporary Philosophy
• Ethics & Moral Philosophy
• Great Philosophers
• Social & Political Philosophy
• Classical Studies
• New Science Books
• Maths & Statistics
• Popular Science
• Physics Books
• Climate Change Books
• How to Write
• English Grammar & Usage
• Books for Learning Languages
• Linguistics
• Political Ideologies
• Foreign Policy & International Relations
• American Politics
• British Politics
• Religious History Books
• Mental Health
• Neuroscience
• Child Psychology
• Film & Cinema
• Opera & Classical Music
• Behavioural Economics
• Development Economics
• Economic History
• Financial Crisis
• World Economies
• Investing Books
• Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
• Data Science Books
• Sex & Sexuality
• Death & Dying
• Food & Cooking
• Sports, Games & Hobbies
• FICTION BOOKS
• BEST NOVELS 2024
• BEST FICTION 2023
• New Literary Fiction
• World Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Literary Figures
• Classic English Literature
• American Literature
• Comics & Graphic Novels
• Fairy Tales & Mythology
• Historical Fiction
• Crime Novels
• Science Fiction
• Short Stories
• South Africa
• United States
• Arctic & Antarctica
• Afghanistan
• Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
• Netherlands
• Kids Recommend Books for Kids
• High School Teachers Recommendations
• Prizewinning Kids' Books
• Popular Series Books for Kids
• BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS (ALL AGES)
• Ages Baby-2
• Books for Teens and Young Adults
• THE BEST SCIENCE BOOKS FOR KIDS
• BEST KIDS' BOOKS OF 2023
• BEST BOOKS FOR TEENS OF 2023
• Best Audiobooks for Kids
• Environment
• Best Books for Teens of 2023
• Best Kids' Books of 2023
• Political Novels
• New History Books
• New Historical Fiction
• New Biography
• New Memoirs
• New World Literature
• New Economics Books
• New Climate Books
• New Math Books
• New Philosophy Books
• New Psychology Books
• New Physics Books
• THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS
• Actors Read Great Books
• Books Narrated by Their Authors
• Best Audiobook Thrillers
• Best History Audiobooks
• Nobel Literature Prize
• Booker Prize (fiction)
• Baillie Gifford Prize (nonfiction)
• Financial Times (nonfiction)
• Wolfson Prize (history)
• Royal Society (science)
• Pushkin House Prize (Russia)
• Walter Scott Prize (historical fiction)
• Arthur C Clarke Prize (sci fi)
• The Hugos (sci fi & fantasy)
• Audie Awards (audiobooks)

Make Your Own List

Nonfiction Books » History Books » Modern History (1800-1945) » World War 2

The best books on the holocaust, recommended by steven katz.

In the years immediately after World War II, the Holocaust was little studied. That all changed with the publication of Raul Hilberg's book, The Destruction of the European Jews. Steven Katz , professor of Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University and former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, introduces the best Holocaust books.    

The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg

Night by Elie Wiesel

Judenrat by Isaiah Trunk

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning

Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto by Emanuel Ringelblum

1 The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg

2 night by elie wiesel, 3 judenrat by isaiah trunk, 4 ordinary men: reserve police battalion 101 and the final solution in poland by christopher browning, 5 notes from the warsaw ghetto by emanuel ringelblum.

Y ou’ve picked books for us to help understand the Holocaust , and your first choice is The Destruction of the European Jews , the landmark study of the Holocaust by Raul Hilberg. This was first published half a century ago, and now runs to three volumes. Can you tell me about it?

He had great difficulty getting it published, but, once it did get published, people saw that it was a subject of enormous historic importance. Also, the way he carried it out – Hilberg, as a young man, had helped do some of the research for the trials at Nuremberg and elsewhere. So, his close knowledge of the huge collection of German documents that had been brought together for those trials just changed the whole landscape. And Raul continued to work on this book for the next 50 years – he only passed away two years ago – and it grew and grew into the present three-volume edition.

And why did he have trouble getting it published?

At that time people did not seem to feel that the Holocaust was a subject that would have a readership, that there was a lot of interest in it. Today we’re so well aware, it’s so much part of the public discourse and the public conversation, but at that time it was a subject that was little talked about in public. The survivors didn’t talk, and the victimisers didn’t talk, so there was a general agreement to push it to the side – both in scholarship and in general conversation.

Is there anything you would point to in the book as being of special significance?

Yes, his method. He was a student at Columbia University, of political science. So his method is that of a political scientist. Also, more importantly, what Raul did was emphasise the German side of the Holocaust. He didn’t study Jewish documents that closely, or look at the behaviour of the victims, at resistance, or anything like that. He went right to the documents he knew from the war trials, and he concentrated on the way the mass murder was organised by the German state, by the Nazis.

He had an eye especially for the issues of bureaucracy and technology, which he thought were the decisive factors that made this a new kind of major crime. What was special here was the use of modern organisational techniques, of which he was a student, to carry out this mass murder.

And no one had focused on that before?

The second book on your list of Holocaust books is Night, a short but extremely powerful book by Elie Wiesel.

This was published by Elie Wiesel and now is probably the best known memoir that has been written about the experience of the death camps. Elie Wiesel was a young boy of 14 when his tiny city, a place called Sighet, mostly Jewish, in what was then the Romania-Hungary borderland, was overrun. You have to remember that until 1944, Hungarian Jewry had been spared the most extreme forms of Nazi violence. But in 44 the situation changed and the Nazis essentially took over much of the organisation of the Jewish population in Hungary. They came into his little town, the shtetl, and they took him and his family. He went to Auschwitz, where his father died. But he survived the war, miraculously.

Then, in the 1950s, he wrote a memoir in Yiddish. It was a very long memoir, too long, and at that time he was living in Paris. He was with some French intellectuals who told him to shorten the volume and to publish a very watered down or limited version in French. Which he did – and the rest is history. It started to be read widely, and it continues to have an enormous impact all over the world. For example, a few years ago in Chicago they chose it as the book of the year that everybody in all the schools read. Also, Oprah Winfrey picked his book, the new translation, for her book club recently. So I would say of all the books that people read about the Holocaust, besides The Diary of Anne Frank , the most famous memoir is by Elie Wiesel.

What do you think makes it so good?

I think the way the personal scenes are described, the telling scene of his father’s death, the characters he is able to draw and portray and this strange twilight life that people lived. All that has enormous emotional power. And he has the craft; he is a novelist and, unlike many memoirs (which are all important and all have information and all shed light), this has a literary kind of quality. He is able to bring to the focus of the reader a deep emotional power, and something also of the mysteriousness of what happened in the camps. There was something here that really reached the limits of human experience.

“There was something here that really reached the limits of human experience”

Next on your list of Holocaust books is Isaiah Trunk’s Judenrat , about the Jewish councils in the ghettos.

There is always a discussion and emphasis in films and in various kinds of public conversation about the role of the Germans: What did Hitler order? Why was Hitler obsessed with the Jews? Why did the Third Reich do what it did in the way of anti-Semitism? What was the logic of their racial policy? Why did they create death camps, Einsatzgruppen [see below] and ghettos? But the story is only partially a German story. The victims of the tragedy are the Jews and, therefore, it’s a crucial thing in studying the Holocaust to be able to see the response of the victims.

Now, this comes in many places and in many forms and one of the most controversial was in the ghettos. The ghettos lasted from early 1940, when the first ghetto was enclosed, till the last ghetto, the Lodz ghetto, was dismantled in August of ’44. And there were hundreds of ghettos spread all over Europe. So for five years, millions of Jews lived and died in these enclosed spaces, and to some degree they had the ability to control aspects of their life. The Germans would give an order, a work order, food requirements, issues about health, deportations, whatever it was, and it was the Jews themselves who had to pass these orders on and implement them to a large degree. Now the people who were in power to do that were the members of Jewish councils. One of the first things the Nazis did when they established a ghetto was to establish a Jewish council – big ghettos had bigger councils, small ghettos also had councils. The Nazis directly appointed the leaders of the ghetto councils and they were the crucial mediators between the German overlord, German policies and the Jewish people.

Now after the war, there was tremendous debate about their role, about how they acted, about the morality of some of them, about the fate of many of them. It became especially heated during the Eichmann trial in the early 1960s in Israel, when Hannah Arendt published her book Eichmann in Jerusalem , which is still widely read and very well known. She essentially accused them of being collaborators, and said that had there been no Jewish councils, had there been no Jewish leadership, more Jews would have survived, there would have been less mass murder. So this subject is at the very centre of the study of the Holocaust. And Isaiah Trunk, who is a survivor, undertook this study of the various councils and investigated the question of collaboration and of cowardice , of heroism, of support for resistance or lack of support. And his book has become one of the really great classics of Jewish Holocaust literature.

And what does he conclude?

On to the next book on your list of Holocaust books which is Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. This book is presumably looking at the issue of how ordinary people came to carry out such atrocities?

This was a book written by Christopher Browning who now teaches at the University of North Carolina. Chris found a collection of documents that were testimonies given at a trial of a group of German police and they talk about their role in the murder of eastern European Jewry. One needs to know that with the invasion of Russia, in the summer of 1941, the Nazis organised a new form of violence, and they called them Einsatzgruppen . There were four groups of men. They were not volunteers, they were assigned to these units. The largest group was a thousand men and there were three slightly smaller units, a total of 3,000 men. And their orders were very simple – to go in right on the heels of the Wehrmacht [the German army], as the Russians retreated and the Nazi army moved forward.

They were to go into the large towns first and then the smaller communities, round up all the Jews and murder them. Initially, the order seems to have been for Jewish men, but very soon after, on the direct order of Heinrich Himmler, it turned to the killing of women and children as well. These groups went literally from town to town, rounded up the Jews and either shot them or put them in the synagogue and set it ablaze. Or, for example, as they did in Vilnius in Lithuania, they marched them outside the city, to the wooded areas, made them dig large trenches, lined them up, shot them, then the next group had to go in, get shot, lie down on the first group, and slowly you have a pyramid effect of bodies on bodies. Then it would be covered over. So this murder – which took about a million and a half lives over 18 months – was primarily carried out by these four groups. But they were not alone. They had assistance, both from the Wehrmacht, (though the army would deny it for many years) and from various police battalions. There were local police battalions – Lithuanians, Ukrainians, etc. But other battalions came from Germany, what were called ‘order police’.

So this group that Chris Browning wrote about was Order Police Battalion 101. And they describe the extraordinary behaviour that they participated in. Now the reason this is such an important book and raises deep questions is that when you study the Holocaust you ask almost immediately: How could people do this? How could men who had their own children, go out and murder other children? How could men who are fathers take children and smash their heads against a wall? Or husbands take women and rip open their wombs and kill their infants and shoot them behind the ear? So the Browning book raised that question in a very, very strong and powerful way, based on firsthand testimony. He also tries to offer a series of explanations of human behaviour that are more controversial. The story of this battalion was then picked up by Daniel Goldhagen, who wrote the book that caused such an enormous stir, Hitler’s Willing Executioners . That was probably the greatest stir in Holocaust publications since Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem.

And what did he argue?

Goldhagen laid the charge against Germans, specifically, of possessing what he called an eliminationist anti-Semitism at the very heart of their character, of their culture, of their society. And that, of course, raised issues of collective guilt, and, also, is there such a thing as a national identity? It set off an enormous controversy in Germany and elsewhere. So the two books together that took the same set of documents as their central evidence, are a vital part of the debate today about the Holocaust, over the behaviour of the murderers.

And what explanations does Browning offer that you agree with?

Browning goes through different explanations and I agree with a lot of things, and I disagree with a lot of things. There’s the old explanation that people just follow orders. There have been various experiments done since World War II, especially by a man named Stanley Milgram at Yale, where he experiments with his students to see how far they will go just to get an A in a class. And then there are various discussions by social scientists and others about brutalisation of people in times of war, how values change.

And then you get those who emphasise the force of indoctrination and anti-Semitism: that’s the Goldhagen explanation. Browning himself put a lot of weight on the issue of peer pressure. The people in these groups were given the opportunity to step out and not participate. But almost no one did, because they were afraid of being called cowards and losing the respect of other people in the group. Browning puts a special importance on that psychological element, that people are very conformist, very afraid of stepping out and being seen as saying no to the group. Goldhagen found that explanation much too tepid for a crime like this and focused on the profound importance of ideology. So these are the debates that have been going on and I happen to think that ideology was probably more important than Christopher Browning gives it credit for.

