Nazi Germany/World War 2

[je'taime]

Does anyone know any Novels based around Nazi Germany or World War 2? I am very interested in this era!

[Mad Old Cow]

I should get my DH to write a couple books on this because he is very up on all that type of thing Jet but as for books on it, i have no idea sorry,

[jenr]

Have you read the Diary of Anne Frank?

[je'taime]

yes jen - I have read that! That is actually the only one that I know of!

[jenr]

That is a book that will always stick in my mind very moving story

[Mad Old Cow]

Hubby just said there was a movie called 'Reach for the sky' he said he thinks the book was called the same,

[je'taime]

Thanks hubby - I just looked it up - I think my dh would like it also!

[Melinda]

i dont know any..not sure i could read any think i would get to teary...

[Alexa]

The Boy in the Striped Pyjames by John Boyne (read this and it is great - film is typical hollywood rubbish).

Night by Elie Wiesel (Bantam Books, 1982), although claiming to be fictional, is an autobiographical account of Wiesel's experiences in Birkenau, Aushweitz, and Buchenwald. The main character in the story is a proud and pious teenager, who is racked with guilt and confusion over being the only person in his family to survive the Holocaust.

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books, 1992) is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel written in comic-book form. The story is a memoir of the author's father and his experiences during the Holocaust.

Wartime Lies by Louis Begley (Ballantine/Ivy Books, 1992) is an absorbing story of Machieh, a 9-year-old boy who survives the Nazi occupation of Poland by posing as a non-Jew. The story focuses on the psychological price he is forced to pay for surviving while so many others like himself perished.

The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer (Random House/Anchor, 1992) relates the stories of six women who knew Anne Frank during the last seven months of her life. The story gives a first-hand account of life in the concentration camps.

Hide and Seek by Ida Vos (Houghton Mifflin Co, 1991) focuses on an 8-year-old girl from Holland who is initially angry at the German occupation for restricting her from going to school and playing with her friends. She is then separated from her parents and forced into hiding. Five years later she is freed and reunited with most of her family. Grateful to be alive, she nonetheless asks the question, "How did a childhood game of hide-and-seek become a game of survival?"

On the Other Side of the Gate: A Novel by Yuri Suhl (Franklin Watts, 1975) focuses on the question of denying one's own ancestry. During the Nazi invasion of Poland, Hershel and Lena allow a Polish Catholic acquaintance to adopt their infant son to save him from persecution. The fate of Hershel and Lena is unclear. Rather, the conclusion focuses on the pain many Jewish families faced after the war by their own children's rejection of them. The children, having lived most of their lives as non-Jews, cannot come to terms with their true heritage.

The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender and Jim Coon (Pocket Books, 1997) recounts in the first-person narrative Riva Minka’s tales of suffering first under the Nazi regime in Poland and later in the concentration camps. It is the tale of a young girl with the soul of a poet who shows strength, courage, and determination in the face of death.

I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up In The Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1997) is a memoir of a 13-year-old Hungarian girl who recalls her experiences of the Holocaust. A very powerful book that details the round-ups, torture, forced-labor, shootings, and liberation from the viewpoint of a teenager struggling to survive.

Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps by Andrea Warren (HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2001) is the harrowing retelling of Jack Mandelbaum’s Holocaust experience. At age 12, Jack is separated from his family and sent to Blechhammer, a Nazi concentration camp. The author uses the boy’s words and voice to tell this tragic story.

[je'taime]

Thankyou so much Alexa - I will look into them all now. I have seen the movie of Boy in the Striped Pyjames, would love to read the book!