Ten-year-old Steve Rotschild learns to hide, to be silent, to be still – and to wait. He knows the sound of the Nazis’ army boots and knows to hold his breath until their footsteps recede. Rotschild takes us on a captivating journey through his wartime childhood in Vilna, eloquently juxtaposing his past, furtive walks outside the ghetto with his long, liberating walks through Toronto fifty years after the war. Vividly evoking his experiences, this story of survival and a mother’s tenacious...

In the spring of 1944, as Germany occupied her native Hungary, Anna Hegedűs barely had time to notice the flowers blooming around her. One year later, as the lilacs blossomed once again, she returned to her hometown of Szatmár and set her memories, raw and vivid, to paper. Her unflinching words convey the bitter details of the Szatmár ghetto, Auschwitz, the Schlesiersee forced labour camp and a perilous death march. At forty-eight years old, Anna had survived a lifetime of trauma, and a...

When the Nazis invaded Hungary on March 19, 1944, elementary school teacher Helena Jockel thought only about how to save “her” children as she accompanied them all the way to Auschwitz. Her account of living and surviving in the camp is clear-eyed and poignant, sometimes recording the too-brief moments of beauty and kindness that accompany the unremitting cruelty.

Arthur Ney, a twelve-year-old smuggler outside the Warsaw ghetto walls when the ghetto uprising began in the spring of 1943, fled to the countryside with false papers to work on a farm. Almost a year later, he returned to Warsaw and faced the realization that his family was gone. Under the protection of the Salesian Fathers as a “Christian” boy, he struggled with loneliness, guilt, fear and indecision regarding his “dual identity.” When the Warsaw Uprising began on August 1, 1944, then fou...

Nearly buried alive, ten-year-old Michael Kutz narrowly escaped the Nazi death squad that killed 4,000 Jews, including his own family, in his hometown of Nieśwież. Guided by his mother’s last words and determined to survive, he became the youngest member of a partisan resistance group in the dense Belorussian forest, and took part in daring operations against the Nazis and their collaborators. After the war, Michael embarks on an odyssey through Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, and, final...

Strong-willed and ambitious, sixteen-year-old Elsa Thon is working as a photographer’s apprentice when the Nazis occupy her town of Pruszków, Poland in 1939. Every ounce of her will and ingenuity is called into play as she moves from ghetto to ghetto, throws in her lot with a Zionist youth group and is recruited by the Jewish underground. Despite her deep belief that destiny is determining her fate, Elsa faces every fraught situation with self-possession and maturity. A vivid and beautiful...

Almost forty years after the end of the war, Claire Baum opens a package from a stranger in Rotterdam, unleashing a flood of repressed memories from her childhood. As Claire delves into her past, she uncovers the personal sacrifice and bravery of her parents, the Dutch resistance and the families that selflessly gave shelter to her and her sister, Ollie. The Hidden Package portrays Claire’s years spent in hiding and pays tribute to all those who played a part in saving her life an...

Told in short, gripping chapters, this is an unforgettable true story of survival. The author was featured in Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. At just 15, her mother, and brother were taken from their Romanian town to the Auschwitz-II/Birkenau concentration camp. When they arrived at Auschwitz, a soldier waved Elly to the right; her mother and brother to the left. She never saw her family alive again. Thanks to a series of miracles, Elly survived the Hol...

“Much like The Boy In the Striped Pajamas or The Book Thief,” this remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list, “brings to readers a story of bravery and the fight for a chance to live” (VOYA).This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s list child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezj...

The Nazis tried to destroy Inge's life--but they could not break her spirit.Inge Auerbacher's childhood was as happy and peaceful as any other German child's--until 1942. By then, the Nazis were in power, and because Inge's family was Jewish, she and her parents were sent to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. The Auerbachers defied death for three years, and were finally freed in 1945. In her own words, Inge Auerbacher tells her family's harrowing story--and how they carried w...

Bronia and Josio (Joseph) grew up in Kozowa, a shtetl filled with lively culture, eccentric characters and extended family. When Bronia met Josio, she was charmed by his confidence and fearlessness. Separated when Josio was drafted into the army, reunited amid the chaos of war, their connection endured as their persecution intensified. When everything they held dear was lost, together they built a future.

Nate Leipciger, a thoughtful, shy eleven-year-old boy, is plunged into an incomprehensible web of ghettos, concentration and death camps during the German occupation of Poland. As he struggles to survive, he forges a new, unbreakable bond with his father and yearns for a free future. But when he is finally liberated, the weight of his pain will not ease, and his memories remain etched in tragedy. Introspective, complicated and raw, The Weight of Freedom is Nate’s journey through a...