People are just capable of horrific things. Look at the Rwandan genocide .

You don’t have to wait for the Rwandan genocide. Already 200 years ago Hegel referred to human history as a slaughter bench. We have had mass crimes and violence and killing of the innocent since the time of Cain and Abel. What is special about the Holocaust is not that you have violence and killing, but that the core is an ideological drive to make a complete extinction of an entire people. That seems to me to be the central and uniquely ideological element in the Holocaust.

“What is special about the Holocaust is that the core is an ideological drive to make a complete extinction of an entire people”

The last of your Holocaust books is Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto by Emmanuel Ringelblum.

This again is a way of having access to the Jewish side of the tragedy. There was an organisation started in the Warsaw ghetto by a great man named Emmanuel Ringelblum. Ringelblum had been a historian before the war, and when the war began he had a stroke of genius, of tragic genius. He organised a team of people to go out and save all the material they could find about the life of the ghetto. He also commissioned some of his colleagues to go out and do investigations of subjects that might be important to future generations: for example, how did the Jewish children behave in the ghetto? How did Jewish women behave in the ghetto? What was the self-help operation in the ghetto? What happened to orphans? What was the food supply like? How was it distributed? What about religious services? What about traditional religious communities, the rabbis and students?

His group was called the Oneg Shabbat group, because they met on the Sabbath, and they collected enormous quantities of material, because they were anxious that the world should have information the Nazis would not give them. They did not want the Nazi voice to be the only voice about the ghetto; they wanted the Jewish voice to be heard. So they collected this material and near the end of the war, when it was clear that the Warsaw ghetto was going to go up in smoke as a result of the uprising in Passover of ’43, they put it in big metal milk cans and buried them. After the war, they found most of these cans, not all of them. So the single most important source of information about Jewish behaviour during the war in the ghettos comes to us from these Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto from Ringelblum and his team. The Oneg Shabbat records are absolutely the most essential Jewish documents we have from the Holocaust.

And Ringelblum was executed?

He did survive for a while after the Warsaw uprising, but, yes, he was killed during the war.

Is there a personal element to what he writes?

He tries not to. He certainly has his point of view. He is critical of certain kinds of Jewish behaviour, he is critical of certain actions – but the idea was really to be an objective ghetto chronicler, and he tries very hard to do that, not to let his own emotions get in the way. Though, of course, in the situation in which he found himself, and the Jewish people found themselves, it was impossible to separate out judgments altogether. So you get some very critical judgments about the Jewish council, about the Jewish police in the ghetto, and some of the other people who are in leadership roles. But, by and large, the importance of the collection, of the material, is this good faith effort to collect material and provide for future generations a record of what was going on, on a daily basis, in the Jewish communities under siege.

Holocaust Studies is your field. In July 2009 there was an article in the New York Review of Books, “Holocaust: The Ignored Reality” by Timothy Snyder, arguing that there has been too much focus, when it comes to the Holocaust, on western European Jewry, when the bulk of the killing was of eastern European Jews. Was that an important article?

It was an important article, but it wasn’t anything new. He made it sound as if he had discovered the wheel. The fact is that scholars know that the centre of the Holocaust was not in western Europe, but in eastern Europe – in Poland, and in the Baltic states, the Ukraine, the borderlands of Russia, Romania, and eventually Hungary. That was the great central Jewish community of Europe, and that was where the big ghettos existed and that was where the policy of the Einsatzgruppen took place, with the invasion of Russia. Finally, the six death camps – camps that were set up specifically for the production of corpses – were all in Poland. So people were brought to Poland from other places, and they were put in Poland because Poland was at the centre of Jewish life. There were 3.3 million Jews in Poland before the war, there were another four or five million Jews in the Pale of Settlement, the westernmost part of the Soviet Union. There were hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Baltic states, there were almost 800,000 in Hungary, three-quarters of a million in Romania.

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount .

So, it comes as no surprise that, if you’re going to kill the Jews of Europe, you’re going to do it in central and eastern Europe, and the Nazis knew that and did that. So the emphasis in that article is correct – it’s only outsiders, people who don’t really know all the details, who get their information from Hollywood, who concentrate on western Europe. But scholars knew that eastern Europe was the centre of the storm and that’s why Hilberg, for example, concentrates so much on Polish activity, the role of the German state in Poland, that’s why the Jewish council book by Trunk is primarily about Polish ghettos, Browning’s book is about war on the eastern front with the invasion of Russia, and so on.

In terms of the number of Jews killed by the Nazis, is there consensus on that?

Himmler himself had come up with a number through various methods when he wanted to find out what he had accomplished, and that was six million. And that became a kind of canonical number at Nuremberg and afterwards. There are different totals that have been offered by scholars who have gone back to study the death camp records, the Einsatzgruppen records, etc. The numbers all fall somewhere in the five to six million range. That’s the overwhelming consensus, and nobody who is not a Holocaust denier has any trouble finding that there were at least 5.1, 5.2 million, up to 6 million, 6.2 million deaths when you total all the various places people were killed in the records we have.

And that includes eastern Europe where we don’t know as much what went on?

It includes eastern Europe. For example, of the 3.3 million Jews in Poland, after the war 92-93 per cent were dead. In Vilnius and Riga and other parts of those Baltic states you have a 96 per cent death rate, the highest anywhere. We have lots of evidence – the Nuremberg tribunal did a pretty thorough job of collecting documentation, the Russians collected documentation, and the Germans themselves kept lots of documents that were captured. So we have a pretty good idea of where and how this was done. It’s not exact, there are still things to learn and important information to be discovered, but the broad outline, especially the numerical, demographic outline, is pretty clear.

February 22, 2018

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Steven Katz

Steven Katz holds the Alvin J. And Shirley Slater Chair in Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University and is the former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

© Five Books 2024

Holocaust Autobiography

All But My Life

• By: Gerda Weissmann Klein
• Narrated by: Grace Conlin
• Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,045
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 855
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 860

A classic of Holocaust literature, Gerda Weissmann Klein's celebrated memoir tells the moving story of a young woman's 3 frightful years as a slave laborer of the Nazis and her miraculous liberation. All But My Life stands as the ultimate lesson in humanity, hope, and friendship.

• 5 out of 5 stars
• By cbrann on 08-06-07
• Release date: 12-15-99
• Language: English
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,045 ratings
• A classic of Holocaust literature, Gerda Weissmann Klein's celebrated memoir tells the moving story...

Failed to add items

Add to cart failed., add to wish list failed., remove from wishlist failed., adding to library failed, follow podcast failed, unfollow podcast failed.

Regular price: $15.56 or 1 credit

Sale price: $15.56 or 1 credit

The Autobiography of a Designated “Memorial Candle” Holocaust Lessons, Volume II

• A Never-Ending Field to Study
• By: Mayer Jacobovits
• Narrated by: Sean Lester
• Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
• Overall 0 out of 5 stars 0
• Performance 0 out of 5 stars 0
• Story 0 out of 5 stars 0

Children of concentration camp survivors are also known as "memorial candles" because they are usually named after relatives who have been killed in the Holocaust. This is Volume II of an autobiography and is dedicated exclusively to how a son of Concentration Camp survivors dealt with the ever-present topic in such people's life: the Holocaust.

• Release date: 05-14-24
• Not rated yet

Children of concentration camp survivors are also known as "memorial candles" because they are usually named after relatives who have been killed in the Holocaust.

Regular price: $19.95 or 1 credit

Sale price: $19.95 or 1 credit

From Holocaust to Harvard

• A Story of Escape, Forgiveness, and Freedom
• By: John G. Stoessinger
• Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
• Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 11
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 10
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 10

When John Stoessinger was ten years old, Adolf Hitler annexed his homeland of Austria, ripping the boy from his home and his friends in Vienna. His grandparents encouraged his mother and stepfather to take young John somewhere safe. "You must have a future," his grandfather told him before he and his parents boarded the train and waved goodbye. As they trekked across the country, from Vienna to Prague and then finally settling in Shanghai, there was never a single moment Stoessinger was not afraid.

• 3 out of 5 stars
• By Jewels on 12-10-16
• Release date: 09-30-14
• 4 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
• When John Stoessinger was ten years old, Adolf Hitler annexed his homeland of Austria, ripping the boy from his home and his friends in Vienna....

• Narrated by: Gerda Weissmann Klein - introduction, Barbara Rosenblat
• Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 254
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 211
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 214

A classic of Holocaust literature, Gerda Weissmann Klein's memoir tells the moving story of a young woman's experience as a slave laborer for the Nazis and her miraculous liberation. This moving memoir was the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning documentary One Survivor Remembers .

All time favorite book

• By YoungKitty on 07-06-18
• Narrated by: Gerda Weissmann Klein - introduction , Barbara Rosenblat
• Release date: 12-16-99
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 254 ratings
• A classic of Holocaust literature, Gerda Weissmann Klein's memoir tells the moving story of a young...

Regular price: $13.50 or 1 credit

Sale price: $13.50 or 1 credit

Holocaust: Memoirs: Georgina

• Holocaust Survivor Stories from the Darkest Days of the Holocaust
• By: Gabriella Kovac, Oliver R. Shead
• Narrated by: Gabriella Kovac
• Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 1
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 1
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 1

December 1944, whilst heavy snows fall over Budapest and soldiers battle for the streets, Georgina, a young Jewish woman, is nearly starving to death with her newborn son. The battle outside is one of the most savage in the entire war. She knows that to go into the streets is virtually a death sentence or rape, but she must find food within the next few hours, or her baby will certainly die. For Georgina, there is no choice. Alone and completely vulnerable, she heads out into the freezing cold.

• By: Gabriella Kovac , Oliver R. Shead
• Release date: 03-20-24
• 5 out of 5 stars 1 rating

December 1944, whilst heavy snows fall over Budapest and soldiers battle for the streets, Georgina, a young Jewish woman, is nearly starving to death with her newborn son.

Regular price: $14.95 or 1 credit

Sale price: $14.95 or 1 credit

Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor

• Classmate of Anne Frank (Holocaust Survivor Memoirs World War II, Book 9)
• By: Nanette Blitz Konig
• Narrated by: Suzon Labrousse
• Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 15
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 13
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 12

In these compelling, award-winning, Holocaust memoirs, Nanette Blitz Konig relates her amazing story of survival during the Second World War when she, together with her family and millions of other Jews, was imprisoned by the Nazis with a minimum chance of survival. Nanette (b. 1929) was a class mate of Anne Frank in the Jewish Lyceum of Amsterdam. They met again in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly before Anne died.

• By MicheleC on 07-17-21
• Release date: 04-21-21
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 15 ratings

In these compelling, award-winning, Holocaust memoirs, Nanette Blitz Konig relates her amazing story of survival during the Second World War when she, together with her family and millions of other Jews, was imprisoned by the Nazis with a minimum chance of survival....

Regular price: $11.66 or 1 credit

Sale price: $11.66 or 1 credit

I Want You to Know We’re Still Here

• My family, the Holocaust and my search for truth
• By: Esther Safran Foer
• Narrated by: Esther Safran Foer
• Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Mine is a family of readers and writers. Our house is filled with books. There are contemporary design books on the coffee table in the living room, legal books in my husband’s home office and piles of children’s books for when my grandchildren visit. However, the side table next to my bed is piled with books about the Holocaust. Framed maps of shtetls line my office walls and pictures of relatives killed in the Holocaust are displayed on our family gallery walls.

• Release date: 04-16-20

Mine is a family of readers and writers. Our house is filled with books. There are contemporary design books on the coffee table in the living room, legal books in my husband’s home office and piles of children’s books for when my grandchildren visit....

Regular price: $21.77 or 1 credit

Sale price: $21.77 or 1 credit

• Israel at war
• 2024 Elections
• Antisemitism
• Republish our articles
• פֿאָרווערטס

Poet Abraham Sutzkever’s memoirs of the Vilna Ghetto are now in English

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Email
• Print Article
• Republish Article

Image by go2films.com

By Mikhail Krutikov November 11, 2021

• Abraham Sutzkever

From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony

Edited and translated by Justin D. Cammy

Yiddish Brief

A bissel of all things Yiddish: music, cooking, books and more.

