Elie Wiesel was born on September 30th, 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, which is now part of Romania. He was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. His mother Sarah and younger sister Tzipora perished, his two older sisters, Hilda and Beatrice, survived. Elie and his father Shlomo were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945.
After the war, Elie Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. During an interview with the distinguished French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his internationally acclaimed memoir, La Nuitor Night, which has since been translated into more than thirty languages.
Bookbrowse
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel's account of his experiences as a 15 year old boy during the Holocaust, is a memoir of prodigious power: his humanity shines from every page as he bears witness to the tragedy which befell the Jewish race at the hands of the Nazis. Wiesel was a Romanian-born Jew whose home town of Sighet was occupied by the Hungarians for most of the second world war. In May 1944, all the Jews in the area were forced into cattle wagons and transported to Auschwitz.
The Guardian
Elie Wiesel was 15 when the Nazis came for the 15,000 Jews of his hometown of Sighet, Transylvania, in May 1944. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, his mother and sister were murdered within hours, while he was put to work as a slave labourer. Eight months later, the Germans evacuated the camp and forced the survivors on a death march that ended at Buchenwald. Wiesel was one of the few still alive when the Americans arrived in April 1945.
The Guardian
Man's search for ultimate meaning
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful.
The boy on the wooden box
Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow. Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, a man named Oskar Schindler, who saved Leon Leyson's life, and the lives of his mother, his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory - a list that became world renowned: Schindler's List.
Lolli's Apple
Autobiography of Tomas Fleishmann, a Slovakian Jew who as a six year-old was interned in the German concentration camps during World War II.
Surviving Hitler
In 1942 fifteen-year-old Jack Mandelbaum was torn from his family in Poland and sent to a Nazi concentration camp. This is Jack's own true story of how he fought against starvation, disease and the insane brutality of the Holocaust. Jack is sent to a series of different camps, each one as horrific as the other. He soon befriends Moniek, another prisoner, and together they learn to fight through adversity and are finally able to walk free on the day of liberation. This is a personal and touching tale of Jack's World War II experiences, as told by Jack himself to award-winning author Andrea Warren. The book includes a 4-page photo section, including a photo taken of Jack shortly after liberation.
Helga's diary : a young girl's account of life in a concentration camp
In 1938, when her diary begins, Helga is eight years old. Alongside her father and mother and the 45,000 Jews who live in Prague, she endures the Nazi invasion and regime: her father is denied work, schools are closed to her, she and her parents are confined to their flat. Then deportations begin, and her friends and family start to disappear. In 1941, Helga and her parents are sent to the concentration camp of Terezin, where they live for three years. Here Helga documents their daily life - the harsh conditions, disease and suffering, as well as moments of friendship, creativity and hope - until, in 1944, they are sent to Auschwitz. Helga leaves her diary behind with her uncle, who bricks it into a wall to preserve it. Helga's father is never heard of again, but miraculously Helga and her mother survive the horrors of Auschwitz, the gruelling transports of the last days of the war, and manage to return to Prague. As Helga writes down her experiences since Terezin, completing the diary, she is fifteen and a half. She is one of only a tiny number of Czech Jews who have survived. Reconstructed from her original notebooks, which were later retrieved from Terezin, and from the loose-leaf pages on which Helga wrote after the war, the diary is presented here in its entirety, accompanied by an interview with Helga and illustrated with the paintings she made during her time at Terezin.
Anne Frank remembered : the story of the woman who helped to hide the Frank family
For more than two years, Miep and her husband helped to hide the Frank family from the Nazis. They risked their lives daily to bring food, news, and emotional support to the victims of the Holocaust. Reissued to celebrate her 100th birthday, this is Miep's life, from her childhood as a World War I refugee to the moment she places a small, red-orange-checkered diary - Anne's diary - into Otto Frank's hands.