Afterword by Justin D. Cammy and Avraham Novershtern

McGill-Queen’s University Press (2021), 488 pp.

Although Abraham (Avrom, in Yiddish) Sutzkever is usually referred to as one of the greatest Yiddish poets in the twentieth-century, he also played a crucial role in rescuing important manuscripts, books and other treasures from the Nazis when they occupied the Lithuanian city of Vilna. After being miraculously airlifted from a Belarussian partisan encampment in the spring of 1944, while Vilna was still under German occupation, and brought safely to Moscow, he immediately took it upon himself to record his memories of the Vilna Ghetto.

The memoirs are dated summer 1944 but, in fact,

the book, “From the Vilna Ghetto”, wasn’t published until the beginning of 1946. Those two years were filled with dramatic events: the liberation of Vilna, the end of the war, Sutzkever’s journey to Nuremberg to testify at the trial of Nazi war criminals, and his emigrations to Poland and then on to Paris and Mandate Palestine in 1946.

The new English translation by Justin Cammy, “From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg,” includes not only Sutzkever’s memoirs of the Ghetto, but also his testimony in Nuremberg and his descriptions of encounters with Jewish personalities in the Moscow literary scene such as Ilya Ehrenburg , Peretz Markish and Solomon Mikhoels .

As Professors Cammy and Avraham Novershtern explain in their afterword, Sutzkever’s memoirs are the product of a relatively short historical period during which the book was written and published. In Moscow, Sutzkever and his wife Freydke were received as heroic Jewish fighters. Sutzkever became a symbolic figure who embodied the Jewish resistance against Nazi occupation. Because he was also known as a great poet, several of his ghetto poems had appeared in the Soviet press. In April 1944 he delivered a speech at the third assembly of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow. Simply stated, Sutzkever’s importance for Soviet war propaganda was tremendous.

Ehrenburg had invited Sutzkever to write a report about the Vilna ghetto for the “Black Book,” a documentary history of the Holocaust in Soviet territory. The history of this project is complicated. Ehrenburg wanted to publish the book in Russian for a Soviet audience, while the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were more interested in a Yiddish publication for an international Jewish readership. In 1945 Ehrenburg was sidelined from the project. In the end, the Soviet authorities prohibited the publication of a Russian edition of the “Black Book,” even though the book was already typeset. A complete edition of the Russian “Black Book,” including Sutzkever’s chapter on the Vilna ghetto, wasn’t published in Moscow until 2015.

In fact, there were two versions of Sutzkever’s memoirs in Yiddish published in 1946: one in Moscow and one in Paris. A year later, a third Yiddish edition appeared in Buenos Aires and a Hebrew translation came out in Tel Aviv. “This transnational publication record deflates claims of silence from Holocaust survivors and unwillingness within the Jewish world to talk about recent events,” Cammy and Novershtern write in their afterword. They contend that the various Yiddish editions of Sutzkever’s book are a clear indication that Jewish communities around the world felt it was necessary to publicize personal reports about the Holocaust as quickly as possible.

But Sutzkever also had other responsibilities in the Soviet Union. Just after the liberation of Vilna in July 1944 he returned there to work with his friends, Abba Kovner and Shmerke Kaczerginski on recovering and protecting the Jewish cultural treasures they had buried beneath the rubble of the city. In September he was once again in Moscow, where his pregnant wife awaited him. The Vilna community depended on Sutzkever’s help, because of his special relationship with the Soviet administration, while in Moscow people were waiting for his report about the Vilna Ghetto.

In his book, Sutzkever brings together his personal recollections with testimony from other Jews in the Ghetto. Cammy and Novershtern contend that this synthetic documentary style reflects a certain influence from Ehrenburg’s war journalism, which was highly popular in the Soviet Union, and emphasize the difference between Sutzkever’s lyrical poetry and his dry and objective prose, which bears no trace of his poetic style. Interestingly, Sutzkever’s collections of poetry, “The Fortress” and “Poems from the Ghetto”, were never published in the Soviet Union. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee sent them to New York, where they were published by the Communist-leaning Yiddish publishing house, IKUF.

It’s noteworthy that Sutzkever later showed no interest in his book of memoirs about the Vilna Ghetto, although this theme remained important in his writing. Cammy and Novershtern offer the theory that Sutzkever himself didn’t care for the dry prosaic style of the book, which had indeed been edited according to Soviet ideological strictures. Sutzkever believed, as Professor Ruth Wisse suggests that “poetry would keep alive that which history destroys”.. It’s also possible that during the Cold War, Sutzkever simply didn’t want to draw attention to his cooperation with the Soviet authorities in Moscow in the 1940s, in order to avoid accusations of Communist sympathies.

“From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg” acquaints the English-language reader with an important document about the Holocaust. It’s especially worthwhile to read the afterword, which reveals in detail the complicated process of creating this remarkable book, an exemplary scholarly feat.

Mikhail Krutikov is the Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan and a regular contributor to the Forward. You can reach him at [email protected] .

• Yiddish Poetry

Video: Thirteen-year old bakes baklava in Yiddish

Looking for a free, online resource to learn Yiddish?

Online conference seeks role for Yiddish in the future of Holocaust studies

New film captures the talent and devotion of musicians choosing Yiddish

Most popular.

What the LA synagogue pro-Palestinian protest was really about

I’m a Louisiana Jew. The Ten Commandments get lost in translation in the new law

Why I (finally) took down my ‘We Stand With Israel’ sign

She built the largest queer synagogue in the nation ‘for Jews rejected from everywhere’

In case you missed it.

Trump used the debate to court a major Israeli-American donor. Palestinians will pay the price

What Biden and Trump said about Israel — and Hitler — during the first presidential debate

Moses needed Aaron to communicate. Biden could have used him in debate.

Catch up on yiddish events.

Shop the Forward Store

100% of profits support our journalism

Our founder, Ab Cahan

1960s Yiddish hipi hoodie

It's spelled Khanike tee

The Forverts est. 1897 hoodie

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines . You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines . Please email us at [email protected] , subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

The Obsessive Art and Great Confession of Charlotte Salomon

By Toni Bentley

In February, 1943, eight months before she was murdered in Auschwitz, the German painter Charlotte Salomon killed her grandfather. Salomon’s grandparents, like many Jews, had fled Germany in the mid-nineteen-thirties, with a stash of “morphine, opium, and Veronal” to use “when their money ran out.” But Salomon’s crime that morning was not a mercy killing to save the old man from the Nazis; this was entirely personal. It was Herr Doktor Lüdwig Grünwald, not “Herr Hitler,” who, Salomon wrote, “symbolized for me the people I had to resist.” And resist she did. She documented the event in real time, in a thirty-five-page letter, most of which has only recently come to light. “I knew where the poison was,” Salomon wrote. “It is acting as I write. Perhaps he is already dead now. Forgive me.” Salomon also describes how she drew a portrait of her grandfather as he expired in front of her, from the “Veronal omelette” she had cooked for him. The ink drawing of a distinguished, wizened man—his head slumped inside the collar of his bathrobe, his eyes closed, his mouth a thin slit nesting inside his voluminous beard—survives.

Salomon’s letter is addressed, repeatedly, to her “beloved” Alfred Wolfsohn, for whom she created her work. He never received the missive. Nineteen pages of Salomon’s “confession,” as she called it, were concealed by her family for more than sixty years, the murder excised. Fragments of the missing letter were first made public in the voice-over of a 2011 Dutch documentary by the filmmaker Frans Weisz. Salomon’s stepmother had shown him the pages, written in capital letters painted in watercolor, in 1975, and allowed him to copy the text, but, as requested, he had kept them secret for decades. In 2015, the Parisian publisher Le Tripode released the letter in its entirety for the first time, in a new edition of Salomon’s complete work, “ Leben? oder Theater? Ein Singespiel ” (“Life? or Theatre? A Musical Play”). The English translation of this definitive edition will be published this fall, by Overlook Press.

Though the discovery of the murder stunned Salomon’s scholars—none questioned the veracity of her account—the revelation of her crime garnered little attention, even in France, where Salomon has enjoyed a kind of cult status since the publication, in 2014, of the best-selling novel by David Foenkinos, “ Charlotte ,” inspired by her life. (Since the first publication of her work, in 1963, Salomon frequently has been referred to as only “Charlotte”—a habit that began as a misguided attempt to market her as a sister diarist to Anne Frank, which has served both to render her all but anonymous and to defang her ferocious work.) Separating Salomon’s work from the ill-defined, unutterably sad category of “Holocaust Art” has proved an impossible task, and this teutonic Scheherazade has meandered through the decades, curiously under the radar to all but the cognoscenti. The mischaracterization of her work is easy to trace: “Life? or Theatre?” is the largest single work of art created by a Jew during the Holocaust and, more often than not, her work is exhibited in Jewish and Holocaust museums. With only a few exceptions, Salomon’s archive—close to seventeen hundred works—is held at the Jewish Historical Museum, in Amsterdam, where her parents donated it, in 1971.

And yet, apart from a handful of depictions of the Third Reich, Salomon’s work is not about the Holocaust at all but, rather, about herself, her family, love, creativity, death, Nietzsche, Goethe, Richard Tauber, Michelangelo, and Beethoven. It chronicles the genesis of an artist from a family of dark secrets—mental illness, nervous breakdowns, molestation, suicides, drug overdoses, and Freudian love triangles: a harbinger to our age of grand confessionals.

“Life? or Theatre?” comprises seven hundred and sixty-nine gouaches that Salomon chose and numbered from a total of twelve hundred and ninety-nine; three hundred and forty transparent overlays of text; a narrative of thirty-two thousand words; and multiple classical-music cues. It is a work of mesmerizing power and astonishing ambition. Placed side by side, the ten-by-thirteen-inch paintings would reach the length of three New York City blocks. Salomon called the work “something crazy special”; its uncategorizable nature is another reason why she has been left out of the canon of modern art, and seen only on the periphery of other genres into which she dipped her brush: German Expressionism, autobiography, memoir, operetta, play, and, now, murder mystery.

The art historian Griselda Pollock, who has studied Salomon’s work for twenty-three years, calls “Life? or Theatre?” simply “an event in the history of art.” This year marks the hundredth anniversary of Salomon’s birth, and three large books—from Overlook Press, Taschen (in four languages), and Yale (a study by Pollock)—are scheduled for publication, alongside an exhibition of her work, in Amsterdam, that will show the entire cycle, over eight hundred works, for the first time ever. The film director Bibo Bergeron has announced that he will be making a bio-pic of the artist, animating her images in 3-D. Salomon appears primed for reassessment.

I first came across Salomon’s work on the afternoon of July 6, 2015. I know this because my diary from that day features none of the usual small details, just her name in capital letters. I was in Villefranche-sur-Mer, a perfectly preserved medieval village adjacent to Nice, on the Côte d’Azur. Having crossed the heavy stone drawbridge into the immense sixteenth-century Citadelle Saint-Elme, whose walls plunge precipitously into the bay of Villefranche, I found a small exhibit of Salomon’s paintings in the tiny chapel of the fortress. Salomon came to the town on December 10, 1938, and made “Life? or Theatre?” here; this was the first exhibition of her works in the place of their creation.

The fifty gouaches at the Citadelle presented an exuberant mixture of vibrant pictures, ironic texts, and witty dialogue—an early example of the graphic novel, as we now define the genre. One bright-blue-and-yellow painting presents the young Charlotte kneeling on her bed, dreaming of love, with eleven bouncing red hearts cascading from her bowed head. In another gouache, a charming family portrait, something is already not quite right. Salomon’s mother is dressed elegantly, in an orange suit with a voluminous fur collar, while her father is dapper, wearing his overcoat, scarf, and top hat. But their daughter, in her pale-pink dress and flat-top hat, stands strangely unanchored at their side, all but falling out of the frame.

Many of Salomon’s early images contain multiple scenes on a page, like a comic book or a movie storyboard—Salomon was well versed in the Weimar Republic’s cinema—depicting sequential actions with an off-kilter wit. In the later paintings, one can see the shift in Salomon’s work from the petite, jaunty, and joyful, as the images become sparser, darker, bolder, the style more modern and urgent; the early detail gives way to depth as innocence turns to truth.

In 1994, Mary Felstiner published a well-researched biography of Salomon, which suggests that what we know of the artist’s real life is represented accurately in “Life? or Theatre?” Salomon’s work, however, is not quite nonfiction, and narrates her own life at a remove: the heroine appears throughout in the third person, as “Charlotte Kann.” Nowhere in the work does Salomon’s full name appear, though an often camouflaged “CS” dots most of the paintings. As a Jew making revelatory art work during the years of the Third Reich, Salomon gives the main characters comic pseudonyms to protect their identities: Professor Klingklang, Dr. Singsang.

Salomon was born on April 16, 1917, in Berlin, the only child of an haute-bourgeois German Jewish family. Her mother, Franziska, met her father, Albert, during the First World War, when she was a nurse at the front. Despite Albert’s reservations, Charlotte was named after her mother’s only sibling, who, in 1913, had left the family home in Berlin one November night, walked twenty-one miles, and drowned herself in a lake. That same year, Albert, a surgeon and professor at the University of Berlin, had made the first identification of breast cancer from X-rays, and he is cited as a founding father of mammography.

One of Salomon’s early gouaches illustrates a detailed map of her family’s eleven-room apartment, including the quarters of the servant, in the chic suburb of Charlottenburg. Salomon’s childhood panorama features wet nurses, hula hoops, trampolines, toy trains, Christmas trees, and holidays in Milan, Venice, and the Bavarian Alps. She loved tobogganing and outdoor sports, and, Salomon tells us, “cut her finest figure as an ice skater.”

But, when Charlotte was eight, her mother became depressed and began “speaking only of death.” In one transparency overlay in “Life? or Theatre?,” she explains to her daughter that, “in heaven, everything is much more beautiful than here on earth.” In February, 1926, while convalescing at her parents’ house from an opium overdose, Franziska jumped out of the window. Salomon was told that her mother had died of influenza. Franziska’s mother had now lost both of her daughters to suicide. One image in “Life? or Theatre?” has Salomon’s grandmother curled into a black, snail-like ball, enduring “the suffering of the world.” Charlotte’s mother has told her that she will send word from the “celestial spheres” when she ascends, and, in another painting, the child is shown rising “ten times a night” to see if an “angelic trace” has arrived at the window. “She is very disappointed,” the text reads.

Soon after the account of Franziska’s death, two unusually ominous gouaches appear in “Life? or Theatre?” In the first, little Charlotte is at her grandparents’ house. “She is filled with panic and runs-runs-runs . . .” In the image, a tiny girl heads straight between the towering legs of a Nosferatu-like monster with gigantic clawed hands. In the next panel, the child has retreated to the bathroom. She sits hunched on the edge of the bathtub in her blue frock, staring into the toilet, hair jagged in alarm. “So,” the girl says, “that’s what they call life.” A later text echoes, “A little love, a few laws, a little girl, a big bed. That’s life and those its joys.”

In 1930, Salomon’s father married the well-known contralto Paula Lindberg (née Levi)—called Paulinka Bimbam in “Life? or Theatre?”—and the members of the Salomon household mingled with luminaries like Albert Einstein, the architect Erich Mendelsohn, the philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer, and the scholar Leo Baeck. In January, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, and the closing in on Jews began. Albert lost his job at the university, and Paula’s singing engagements around the capitals of Europe were cancelled. In September, Charlotte, who was sixteen, refused to return to school; Salomon’s illustration of this declaration is blanketed with a dizzying array of swastikas, swirling in reverse.

Despite her Jewish heritage, Salomon was admitted, two years later, to the prestigious Academy of Arts, in Berlin; according to the admissions committee’s notes, she was deemed to be so “modest and reserved” that she would not “present a danger to the Aryan male students.” When Felstiner interviewed some of Salomon’s classmates, they recalled her as “having no definite characteristics” and being “uncommonly inarticulate,” like “a nonperson.” During her second year at the Academy, Salomon won the first prize in a blind art competition, but the award was given to her non-Jewish friend Barbara, whom Salomon later painted as a languid Matisse Madonna, elongated like a Modigliani. Again, Salomon refused to return to school.

At this time, Paula Lindberg-Salomon hired Alfred Wolfsohn as her voice coach, and in the course of the next year he became Salomon’s mentor and first lover (though he was, according to Salomon’s telling, in love with her stepmother, his “Madonna”). Wolfsohn—named Amadeus Daberlohn (“Penniless Mozart”) in “Life? or Theatre?”—was twenty-one years Salomon’s senior and something of a ladies’ man, and his entrance into her art work is marked with the “Toreador’s Song” from “Carmen.” So began Salomon’s real education.

The defining event of Wolfsohn’s life had been his literal burial, at the age of twenty-one, between the dead and dying in the trenches of the First World War. This trauma left him unable to sing; after the war, he became a voice teacher with radical theories that emotional healing could produce expanded octave range. Salomon adored him, but, in “Life? or Theatre?,” Charlotte is not oblivious to his pomposity. “You are now in the room of a poor poet, who is both ascetic and prophetic,” Daberlohn announces in one text.

In Wolfsohn’s unpublished manuscript from 1946, “The Bridge,” he wrote that Salomon’s unremitting silence “forced me to play the clown,” and that their endless, one-sided conversations became a kind of seduction: “She was extraordinarily taciturn, and unable to break through and emerge from the barrier that she had built round herself.” In one of Salomon’s gouaches, Charlotte shows Daberlohn her haunting drawing of “Death and the Maiden,” based on the Schubert song, set to the poem by Matthias Claudius. In this image, the young maiden gazes longingly into Death’s eyes, his cloaked figure tenderly embracing her, his large skeletal hand encircling her small head. “That’s the two of us,” Daberlohn says.

From 1937 through 1938, Salomon and Wolfsohn met with ever-escalating risk in cafés and on public benches marked “ Nur für Arier ” (“For Aryans Only”). In several gouaches, Salomon places Fräulein Kann on Daberlohn’s lap or kneeling before him, declaring, “I love you,” their two bodies melded. Wolfsohn’s doppelgänger dominates “Life? or Theatre?,” and his dissertations on Christ, Socrates, Rembrandt, Tolstoy, Schiller, psychoanalysis, Helen of Troy, Orpheus, “the eternal feminine,” and “Amor and Eros” comprise close to one-third of Salomon’s entire text. Salomon painted his face 2,997 times.

Immediately following Kristallnacht, in November, 1938, Albert Salomon was arrested, incarcerated, and tortured in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, twenty-one miles north of Berlin. He lost half his body weight before his wife was able to acquire forged papers that secured his release. The couple quickly ushered their daughter out of the country. The farewell earns twenty-seven paintings in “Life? or Theatre?”—six of them showing a passionate final meeting between Charlotte and Daberlohn, in his room. “May you never forget that I believe in you,” he says.

Several years earlier, Salomon’s maternal grandparents had taken up the offer of Ottilie Moore, a rich American woman of German parentage, to stay at her villa on the Côte d’Azur. Moore, whose father, Adolf Gobel, made his fortune as the “Sausage King” of Brooklyn, had settled in Villefranche, in 1929, and spent the war years helping pregnant Jewish women hide, taking numerous babies and children under her protection. L’Ermitage was a beautiful, large property of several houses, terraced gardens, and small waterfalls, overlooking the bay of Villefranche. Salomon spent five years in this Mediterranean paradise of water, sunshine, olive trees, steep and rugged coastline, and Tiepolo-pink sunsets.

But L’Ermitage was not the sanctuary it appeared. In September, 1939, Salomon’s grandmother attempted to hang herself in the bathroom. In the aftermath of this trauma, Salomon’s grandfather revealed to his only grandchild that she was the sole remaining heir to a family that, over three generations, had seen two men and six women, including her own mother, kill themselves. According to Wolfsohn, after learning of her family legacy, Salomon had written letters where she “passionately reproached her father for begetting her, for forcing on her such a hereditary stigma.”

Shortly after, Salomon moved with her grandparents to a small apartment in Nice. There, her grandmother, at the age of seventy-two, succeeded in her quest by jumping out the third-story window, as if in tandem with Salomon’s mother fourteen years earlier. “My life began . . . when I found out that I myself am the only one surviving,” Salomon wrote in her murder confession. “I felt as though the whole world opened up before me in all its depths and horror.”

The horror was not over. Three months later, in June, 1940, after the French surrendered to the Nazis, Salomon and her grandfather were interred for several weeks in the Vichy-run concentration camp of Gurs, in southwestern France. The camp had no running water, the barracks had no windows or insulation, and the food was rotten. Typhoid and dysentery were rampant.

Strangely, there is only one image in Salomon’s vast output that alludes to her time in Gurs, and it does not focus on the camp at all. In the painting, Salomon shows herself crouched on the floor of a crowded train car with her grandfather, “en route from a little town in the Pyrenees”—Gurs—“to Nice.” “I’d rather have ten more nights like this than a single one alone with him,” the text on the gouache reads. Elsewhere in “Life? or Theatre?,” Salomon illustrates her grandfather’s requests to share “a bed with me,” and his predatorial reasoning: “I’m in favor of what’s natural.” “Everything I did for my grandfather drove blood to my face,” she wrote in the confession. “I was sick. I was constantly beet-red from mute rage and grief.” She also rails against his “theatre of civilized, cultured-man act,” calling him an “actor and an egotist,” a “puppet” who “had never felt true passion for anything.” Seen in the light of the suicides of Grünwald’s two daughters and wife, this abuse likely spanned generations.

Back in Villefranche, on the verge of a breakdown, Salomon consulted the local doctor, Dr. Georges Moridis. He advised her to paint. “I will live for them all,” Salomon wrote of the dead women in her family. “I became my mother, my grandmother,” she wrote, “I learned to travel all their paths and became all of them . . . I knew I had a mission, and no power on earth could stop me.” She set to painting on a monumental scale, as many as three gouaches a day. For several months in late 1942, she took a small room at the Hôtel Belle Aurore, in nearby Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Marthe Pécher, the owner of the hotel, remembered years later that she would occasionally take Salomon a cup of rutabaga soup, but she could never figure out when she slept; Salomon was always in her room, painting and humming softly to herself, “like one possessed.”

According to Pécher, Salomon only left the hotel on one occasion, returning late in the evening. A new law stated that Jews had to report to the authorities, and Salomon had gone to the police in Nice, where she was immediately put on a crowded transport bus. As the vehicle was about to leave, a French policeman suddenly rushed her off the bus and told her to run away as quickly as possible. “I asked her why she went to denounce herself,” Pécher recalled, “and she responded to me that the new law concerned the Jews, and being Jewish, she must obey.”

In a wicked twist of fate, Salomon’s French visa depended on her being her grandfather’s caretaker, so she returned to the Nice apartment where he was living and where, several months later, she poisoned him. “ THE THEATRE IS DEAD !” she wrote in her confession as he was dying, a declaration whose resounding Nietzchean echo appears to answer the very question she posed in the title of “Life? or Theatre?” With this murder, Salomon defied her “inclination to despair and to dying” and chose life.

She moved back to L’Ermitage. As the war escalated, Ottilie Moore had fled France in the fall of 1941, taking at least six (some reports say nine) children with her, including two babies, who swung in cradles from the roof inside her car, and a goat to sell for gasoline along the road to Portugal, where she boarded a ship to New York. Moore left L’Ermitage and four remaining children in the care of one of her lovers, Alexander Nagler, a Jewish Romanian refugee. Salomon married Nagler, who was thirteen years her senior, in the Nice Town Hall, on June 17th—a risky move that produced legal evidence of their existence and address. “He is just the empty vessel I need to pour my crazy ideas into,” Salomon wrote of her new husband in the confession. Dr. Moridis and his wife were their witnesses. The marriage license lists Nagler as “director of a nursery”; Salomon is listed as having “no profession.”

Within weeks, Salomon wrapped her almost seventeen hundred paintings and transparencies, including the confession letter, in several brown-paper packages, which Nagler marked “Property of Mrs. Moore.” (Salomon had dedicated the work to Moore, though she does not appear in the narrative.) Arriving one evening on the doorstep of Dr. Moridis’s home while he was having dinner, Salomon rang the bell and handed him the packages. “Keep these safe,” she said. “They are my whole life.”

On September 23, 1943, a truck carrying agents of the Gestapo pulled up to the local pharmacy in Villefranche, and they asked directions to L’Ermitage, a five-minute drive up a steep, winding road. Salomon was thrown into the truck. Nagler insisted on accompanying his wife. After registration at the Excelsior Hotel in Nice, they were transported by train to the deportation camp of Drancy, outside of Paris, arriving on September 27th. On October 7th, they were sealed into a cattle car—convoy No. 60, with “Charlotte Nagler, draftswoman” listed as passenger No. 660—for the three-day ride to Auschwitz. Salomon, who was five months pregnant, was gassed upon arrival, on October 10, 1943. She was twenty-six years old.

Salomon’s father and stepmother had survived the war in hiding, in Amsterdam, after escaping Westerbork concentration camp, where Albert, at risk of death, had refused to sterilize Jewish women. In 1947, the couple travelled to Villefranche, where Moore handed them the packages of paintings that Dr. Moridis had given her upon her return to France. Salomon’s parents were not aware that their daughter had painted anything, much less this extravagant pageant in which they themselves starred. They had five red boxes made to contain their daughter’s work but, for more than ten years, did not dare show it to anyone aside from a friend, Otto Frank. He had brought them his daughter’s diary, asking if they thought it had value.

“Life? or Theatre?” provides a compendium of the circumstances that led—perhaps compelled—Salomon to become an artist, and there are two portraits of Charlotte Kann in “Life? or Theatre?” that, viewed side by side, embody the essence of Salomon’s story. In the first painting, which appears just over halfway through the work, a young woman sits with her feet curled under her to the side, like Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. This gouache presents the girl in a pink dress, sitting in a green field dotted with impertinent yellow buttercups, a warm blue sky above the green horizon, a distillation of youthful femininity. The young woman’s face is obscured; we look over her shoulder, seeing the vista she sees. She cradles a paintbrush and canvas close to her body, as if emanations from her belly, the woman and her work inseparable.

The second image—the final, and most famous, in “Life? or Theatre?”— arrives three hundred and twenty-five panels later, and shows the same figure in the same pose, one which also, brazenly, contains Salomon’s initials, writ large in her body’s curves. But now she is half-naked, almost translucent, and dressed in a modern dark-green halter swimsuit, her tanned bare back a billboard for her title: “ LEBEN ODER THEATER ?” Between these two paintings, one can see, in a single grand sweep, that, contrary to easy supposition, Salomon’s is not outsider art but rather work that displays the curves and soothing colors of Romanticism along with the severe angles and stark blues, reds, and browns of Modernism. There are hints, too, of Cézanne, van Gogh, Dufy, Chagall, Gauguin, Modigliani, Beckmann, Kirchner, Dix, Nolde, even Friedrich; her feet are Picassian triangles. But most of all we see, in her tender yet dispassionate rendering of a young woman transfigured into a painter—her pain turned into beauty—Salomon’s confrère Edvard Munch.

No longer a girl on a bay of the Côte d’Azur, this nymph sits alone on a small iceberg, looking out over an endless expanse of water, an oracle on Mount Parnassus, witness to eternity. A bare, broken red line leads, laser-like, from her eyes to the upper right corner of the image, directing our gaze to what she sees: an area of white space where the ocean presses against the sky, and at the wave’s crest a profile rises from the sea.

Who is this? Perhaps it is Salomon’s namesake, her Aunt Charlotte, rising from the Schlachtensee, where she drowned herself at age eighteen, the death that launches “Life? or Theatre?” in thirty stop-motion images. Perhaps it is Salomon herself emerging from her own Orphic journey. Or perhaps she is a Hebraic sister to Botticelli’s sea-born Venus, stripped of her finery by modernity, by violence. This tidal wave is Salomon’s final missive to us—her expulsive, upward trajectory into a mythic, androgynous creature. She is a woman, an artist, a revolution.

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Peter Schjeldahl

By Cynthia Zarin

By Brendan Loper

Film adaptation of Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart's memoir The Boy In The Woods will hit theatres this June

The boy in the woods is based on montreal author's memoir of survival and resilience.

Social Sharing

Holocaust survivor Maxwell "Max" Smart inspired wide audiences with his bestselling memoir The Boy In The Woods, which tells the story of his harrowing experience during the war. 

Now, it will be seen on the big screen in a film by the same name, which will be released on June 21. 

Smart was born in Poland in 1930. When he was 11, following the Nazi invasion, he witnessed his whole family killed. He would have suffered the same fate had his mother not ordered him to save himself and run into the forest. 

He lived in the forest alone for months, close to starvation, scavenging for food in farmers' fields and escaping Nazis on many occasions. 

He then met another boy wandering the forest and the two became fast friends, building a bunker to survive the winter. After a massacre in a nearby town, the boys discovered a baby, still alive, and rescued her — though not without great personal cost. 

"I never ever dreamt that my memoir The Boy in the Woods would ever become a movie," said Smart in an email to CBC Books. "To see my story turned into a movie is a true gift."

• 'Nothing has changed in 80 years,' says Holocaust survivor

The film is directed and written by Toronto-based Rebecca Snow, who first met Smart when she was interviewing him for her documentary Cheating Hitler: Surviving The Holocaust. 

"I knew that Max's story would make an amazing movie," she told CBC Books in an interview. 

 "There was something so interesting to me about how this kid [was] processing everything that's happening to him with the trauma of the war [...] and persecution against his people, but also in this very mythological landscape."

At the centre of Snow's movie is the friendship between the two boys, since she was so struck by how fundamental this relationship was to Smart's life, even so many years later. 

"He still holds this guilt around what happened to his little friend during that time in the woods," said Snow. "And that's a lot of what the film explores."

She also drew upon Yiddish folklore, which Smart would have known growing up, and magic realism to show how a child would cope with such horrific experiences.

"I had to be a little bit careful about going too crazy with magic realism because I was telling a true Holocaust story," said Snow.  "I felt a great responsibility to not blur the lines too much between reality and magic realism." 

Smart, an abstract artist himself, really appreciated those elements in the film and was very open to Snow's adaptation of his memoir. 

"She took such good care of my story and she did an extraordinary amount of research," said Smart. "Rebecca found out things that I didn't even know or remember because I was just a young boy. She found the graves of my parents and even found my parents' marriage license."

 "Working with Rebecca on this movie brings me back to my youth, it brings me back to the place where I was hiding and it brings me back to my mother when I talk to her and I see her."

Smart, who, for most of his life, didn't share his Holocaust story because of how painful the memories are, noted the importance of talking about history so it doesn't repeat itself.

"This story, and other stories like mine, cannot and should never be forgotten," he said.

Children are the true victims of war, he added. 

"I think when you can personalize history for people, tell human personal stories from history, then it kind of becomes much more than this dusty old past," said Snow. "People can't brush it off as easily."

"In the case of this story and films about the Holocaust, it's a warning from history. We live in a very distressing time right now. There's a lot of racial hatred. Antisemitism on the rise, Islamophobia is on the rise. There's a lot of polarizing rhetoric. And I think this film shows us just how dangerous that can be."

The Boy In The Woods stars Jett Klyne as Max, Richard Armitage as Christian farmer Jasko and David Kohlsmith as Yanek, Max's friend in the forest. It will be playing in theatres in Canada starting June 21.

The screening locations and times are available on the movie's Instagram page .

Corrections

• An earlier version of this article included June 21 as the U.S. release date. The film will currently only be released in Canada. Jun 20, 2024 2:02 PM ET

Related Stories

• Q&A 'Nothing has changed in 80 years,' says Holocaust survivor
• First Look Canada Reads-winning book By Chance Alone to be adapted for young readers this fall — read an excerpt now
• PERSONAL ESSAY Her parents survived the Holocaust. Family heirlooms help Judith Weisz Woodsworth connect past and present
• 15 Canadian books to read for Jewish Heritage Month
• 8 Canadian books to read on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Add some “good” to your morning and evening.

Sign up for our newsletter. We’ll send you book recommendations, CanLit news, the best author interviews on CBC and more.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Google Terms of Service apply.

Texas superintendent moved to ban Holocaust books following demands by far-right activists

"we want to protect [children] from these extremely vulgar and offensive books," activists wrote, by nicholas liu.

Bowing to pressure from conservatives, the superintendent of a Texas school district agreed earlier this month to remove 676 books from its libraries, including seminal texts on the Holocaust and antisemitism, according to a report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency .

That superintendent, Carol Perez, is now facing her own removal by a board of trustees that recently voted to initiate a separation process on the grounds that her 10-year contract is illegal, clearly violating a Texas law that limits such contracts to five years.

Though the censorship has not been cited as a cause for removal, the decision by the trustees came just weeks after she provoked backlash by immediately surrendering to a demand from right-wing activists to purge "very sexually explicit" and "filthy and evil" books, rather than asking them to go through a formal challenge process first.

The activists, led by a local pastor and outspoken Israel advocate Luis Cabrera, had been pushing the Mission Consolidated Independent School District in south Texas to remove books about gender, sexuality and race; two groups that he is an active member of — Citizens Defending Freedom and Remnant Alliance — also wants to rid libraries of books about the Holocaust.

The campaign against books that offend right-wing sensibilities is one being carried out across the United States, with its most notable successes occurring in GOP-controlled states such as Florida and Texas, where school officials have banned a graphic adaptation of Anne Frank's diary, or Tennessee, where a district removed "Maus," a graphic novel about the Holocaust, from the middle school curriculum. In Iowa, school districts quietly disposed of a slew of Holocaust-themed books and films after lobbying by activists.

In emails that were copied to Gabrera and other local right-wing leaders, activist Martha Garza-Johnson presented Perez with the list of 676 offending books, which included Anne Frank's diary, "Maus," "The Fixer," "Kasher in the Rye" and other works about the Holocaust and the Jewish experience. If their demands were not met, Garza-Johnson continued, she and other activists would crash public school board meetings and read graphic passages from the books out loud.

“We are here to work with you,” she wrote. “We are advocating for our children because we want to protect them from these extremely vulgar and offensive books that have no business in our schools.”

“We will certainly check to see if we have those books to remove them,” Perez responded. “Thank you!”

Mission CISD's deputy superintendent then followed up to assure them that she would “begin working with Library Services to track the books on the system and have them removed from the libraries.”

Although the right-wing activists, with backing from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, have targeted other schools in the region with the same threats, Mission CISD is the only school district to have acceded to their version of demands. It's unknown whether the district followed through on removing the books.

• Shop to Support Independent Journalism
• We Have Issues
• Investigations
• Ethics Policy
• Ad-Free Login

Right-wing group gets Anne Frank's Diary and other Holocaust books taken from Texas school

Sarah K. Burris

Senior editor, sarah burris is a long-time veteran of political campaigns, having worked as a fundraiser and media director across the united states. she transitioned into reporting while working for rock the vote, future majority and wiretap magazine, covering the millennial generation's perspective during the presidential elections. as a political writer, burris has had bylines at cnn, salon.com, bnr, and alternet and serves as a senior digital editor for rawstory.com..

Women in Media Cente

Pastor Luis Cabrera and his conservative group threatened to shut down school board meetings if a superintendent of a school district in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas did not heed their demands to ban a wide array of books, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.

In the end, Superintendent Carol Perez agreed to the demands to remove 676 books, including a number of books that address the Holocaust and antisemitism.

"In Mission, the long list of books on the chopping block includes a recent illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary; both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir 'Maus'; 'The Fixer,' Bernard Malamud’s novel about a historical instance of antisemitic blood libel; and 'Kasher in the Rye,' a ribald memoir by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher," the report said.

Read Also: Book bans: Why liberals win the argument but lose the fight

The list of 676 books is the same one used by the far-right group " Moms for Liberty, " which “rates” books on its own scale and is known for seeking to remove books that include Jewish themes.

Pastor Cabrera purports to be an advocate of Israel.

Most of the books the pastor's group, Citizens Defending Freedom, were deemed objectionable for how they deal with race, sexuality and gender .

Pastor Cabrera was contacted by activist Martha Garza-Johnson in May with the list of books she called “very sexually explicit” and “filthy and evil." He immediately pressed that the books be removed.

“We are here to work with you,” Garza-Johnson wrote. “We are advocating for our children because we want to protect them from these extremely vulgar and offensive books that have no business in our schools.”

The report explained that school districts often require a formal challenge for each book. That didn't happen in this case.

"Five minutes after receiving the demands, [Superintendent] Perez agreed to them," said the report.

“We will certainly check to see if we have those books to remove them,” she wrote. “Thank you!”

Her deputy then followed up with another message saying she would “begin working with Library Services to track the books on the system and have them removed from the libraries.”

Perez was ultimately placed on administrative leave just 10 days later . The report said that the removal of the books didn't appear to have anything to do with her removal, however. Local reports say there was a conflict over the terms of her contract.

Read the full report here.

Stories Chosen For You

Should trump be allowed to run for office, joe biden must drop out.

In its 20-year history, Raw Story — the largest independent U.S. progressive news site — has never issued an editorial, let alone endorsed a political candidate. But given the events of last night’s presidential debate, that history must change today.

When you’re president, your main job is to make good decisions and keep the country running smoothly and safely, both domestically and internationally.

When you’re running for president as a candidate, though, your job is quite different: your new job is to inspire hope, communicate your leadership vision and turn out the vote.

In this regard, President Joe Biden — as correct as he's been on policy — has failed. For months, we've watched Biden, who would be 86 years old on the last day of his second term come Jan. 20, 2029, lose the vitality, vigor and mental sharpness that marked his time as a senator and vice president.

Last night, Biden confirmed that on the biggest of stages, pitted against his most formidable foe, Donald Trump , that he's no longer up to the challenge of securing the nation's future as a robust democracy. Biden provided irrefutable evidence that he is incapable of leading this country forward in the 21st century.

It's vital to acknowledge that Biden has led the country through an extraordinarily difficult time in American history. He inherited the worst mess from a predecessor since Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president after Herbert Hoover crashed the country into the Great Depression.

Biden has shepherded groundbreaking infrastructure and climate bills. He was the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson to openly repudiate neoliberalism and put America back on FDR's progressive track. He's aided student borrowers. He's taken on giant monopolies, big banks, dysfunctional airlines and big polluters. And he’s defended democracy valiantly in Ukraine and around the world, which now, again, respects America.

Biden has also nominated some of the most diverse and brilliant judges and agency heads in the history of our nation. He's been a consequential president, perhaps the most consequential in the lifetime of many of us, even boomers.

But whoever made the decision to put Biden head-to-head against a felonious reality TV star with no moral compass should never again darken the doors of a Democratic campaign.

More importantly, because CNN licensed last night’s debate to all the other networks, and therefore will almost certainly turn out to have had the largest presidential debate TV audience in American history, it’s time for the Democratic Party see what everyone else in America did: Biden cannot serve for four more years.

This election is too important to indulge one man's desire to hang onto his office. The winner of this election will literally define the future of democracy as a form of governance both in America and worldwide. And the success — or failure — of the Democratic presidential candidate will have far-reaching effects on U.S. Senate and U.S. House races that will determine whether Republicans or Democrats win majorities.

As late in the election season as we may be, it's not too late for the Democratic Party to replace Biden. It’s not as if the Democratic Party is lacking in talent. There are some superstars and some sleepers. And a decision about the Democratic Party's presidential nominee isn't real and official until late August when the Democratic National Convention takes place in Chicago. Making a change is a mind-boggling responsibility, but Democrats may have little choice if they want to win a White House that Biden is at grave risk of losing.

Biden has done an admirable job in his role as president. But it’s time for serious soul-searching. It's time for the Democrats to do what's both difficult and necessary. It's time for Joe Biden to retire with the gratitude of the nation and step aside for that nation's good.

‘This was awful’: Congressional Dems deflated after Biden debate disaster

WASHINGTON — If you’re embarrassed or queasy after President Joe Biden’s   performance   in last night’s presidential debate , you’re in good company.

Dems are deflated. Of the 27 mostly current and a few former Democratic members of Congress Raw Story texted for reaction — all typically responsive — only three readily replied with thoughts on Biden’s performance.

That’s abnormal. Consider that after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 counts in his Manhattan fraud trial, the same lot of Democrats quickly responded to Raw Story’s inquiries with giddy — if sanctimonious — texts, even responded to questions from halfway around the globe or promptly called us back. They all had lots to say.

ALSO READ: Marjorie Taylor Greene buys condo in 'crime ridden hell hole'

Not Thursday night. The Democratic Party is now debating how to right the listing SS Biden — or consider its scuttling.

Reached late Thursday, one powerful congressional Democrat demanded, “ON BACKGROUND ONLY,” so they — a duly elected public official who’s slated to net a key committee chairmanship if Democrats recapture the House in November — could speak openly, if anonymously.

“This was awful,” the lawmaker replied. “While Biden got better as the debate went on, the horrible start is what people will remember.”

Biden looked feeble. His hand tremors are visible. He froze, or lost his train of thought, or stumbled over his words time after time during the 90-minute debate.

The debate should have been a bad night for Trump — the former president antagonized anti-abortion supporters, lied about his presidential record and grossly rewrote the history of Jan. 6, 2021 — except Biden’s debate doldrums overshadowed matters.

Based on Raw Story’s unrequited texts to a smattering of key area codes — including 313 (Michigan), 330 (Ohio), 804 (Virginia), 305 (Florida) and even progressive 925 (California) — the painful performance is rippling through Democratic circles coast to coast.

And now, with national polls effectively tied, and Trump enjoying a slight overall edge in key swing states, the Democratic side of the great political divide is disheartened. Dispirited. Dismayed. They’re also flummoxed by their arch enemy — a man they once defeated at the polls and impeached twice, because they truly believe he’s the embodiment of anti-American ideals.

On Thursday night, Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) didn’t want to talk much about Biden. He focused his comments on Trump.

“I can’t believe how good Trump is at misstating and making it up as he goes,” Correa texted Raw Story. “Biden started slow and then picked up … We got straight talk from Biden. We got very few straight talk from Trump. Need to fact check Trump.”

ALSO READ: Neuroscientist explains how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different

When Democratic members of Congress see Trump, they also see doom. And they want the public to see what they see.

“I was here Jan 6th., Trump really sidestepped this,” Correa said of Trump’s debate answers to Jan. 6-related questions from moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. “And Trump did not say if he’d accept the election results for 2024.”

Democrats still love Biden the man. Some just wish he’d convalesce away from the national stage, it seems.

One Democratic lawmaker provided a motherly-to-scholarly scolding for Raw Story interrupting her personal debate viewing party.

“I’m not answering questions,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) from the all-important Philadelphia suburbs texted Raw Story just over an hour into the slow moving debacle of a debate. “I’m listening.”

Raw Story circled back after the debate for a comment. Dean did not reply.

Right at midnight, one last Democrat replied to two Raw Story questions:

1.) Do you still trust Biden as your party’s standard bearer?

2.) Are you more nervous-to-worried now than you were this morning?

“No,” former Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) replied. “And yes.”

'A car accident in slow motion': CNN cuts from cheery Biden watch party to stunned panel

CNN anchor and broadcast journalist Chris Wallace pulled no punches Thursday night, calling President Joe Biden's debate performance a "car accident in slow motion."

To many Democrats and never-Trumpers on the internet, the statement was hardly hyperbolic. But an already stunned panel nearly fell out of the chairs when they saw a Biden boasting at the after-party, "We're going to beat this guy," as the crowd cheered, "we need you!"

The celebration represented a stark contrast from sentiment felt online, in group chats and on every major news channel, as the world watched what some suggested was the demise of the Biden campaign.

"He needed to change the narrative and he did change the narrative," said Wallace as Jill Biden fist-pumped to the crowd. "He sunk his campaign tonight."

Fellow anchor and CNN host Kaitlan Collins, talking over the befuddling Biden celebration in the so-called "spin room," said Democrats faced an "immense challenge" in spinning the result.

Later, fellow host Erin Burnett asked what most of America wanted to know as Biden appeared to boast to the crowd of supporters.

"In this moment, he's at a watch party, they're cheering, 'four more years!' He's speaking," she said. What I'm curious about, is does he know how bad this was? At this moment. He walked out to his aides — does he know?"

A visibly flustered Wallace replied, "If he doesn't know, that's more alarming than anything."

ALSO READ: ‘Creepy weirdos’: Senator fears Trump WH staff would destroy government from ‘inside’

The panel watched as a newly energized Biden told the crowd, "I want to go home with you!"

Collins called out Biden's new-found well of energy.

"He wasn't a third that vibrant or vigorous inside the debate," she said.

Another CNN anchor said that while Americans saw a familiar Donald Trump — "his mannerisms, his quickness in his response" not to mention his "lies" and "incorrect" information — they saw a Joe Biden they "don't recognize."

"This is not the person who was quick on his feet, or fast to parry, or to respond quickly to misinformation," she said.

A cross-armed Wallace echoed her statement: "He hasn't been that Joe Biden in a long time. This was the culmination of a process."

"Perhaps, but it also was stark," she said, noting Biden failed to "mitigate the idea he was infirm."

Watch below or click here.

Michael Flynn appears to exit Donald Trump veepstakes

What donald trump's weird wwe hall of fame speech tells us about his debate strategy.

Copyright © 2024 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | Manage Preferences | Debug Logs For corrections contact [email protected] , for support contact [email protected] .

The Greatest "Autobiography, Biography, Holocaust" Books of All Time

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 305 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page .

List Calculation Details

Autobiography.

Autobiography is a literary genre that focuses on the life story of the author. It is a first-person account of the author's experiences, thoughts, and emotions, often including significant events and milestones that have shaped their life. Autobiographies can be written by anyone, from famous public figures to ordinary people, and can cover a wide range of topics, including personal growth, career achievements, struggles, and relationships. This genre provides readers with a unique insight into the author's life and perspective, making it a popular and engaging category of books.

Biography is a genre of literature that focuses on the life story of a person, typically a historical figure or a celebrity. It provides a detailed account of the subject's life, including their upbringing, achievements, struggles, and personal relationships. Biographies can be written in various formats, including memoirs, autobiographies, and third-person narratives. This category of books offers readers an opportunity to gain insight into the lives of notable individuals and their impact on society.

Reading Statistics

Click the button below to see how many of these books you've read!

If you're interested in downloading this list as a CSV file for use in a spreadsheet application, you can easily do so by clicking the button below. Please note that to ensure a manageable file size and faster download, the CSV will include details for only the first 500 books.

1. Night by Elie Wiesel

This book is a memoir of the author's experiences during the Holocaust, specifically in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. The narrative focuses on the relationship between a father and son under the most extreme circumstances, the loss of faith in God, humanity, and in each other, and the horrifying reality of the systematic genocide of six million Jews during World War II. The book is a poignant and stark examination of the depths of human evil and the enduring power of hope and survival.

2. All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein

"All But My Life" is a poignant memoir of a young woman's six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. The narrative follows her life from a peaceful, upper-middle-class childhood in Bielitz, Poland, through her horrifying experiences and loss during the Holocaust, to her miraculous survival and marriage to an American soldier. It is a story of courage, resilience, and the enduring power of hope.

3. I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson

This memoir tells the harrowing story of a 13-year-old Jewish girl's survival during the Holocaust. The narrative follows her life from her quiet existence in Hungary through the horrors of Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and finally to her liberation and the struggle to rebuild her life in the aftermath of such trauma. The memoir is a powerful testament to human resilience and the will to survive against all odds.

4. In My Hands by Irene Opdyke

This memoir recounts the story of a Polish woman who, during World War II, worked as a housekeeper for a Nazi major while secretly aiding the Jewish resistance. She risked her life by hiding Jews in the basement of the Nazi officer's house, stealing food and supplies for them, and eventually leading them to safety. Despite the constant threat of discovery and the moral complexities she faced, she persevered in her efforts to save lives, demonstrating remarkable courage and resilience.

5. In My Father's House by Anthony Appiah

"In My Father's House" by Anthony Appiah is a thought-provoking exploration of the complexities of African identity and the concept of cultural authenticity in a globalized world. Through personal anecdotes, historical analysis, and philosophical reflections, the author challenges essentialist notions of African culture, arguing for a more fluid understanding that embraces the diverse influences and hybridity of modern African societies. Appiah's nuanced perspective sheds light on the intricate interplay between tradition and modernity, and invites readers to question and redefine their own cultural identities.

Create Custom User List

Filter by date range, filter by genre.

You can add additional genre filters below:

Filter by Country

Your favorite books, purchase this book, edit profile.

Featured Topics

Featured series.

A series of random questions answered by Harvard experts.

Explore the Gazette

Read the latest.

Finding new art in unexpected places

This course changed how I see the world

That old ‘Gatsby’ magic, made new 

Harriet Tubman at around the age of 65, Auburn, New York, circa 1885.

Photo by Seymour Squyer via National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

What Harriet Tubman did with rest of her life

Tiya Miles’ new biography looks at development of ‘eco-spiritual’ worldview, how it served her with Underground Railroad, later missions

Christy DeSmith

Harvard Staff Writer

Many Americans today have a singular view of Harriet Tubman, the 19th-century hero who rescued herself and at least 70 others from slavery before the outbreak of the Civil War.

“We’re really focused on segments of her life that match up with a cinematic adventure story,” said Tiya Miles , the Michael Garvey Professor of History. “But Tubman lived a long life, and she was involved with the Underground Railroad for only about a decade. What did she do with the rest of her years?”

Miles provides an answer in her new book, “Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People ,” with its focus on the “eco-spiritual” worldview that made Tubman’s heroism possible. The biography begins with Tubman’s early days as a tenacious child who endures slavery’s abuses while acquiring deep knowledge of the natural world. It also gets to the root of Tubman’s abiding faith in God, a source of solace and strength from early girlhood.

The book’s June 18 release marks the debut of Penguin Press’ Significations series , featuring top thinkers on major Black cultural figures, curated and edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. , the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor. Coming next month is a biography on Mary McLeod Bethune, the turn-of-the-20th-century educator and activist, authored by Brown University’s Noliwe Rooks .

We caught up with Miles, winner of the 2021 National Book Award for “All That She Carried,” to learn more about “Night Flyer.” The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Tiya Miles.

File photo by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

This book explores the development of Tubman’s worldview. Where did you get the idea for this approach?

Like many kids growing up in the U.S., I saw Harriet Tubman on posters in my elementary school classrooms and heard about her every year during Black History Month. When I became a scholar of slavery studies, I saw Tubman all across the literature. It wasn’t until I became conscious of environmental issues, and turned my attention toward environmental history, that I realized Tubman was an important figure for the ways she interacted with the natural world.

Around the time of Hurricane Katrina, when the exposure of African American people to environmental harms became much clearer, I realized I wanted to write about Tubman and the ways she navigated her environment toward the ends of freeing herself and many others from slavery.

I’m immediately struck by the similarities to your previous title , “ Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation” (2023).

“Wild Girls” was really inspired by my interest in Harriet Tubman. Thinking about Tubman and the outdoors for a book about the history of girls in the outdoors, writ large, led me back to seeing her as a child — and to seeing her experiences in entirely new light. I realized how much being in nature shaped her understanding of who she was and what she was capable of.

I then turned to other female figures in the 19th century and asked if the same applied to them. And it did! So with the help of Tubman, I really found my way to an interpretation about girls and the outdoors in the U.S.

Why did you return to Tubman so quickly for your very next book?

“Wild Girls” was part of a series called Norton Shorts , and I found there just wasn’t enough room for all I wanted to say. Working on “Night Flyer” allowed me to reopen the question of Harriet Tubman and nature — to revisit primary materials, to bring in a whole host of secondary materials, and to fit this exploration with the new series edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

What I really saw was that, yes, nature was prominent, but so was something else. And that was Tubman’s very full, very rich, very real spiritual and religious life.

Water, sky, land, and loblolly pine trees in the Maryland county where Tubman was born.

Photo by Perri Meldon, 2022

How did Tubman acquire her deep ecological knowledge?

From around the age of 4, Harriet Tubman — who at that time was known as Araminta Ross, or Minty — was leased out by her owners to other enslavers with farms near the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. She was often forced to do work that was terrible for a child, like collecting muskrats from traps. As an adolescent, she was leased out for outdoor manual labor, and then she got permission to hire herself out to work in the local timber industry.

Her education, as far as we can tell, was influenced by what she could see and hear and touch, but also by the fact that her father worked in the same woods. He was a foreman of a group of people, both free and enslaved, who were doing timbering work. Tubman probably learned from her father about the differences between tree species, how to identify stars in the night sky, and what would have been edible in those woods.

How did this knowledge serve her Underground Railroad mission?

It’s really hard for us now to understand how difficult and even impossible it was for enslaved people to escape captivity. As a result, the mass number of African Americans who were enslaved had to wait until the Civil War to obtain their freedom.

Many were living in isolated locations where roads were unmarked and unmapped. There were thick forests, wide waterways, and deep swamps, all of which were filled with wildlife that could be hazardous.

Those who did make the attempt had to cover great distances to get from southern states to the north. And they would do this knowing there were people on the lookout to identify them; there were hunters on their trail. That meant knowing how to sustain your own life and the lives of those making the journey with you. It meant being able to access water, food, and shelter. It meant knowing what path led through which woods, which waterways were nearby, which animals were dangerous.

“She spent the rest of her life taking people in, aiding them, and showing them the kind of love she always received from her family, but never received from enslavers as a child.”

When did Tubman’s religious education begin?

Harriet Tubman — little Minty Ross — was raised by parents who were themselves very religious. Although we don’t have a great deal of direct reportage, it seems she grew up ensconced in a broader Black enslaved community — with some free people mixed in — who were devout, practicing Christians.

When Tubman was leased out by her owner, she was distraught. She loved her mother and father — this is evident in the primary materials. Being separated from them was very painful. One thing she did to survive was to pray. Apparently, she wouldn’t pray in proximity to the people who were renting her. Instead, she would go off to be alone with her prayers.

And as she grew older, her prayer life became much more intense. She began to feel she was in direct communication with God.

Tubman famously sustained a brain injury around the age of 12. How did that impact her spiritual life?

The story takes place in Dorchester County, Maryland, in a little general store that still exists today and was close to a plantation where Tubman was leased out. She noticed someone described in the original materials as a “young slave” running from an overseer toward the store. According to descriptions, Tubman threw herself in between when the overseer hurled a very heavy metal weight toward the boy. The weight hit Tubman in the head, and she was knocked to the floor. She says in the first accounts of her life that it cut into her skull. Nevertheless, she was sent right back to work in the fields the next day. She talks about how her head was bleeding as she was forced to work.

After this, Tubman experienced a dramatic change. Scholars today assess her resulting condition as temporal lobe epilepsy. She had terrible headaches. She had seizures that left her unconscious. But she also had an enriched sense of spiritual intuition and understanding, which she felt guided her actions for the rest of her life.

This story is often told as the moment when Tubman became a hero. But one of the things I write about in “Night Flyer” is that Tubman already had an active religious sense. She already had an extremely strong will. She was already resisting slavery in the limited ways that she could as a child.

I would say this moment expanded and intensified these qualities. But it did not initiate all the characteristics we associate today with Tubman’s bravery.

I want to end with her role as a caregiver, because I love how prominently you feature this aspect of her life.

Harriet Tubman lived according to an ethos of caregiving. I think it stemmed from her love of family, from her observations of how well her mother had cared for her and her siblings, and also from her belief in God. And she did something remarkable in the later decades of life. She got ahold of a piece of land and made space for people who needed a place to live. There were a number of Black people who were impoverished, who were ill, or who had disabilities squeezed into Tubman’s very small house on a farm in upstate New York.

While keeping this wide-open home, she even expanded her dream to include a facility on the grounds where she could care for Black people who were older or in need of an additional degree of care. Basically, Tubman wanted to build a healthcare facility. And she did it! She spent the rest of her life taking people in, aiding them, and showing them the kind of love she always received from her family, but never received from enslavers as a child. Actually, I think this is her greatest lesson for us today.

Share this article

You might like.

Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies loaning pieces from collection to areas around campus to widen exposure, spark reconsideration

A photographer’s love letter to ‘Vision and Justice’

Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, now the inspiration for a new A.R.T. musical, never reads the same 

When should Harvard speak out?

Institutional Voice Working Group provides a roadmap in new report

Had a bad experience meditating? You're not alone.

Altered states of consciousness through yoga, mindfulness more common than thought and mostly beneficial, study finds — though clinicians ill-equipped to help those who struggle

College sees strong yield for students accepted to Class of 2028  

Financial aid was a critical factor, dean says

The Vandals from The Bikeriders Are Based on a Real Motorcycle Club

The movie, starring Tom Hardy and Austin Butler, takes inspiration from a 1968 photobook documenting the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Now in theaters, The Bikeriders— starring Tom Hardy , Austin Butler , Jodie Comer, and Mike Faist—tells the story of the Chicago Vandals, a fictionalized version of the Outlaws and some of their actual members. Inspired by Lyon’s acclaimed 1968 photobook of the same name, the movie examines the Vandals and their transition from a haven for outcasted bikers to something more sinister.

Similar to their onscreen counterparts, the influence and reputation of the Outlaws have changed dramatically since their inception.

The Outlaws originated almost 90 years ago

While The Bikeriders documents the founding and rise of the fictional Vandals starting in the 1960s, the Outlaws’ true story began three decades earlier. According to its official website , the club started as the McCook Outlaws Motorcycle Club in 1935. Riders formed the group outside of Matilda’s Bar in McCook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. After years of limited inactivity during World War II, the organization held its first major rally at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 1946.

According to Time , the war was a major catalyst for the rise of motorcycle culture in the United States. The resulting military surplus made bikes affordable, and returning veterans sought an adventurous escape from the boredom of civilian life. This led to the formation of other clubs, including the Hells Angels—the Outlaws’ chief rival—in Fontana, California, in 1948.

Meanwhile, the Outlaws continued attracting riders from throughout the Windy City and moved their headquarters from McCook in 1950 to become the Chicago Outlaws. Around this time, the club adopted its signature skull logo on shirts and jackets; the crossed pistons were added four years later.

By 1964, the Outlaws had incorporated chapters from Milwaukee and Louisville, Kentucky—and caught the interest of a young rider named Danny Lyon.

Lyon became an Outlaws member to create his book

Lyon was a first-year history student at the University of Chicago in 1959 when a classmate introduced him to motorcycle culture. The owner of a Triumph TR6 bike, he would soon combine this new passion with his budding journalistic skills.

But first, Lyon left Chicago in 1962 to document the Civil Rights Movement . He served as an official photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and befriended key figures like John Lewis and Julian Bond.

One year later, he embarked on his motorcycle project that would become The Bikeriders. Although Lyon said he received a very clean-cut transformation in the new film—Faist, who portrays his fictional stand-in “Danny,” doesn’t ride a motorcycle onscreen—the photographer became a full-fledged Outlaws member by 1965. A self-described “pothead” in the primarily beer-drinking club, he documented his fellow riders through photography and analog tape recordings.

Published in 1968, The Bikeriders book received acclaim and reportedly inspired the 1969 movie Easy Rider starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson . However, Lyon left the group and the biker lifestyle following its release. “I loved my work and loved what I was doing, but it was a subject to me,” Lyon told A Rabbit’s Foot , “so when I thought I had what I needed, I knew it was time to move on, and I did.”

Real recordings from Lyon are used in the movie

The Bikeriders movie draws heavily from Lyon’s source material, including using “verbatim imitations” of his audio recordings, according to Bleak Beauty . Lyon spoke with Outlaws members Cal, Zipco, and Cockroach, who all appear in the new movie. The re-creation treatment is especially true of Comer’s character, Kathy—modeled after the real-life Kathy Bauer—whose interviews form the narrative structure of the plot surrounding the fictional Vandals.

In 1966, the 25-year-old Bauer offered a glimpse into the Outlaws’ tight-knit nature by describing her first meeting with a rider named Benny (played by Butler). She explained in detail how the group, including leader Johnny Davis (Hardy), tricked Bauer into taking a ride on Benny’s motorcycle. “He takes off, he goes through the stoplights and everything so that I wouldn’t jump off,” Bauer told Lyon . “And I wouldn’t have jumped off anyway because I was scared s—less; I’d never been on a motorcycle in all my life.

“Johnny was real nice to me. He says, ‘Don’t worry, I’m the president of this club, and I wouldn’t let nothing happen to you. They’re only having fun, and this one guy wanted to go out with you,’” Bauer said. The unusual courtship worked as Bauer and Benny later married. Their relationship is featured prominently in the movie.

But while this cordiality is illustrated through the Outlaws’ onscreen stand-ins, the club has been linked to much more antagonistic activity in the decades since.

The Outlaws of today are pretty different from the movie

The Outlaws have spread far beyond their Chicago hub in the decades since, with the organization now boasting chapters across at least 26 states and reaching countries like France, Ireland, Japan, and Russia. According to the Chicago Reader , the Outlaws were estimated to have more than 1,500 members by 2014.

However, the club has developed a treacherous reputation. As of November 2023, the U.S. Justice Department classifies the Outlaws as one of 300 “outlaw motorcycle gangs,” or OMGs. These are described as “highly structured criminal organizations whose members engage in criminal activities such as violent crime, weapons trafficking, and drug trafficking.”

Much of this stems from the group’s ongoing feud with the Hells Angels. The Chicago Sun-Times has reported the two factions waged a violent turf war in the city during the 1990s—including a series of bombings, shootings, and stabbings—before reaching an uneasy truce. According to TwinCities.com , the Outlaws reportedly use the coded acronym ADIOS, which stands for “Angels die in Outlaw states.”

In a November 2016 interview with the Sun-Times , a former Outlaws member named Peter James said the Hells Angels’ presence in the Chicago area has grown more influential and could ignite more conflict. However, he suggested modern Outlaws have shifted away from crime and violence. “The times have changed. Somehow, there’s no testosterone out there,” James said. “It used to be the boss’ word was law. He says, ‘Ride off the cliff,’ and guys would ride off a cliff. The quality of the members has gone down.”

In any case, most riders have maintained that the club merely embraces an alternative lifestyle and isn’t an organized crime syndicate.

See The Bikeriders in Theaters Now

Director Jeff Nichols has said The Bikeriders isn’t meant to be a documentary of the Chicago Outlaws, nor to show disrespect toward the club in any way. He simply hopes to give viewers a sense of the time and societal conditions that allowed the group to thrive.

“When you’re looking at these guys, if you want to, you can simply dismiss them, but if you watch the film, you start to see how their brains work, and hopefully you start to identify with them a little bit,” he told A Rabbit’s Foot . “Not feeling like you belong, that’s something that everybody feels. It should be a unifying trait.”

The movie cruised into theaters on Friday and stars Tom Hardy as Johnny, Austin Butler as Benny, Jodie Comer as Kathy, and Mike Faist as Danny.

Get Tickets

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

Movies Based on True Stories

Donald Trump Had an Influential Mentor in Roy Cohn

Inside Amy Winehouse’s Downward Spiral and Death

The Real-Life Hannibal Lecter

‘The Iron Claw:’ The Von Erich Family’s True Story

‘The Iron Claw’ Leaves Out a Von Erich Brother

Where Is Kevin Von Erich Today?

The True Story of Pop-Tarts and ‘Unfrosted’

Prince Andrew’s ‘Scoop’ Interview, Explained

Napoleon and Josephine Had a Stormy Relationship

The True Story of Bob Marley’s One Love Concert

Get JTA's Daily Briefing in your inbox

I accept the JTA Privacy Policy .

By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA.org

Texas school district agrees to remove ‘Anne Frank’s Diary,’ ‘Maus,’ ‘The Fixer’ and 670 other books after right-wing group’s complaint

The superintendent of a school district in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas recently agreed within minutes to a conservative group’s demands to remove 676 books, including some seminal texts about the Holocaust and antisemitism. 

Now, weeks later, Carol Perez has been removed from the district she led,  just as the Republican governor of Texas appeared to endorse the book removals on social media.

Conservative activists, led by a local pastor and outspoken Israel advocate, pushed the district, Mission CISD, to excise books mostly about gender, sexuality and race. Their demands represented an extreme version of a nationwide culture war over books that has played out in recent years — and ensnared a number of books with Jewish themes .

In Mission, the long list of books on the chopping block includes a recent illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary; both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus”; “The Fixer,” Bernard Malamud’s novel about a historical instance of antisemitic blood libel; and “Kasher in the Rye,” a ribald memoir by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher.

The conservative groups are led by Pastor Luis Cabrera, who is active in Latino conservative circles in the state and whose Instagram profile picture is currently an upraised fist outlined with the Israeli flag. Originally from Guatemala, Cabrera is a member of several right-wing Christian activist organizations and has also posted numerous pieces of pro-Israel social media content. 

Cabrera’s groups, the local chapters of Citizens Defending Freedom and the Remnant Alliance, have meanwhile advocated for the removal of books about the Holocaust and antisemitism, lumping them together with books containing sexual content.

In emails posted online, activist Martha Garza-Johnson wrote to Perez on May 17 to ask her to remove a list of 676 books the group deems “very sexually explicit” and “filthy and evil,” copying Cabrera and other local right-wing leaders on the message. The groups also threatened to attend public school board meetings and read graphic passages from the books out loud if their demands were not met, a tactic that activists have used around the country .

“We are here to work with you,” Garza-Johnson wrote. “We are advocating for our children because we want to protect them from these extremely vulgar and offensive books that have no business in our schools.”

Typically, a school district would require book challengers to go through a formal challenge process in which each individual book would be assessed for merit. Instead, five minutes after receiving the demands, Perez agreed to them. 

“We will certainly check to see if we have those books to remove them,” she wrote. “Thank you!” The district’s deputy superintendent then followed up to say she would “begin working with Library Services to track the books on the system and have them removed from the libraries.”

Pastor Luis Cabrera advocates for book removals at a school board meeting in Brownsville, Texas, May 7, 2024. Cabrera’s groups have pushed local schools to remove “Maus,” an adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary and “The Fixer.” (Screenshot via YouTube)

Requests for comment to Cabrera and Garza-Johnson were not returned. A representative for the school district said it was preparing a response to a list of questions from JTA but did not respond by press time; it is unknown if the district followed through on removing the books.

Perez was placed on administrative leave by the school board 10 days later before formally separating from the district last week. The dispute appears to have been over the terms of her contract and is not connected to the books, according to local reports.

The same activists have targeted other schools in the region with the same list of books demanding to be pulled, going so far as to threaten lawsuits over them. So far only Mission appears to have agreed to remove the Jewish books. Last week, the campaign picked up more attention when Gov. Greg Abbott appeared to endorse its actions in a post on the social network X. 

“If a book cannot be read out loud at a school board meeting in Texas then there is no reason for Texas children in school to be able to read it,” Abbott wrote, sharing a video of one of the activists reading a passage from a book they objected to at a different school board meeting . Abbott added, “School Districts cannot have it both ways.”

The list of offending books was sourced from BookLooks, a website founded by a former member of the right-wing activist group Moms For Liberty that “rates” books on their appropriateness on a five-point scale . Book-removal advocates frequently source their list of book challenges from BookLooks. 

Art Spiegelman, author of “Maus,” poses in Paris, March 20, 2012. (Bertrand Langlois/AFP via Getty Images)

Cabrera’s challenge goes further than most: his group demanded Mission immediately remove any book that scored a “2” or higher from the site, even though the site’s own administrator has told JTA she believes her “2” rating is appropriate for middle and high school students. (“Anne Frank’s Diary” and “Maus” both rate a “2” on BookLooks, with the site’s objections to the latter described as  “hate involving antisemitism and racism; violence; nonsexual nudity; and mild/infrequent profanity.” “The Fixer” and “Kasher in the Rye” both rate a “3.”)

The Jewish books on the list have been the subject of past controversies over whether middle and high school students should be able to access them. Districts in Florida and Texas have banned “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” or punished an instructor who read from it . “Maus” briefly became the public face of book bans after a Tennessee district removed it from the middle school curriculum , and has also been targeted in districts in Missouri .  “The Fixer” was briefly pulled from a South Carolina district as part of another BookLooks-informed mass purge before a committee voted to reinstate it .

Nationwide, culture war-fueled book removals continue to be a major driver of state legislation and local elections. In Iowa, which recently passed a Holocaust education mandate, a recent investigation by the Des Moines Register found that districts have removed Holocaust-themed material including “Maus,” “Sophie’s Choice,” the 1973 young-adult novel “Summer of my German Soldier,” by Jewish author Bette Greene, and a DVD of “Schindler’s List” following lobbying by activists. Some of these items were later returned to shelves.

Share this:

Recommended from jta.

Trump calls Biden ‘a very bad Palestinian’ as Israel, antisemitism feature in a disjointed debate

In DC, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant takes an implicit shot at Netanyahu

LAPD admits it was unprepared for Sunday’s violent protest outside LA synagogue

Get to know Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the Jewish moderators of the Biden-Trump debate

Harvard antisemitism task force finds ‘dire’ situation for Israelis on campus, urges swift action

From antisemitism to Israel, the Jewish topics to watch for in the Biden-Trump debate

• Discussions
• Reading Challenge
• Kindle Notes & Highlights
• Favorite genres
• Friends’ recommendations
• Account settings

Best Holocaust Literature

A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.

People Who Voted On This List (127)

Post a comment » Comments

Featured news & interviews.

• Create New List
• Lists I Created
• Lists I've Voted On
• Lists I've Liked

Anyone can add books to this list.

Saving My Votes

Friends votes, how to vote.

To vote on existing books from the list, beside each book there is a link vote for this book clicking it will add that book to your votes.

To vote on books not in the list or books you couldn't find in the list, you can click on the tab add books to this list and then choose from your books, or simply search.

Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account.

Advertisement

Supported by

Who Was Harriet Tubman? A Historian Sifts the Clues.

A brisk new biography by the National Book Award-winning historian Tiya Miles aims to restore the iconic freedom fighter to human scale.

• Share full article

By Jennifer Szalai

• Apple Books
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-A-Million

When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.

NIGHT FLYER: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People , by Tiya Miles

Harriet Tubman led such an eventful life — so filled with hardship, extreme peril and close calls — that even an atheist might find it hard to deny that her nine decades of survival on this Earth were nothing short of miraculous.

Tubman herself credited God with guiding her dangerous work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad during the 1850s; she made an estimated 13 trips below the Mason-Dixon line and spirited as many as 80 souls north, often all the way to Canada. Tubman’s own escape in 1849 was legendary. After a first attempt with her brothers, who were so frightened that they insisted on turning back to their enslaver’s estate near the Chesapeake Bay, an undaunted Tubman made the treacherous 90-mile journey from Maryland to Pennsylvania on her own.

“Where others saw shut doors and unscalable brick walls, she dreamed into being tunnels and ladders,” the historian Tiya Miles writes in “Night Flyer,” a short biography of Tubman that is the first in a new series, called Significations and edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., about notable Black figures. For decades after her death in 1913, Tubman’s extraordinary life was mostly relegated to books for children and young adults. Thorough, probing biographies by the historians Catherine Clinton and Kate Clifford Larson were published two decades ago. More recently, Tubman was the subject of a Hollywood biopic and “She Came to Slay,” an illustrated volume by the historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar, featuring a drawing of a pistol-toting Tubman on the cover.

Perhaps inevitably, all the pop-cultural attention has been double-edged, commemorating Tubman’s formidable accomplishments while also making it harder to discern who she actually was. Miles admits that before she started this project, Tubman “had become a stock figure in my imagination, a known hero in the cast of characters that we might call the abolitionist avengers.” Recognizing Tubman’s idiosyncrasies and physical ailments “resizes Tubman the cultural icon to human scale.”

Miles calls “Night Flyer” a “faith biography,” emphasizing Tubman’s spirituality along with her ecological awareness, expressed as a profound attentiveness to the natural world. Miles also draws on the life stories of “similar women,” such as the preachers Jarena Lee and Zilpha Elaw , to try to illuminate some of the more interior experiences that Tubman took care to keep hidden.

Such gaps in the historical record are familiar to Miles. Having written about Indigenous people and African Americans, including in the National Book Award-winning “All That She Carried,” she frequently faces what she has called “the conundrum of the archives.” Tubman did not read or write; she dictated her life story to “typically white, middle-class, antislavery women,” like her first biographer, Sarah Bradford. Although usually “well-meaning,” Tubman’s amanuenses sometimes “demeaned” her, casting her as an exotic, almost otherworldly figure.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .