Useful Websites about the Holocaust
Journal Article
Davis, H.B.; Fernekes, W.R.; Hladky, R. (1999). Using Internet Resources
to Study the Holocaust: Reflections from the Field. The Social Studies.
pp. 34-41.
Popular Holocaust Authors
Johanna Reis
Edith Baer
List of Books
The Pictorial History of the Holocaust
By: Yitzhak Arab
This compilation of photos, maps and concise
text provides a “visual newspaper” of the Nazi extermination of over six million
Jews and other “undesirables” and eventual Jewish freedom. I was stunned
by what the editors had assembled. Some of the photos are familiar: the little
boy with hands held high, surrendering to the Nazis; piles of corpses; scenes
from the ghettos. Yet, the way the book was structured, the manner in which
the images were skillfully woven together with enthralling text, made for
outstanding reading.
Nightfather
By: Carl Friedman
This is a very graphic book about the Holocaust.
A camp survivor is the central character in the book. Now a husband and
father of three children he is, to the outside world, a conventional and
productive member of society. To his family, however, he presents confusing
images: loving father and husband, victim of nightmares and conduit to stories
of horror. Everything in their lives seems to remind their father of another
scene from the camp. The book is useful for a discussion of symbolism in literature.
Parallel Journeys
By: Eleanor Ayer
Alternating chapters contrast the wartime experiences
of two young Germans -- Waterford, who was interned in a Nazi concentration
camp, and Heck, a member of the Hitler Youth. The book is composed mainly
of excerpts from their published autobiographies, connected by Ayer's overall
account of the era. A powerful and painful picture emerges, vividly describing
life before, during, and, most impressively, after the Holocaust. She incorporates
the history of the Holocaust as well as personal testimony from Waterford
and Heck.
The Sunflower
By: Simon Wiesenthal
This book puts you in the position of a prisoner
in a concentration camp. As a young man imprisoned in a Nazi concentration
camp, Wiesenthal was taken one day from his labor brigade to a hospital
at the request of Karl, a mortally wounded Nazi soldier. Tormented by the
crimes in which he had participated, including the murder of a family with
a small child, the SS man wanted to confess to a Jew. Twenty-five years
after the Holocaust, Wiesenthal asked leading intellectuals what they would
have done in his place. Collected in one book, their responses became one
of the most enduring documents of Holocaust literature and a touchstone
of interfaith dialogue. This new edition of The Sunflower, issued in honor
of the twentieth anniversary of it's publication in the United States, brings
together the voices of a new generation of thinkers, including Robert Coles,
Matthew Fox, and Arthur Hertzberg. Their answers reflect the teachings of
their diverse beliefs.
Operation Eichmann: The Truth about the Pursuit, Capture and Trial
By: Zvi Aharoni, Wilhelm Pietl, Helmut Bogler, & Meir Amit
This book gives a brief history of the beginnings
of a terrible time in history. It then tells an intriguing story of espionage
and kidnapping. The author had intimate contact with Eichmann, and relates
some of the conversations with him, giving some insight into a twisted mind.
This book has pictures which help to put the reader in Buenos Aires. This
is a fascinating read as a part of our history that needs to be told and
never forgotten.
We Remember the Holocaust
By: David Adler
This book contains a collage of memories, illustrated
by vintage photographs showing the contributors, each of who is a survivor
of the Holocaust. The statements vary, but they form an unforgettable picture
of a terrible time. While most books simply recount the surface facts of
Hitler's calculated campaign against Jews, Adler buttresses his description
of those same events with the recollections of individuals who suffered through
the horror. The “matter-of-fact” tone of the stories makes them all the more
compelling. It also discusses the events of the Holocaust and includes personal
accounts from survivors of their experiences of the persecution and the death
camps.
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
By: Anne Frank
The classic text of the diary Anne Frank kept
during the two years she and her family hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam
attic is a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament
to the human spirit. The Diary of Anne Frank explains in detail what
it's like to be in their shoes. Anne gives complete detail of her three
years in the "Secret Annexe." Her blossoming into womanhood, her anger
towards her mother and her secret love for Peter VanDaan. Any girl of
any age would love to read this book.
Night
By: Elie Wiesel
This book is a horrible tale of murder and
man’s inhumanity to man. Wiesel saw his family, friends, and fellow Jews
degraded and murdered. Wiesel also states in his book that his God, to whom
he was so devoted, was also "murdered" by the Nazis. In the novel Wiesel
changed from a devout Jew to a broken young man who doubted his belief in
God. This book also tells the story of people who were destroyed because
they were Jews, they were innocent victims. These people had done nothing
and yet were tortured, degraded and liquidated for no reason other than they
were Jews. Wiesel is a witness to all the horrible things.
Number the Stars
By: Lois Lowry
Lois Lowry focuses our attention on the Johansen family
who have coped with the occupation by the Nazis fairly well. There are
the shortages of course and the omnipresent soldiers, but home and school
life are relatively undisturbed. Then, their friends, the Rosens, are endangered.
Mr. and Mrs. Rosen leave their daughter, Ellen, with the Johansens hoping
that she can pass as their daughter until safe voyage to Sweden can be arranged
for all the Rosens. Ann Marie Johansen is the one who is most threatened
by this ordeal and she shows outstanding but believable courage and enterprise
in helping her friend.
Wartime Lies
By: Louis Begley
As the world slips into war in 1939, young Maciek's
once closetted existence outside Warsaw is no more. When Warsaw falls, Maciek
escapes with his aunt Tania. Together they endure the war, running, hiding,
changing their names, forging documents to secure their temporary lives—as
the insistent drum of the Nazi march moves ever closer to them and to their
secret wartime lies. A haunting, unforgettable novel about an orphaned boy
and his gallant aunt, and how they survive the horrors of war. The novel
is a work of wisdom and lyric power about the complex, terrifying process
of growing up when the adult world has become insane.
Hide and Seek
By: Ida Vos
When Holland was first invaded by the Germans,
Rachel is 8 years old. Rachel is confused and angry at the German occupation.
She cannot attend school and friends will no longer play with her. Eventually
her parents decide that the family should go into hiding. During this hiding,
the daughters are separated from their parents. Five years after the occupation,
Holland is freed. Rachel and most of her family have survived. Liberation
brings Rachel a new life: one filled with happiness of survival, but the
hurt and question of why did this happen? This book was chosen because while
Rachel simply tells her story, she is ever conscious of the loss she and
her family have lived through. During the occupation, Rachel can only play
with other Jewish children. Their games are the games of children struggling
with a horrid, absurd the change in their world.
On the Other Side of the Gate
By: Yuri Suhl
The tone of this story is very bleak. It begins
with the Nazi invasion of Poland. The Polish resistance is split: some factions
killing the Jews, others working to free both Poland and the Jews from Hitler.
Starving and waiting for death in the Warsaw ghetto, Hershel and Lena are
able to save their infant son's life by smuggling him out and having him
adopted by a Polish Catholic acquaintance. The pain some families faced after
the war, because after years of living as non-Jews, many children with no
memories of Jewish families rejected their own surviving families. This book
was chosen because while the Warsaw ghetto may be most remembered for the
Jewish uprising against deportation: Jews making a conscious decision to
fight back, to die rather than to leave the ghetto for the camps. And even
though children were saved due to the courage of certain non-Jews secretly
fighting to save them; in the end, everyone suffered.
The Cage
By: Ruth Minsky Sender
Beginning with the German
invasion of Poland in 1939, this is the gripping true story of Minsky's
Holocaust experience. Often painful but impossible to put down, her story
is a testament to human faith and fortitude. The author chronicles an adolescence
shaped by the horrors of the Holocaust but strengthened by the force of her
own will. It is about a girl who get seperated from her mother and father
in the Holocaust. After she lost them she had to learn the responsibilities
of a mother to take care of her younger brothers. The book really describes
the living conditions and the things that they had to worry about while living
in this ghetto.
A Picture Book of Anne Frank
By: David A. Adler
I think that sixth graders would really enjoy
this book. The story is about Anne Frank, a brave young Jewish girl about
12 years old and her 4 year old sister. She found out at age 14 that she
had to put a lot of clothes on. They had to hide in the attic for three years
so the Nazi's would not find them. It took place in Germany where her family
lived. She once lived in a house, if she went to school, she would be shot.
The Nazi's burnt all the Jewish books and pictures. A lot of children hid
so they would not be shot. The only person who survived was her dad. I think
the reader will cry or be really upset after reading it. The book is based
on her family life as a Jew in Germany.
Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust
By: Eve Bunting
Animals represent the Jews and others who suffered
throughout the Holocaust. It is a wonderful children's book that explains
why it is important to stand up for what one believes. Eve Bunting, using
animals in the forest as characters, and tells children to stick together
and fight for what is right, no matter how horrifying the situation may seem.
The book also teaches children not to be prejudiced towards other people.
Terrible Things is an excellent book to use to teach about the Holocaust.
It is easy for children to understand and relate to, while sending them an
important message. The story is interesting and the pictures are adorable.
It's a very touching book that even adults would enjoy.
Jacob’s Rescue: A Holocaust Story
By: Malka Drucker
The story is grim, as Jacob loses family members
and witness’s brutality at close range. But because he sees it all from
the midst of a family that has dared to take him in, there is a sense of
hope and humanity here as well. Characters are not deeply drawn, but the
scenes of Warsaw under occupation are unforgettable. A reader puts the book
down with a fuller sense of history and a better feeling for what life might
be like in a Bosnian town today. Most important, the book shows the feelings
that ordinary people can express. In this book you get to know the characters
so well. And at the end, since they have included pictures, you really feel
that they're your own flesh in blood.
The Hidden Children
By: Howard Greenfeld
The book consists of interviews with 15 Jewish Holocaust
survivors who, as children during World War II, had to go into hiding to
avoid being captured by the Nazis. These children survived by living with
non-Jewish families, hiding in religious institutions, or constantly moving
from place to place on their own. Some of the survivors were treated well
by their hosts and lived 'near normal' lives until the end of the war; others
were treated cruelly, and some were even handed over to the Nazi's by the
very people who were supposed to protect them. The book is illustrated with
black and white photos.
Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story
By: Ken Mochizuki
As a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania in the 1940’s,
Chiune Sugihara had a chance to help thousands of Jews escape the Holocaust
through Japan, but it was against his government's orders. When his five-year-old
son Hiroki asked, "If we don't help them, won't they die?" Sugihara decided
to assist the refugees. Based on Hiroki Sugihara's own words, Passage to
Freedom is the first fully illustrated children's book to tell Sugihara's
heroic story, highlighting his courageous humanity, and the importance of
a child's opinion in his father's decision.
Witness to the Holocaust
By: Michael Berenbaum
From the first boycott of Jewish businesses
in Germany in 1933 to testimony at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, this illustrated
book includes survivor testimonies, letters, government documents, newspaper
reports, diary entries and other firsthand materials. The book's chronologically
organized documentary approach provides a unique perspective on this much-published
subject, and drawing on the most current research in the field of Holocaust
studies, offers readers an unforgettable and engrossing history of the Nazis'
largely successful effort to eradicate the Jews and other "undesirables"
of Europe. 50 years after the liberation of the death
camps in Nazi Germany, the former project director of the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and current director of its Research Institute,
compiles a fascinating collection of firsthand accounts of the Holocaust.
Never to Forget
By: Milton Meltzer
Six million Jews were killed in Europe between
the years 1933 and 1945. What can that number mean to us today? We can think,
not of the numbers or the statistics, but of the people. For the families
torn apart, watching mothers, fathers, children disappear or be slaughtered,
the numbers were agonizingly comprehensible. One. Two. Three. Often more.
Here are the stories of those people, recorded in letters and diaries, and
in the memories of those who survived. Seen through their eyes, the horror
becomes real. We cannot deny it--and we can never forget. Meltzer has created
a moving account of what Jews suffered during the Nazi's occupation of Germany.
Using personal sources such as diaries, letters, and songs, Meltzer brings
the horror of the Holocaust poignantly home to young readers.
Teaching Holocaust Literature
By: Samuel Totten
The text provides in-depth discussions of individual
pieces of Holocaust literature and how to teach them in a historically sound
manner. Outstanding teaching strategies outlined throughout the book give
readers a solid sense of how to approach the teaching of Holocaust literature.
Among the literary works discussed in this book are Elie Wiesel's Night,
Dan Pagis' Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car, and The Diary of
Anne Frank. The book addresses how teachers at various levels of schooling
(most notably grades 5-12) have incorporated literature (ex: novels, short
stories, poetry, plays, and memoirs) into a study of the Holocaust, and/or
have used such resources to introduce students to events of the Holocaust.
Poems
Flame
By: Eric Lashner, 14, PA
A Black deeper than night
Sweeping, ravaging
An innocent race
Already pursued
Scapegoats- innocent in all ways
Night comes
Devoirs hopes and Dreams
Day looks the other way
Ignorance, deceit
Night deepens
The Flame flickers
Life on edge
The wind gusts its chilling horror
People against people
Night seems to have succeeded
Life and again stripped
Again, again
Persecuted
Human spirit tries to remain
As the last minutes fall upon us
The flame burns
Weak
Stamped out
Left for dead
Orange yellow, brown, black
Black, black,
Night
Hate
Loathing
A flame is extinguished
Snuffed out
Blown out in the wind
Never Seen
We must remember
Never forget
Hope is left
Rebuild
Burn once again
Burn fame burn
Grow and learn
One tiny flame
One small voice
One giant love
Hope
By: Anne Goodshell
I see the gray and brown of the
barracks.
Mama stands in the doorway of
Barrack 19, our barrack.
Her voice calls out to me, I can hear
her faintly.
Far across the camp, the camp
Terezin.
A camp that is lonely and desolate,
Yet I feel in my soul that someday,
sometime, there will be beauty
in Terezin.
Beauty of smiles and joyful tears,
beauty of freedom.
I turn my face toward a better day, a
day of hope.
Today can be a day of hope, it isn't
hard for me to imagine.
Mama doesn't imagine, she is too
worried.
As I run toward her, run toward
Barrack 19,
I hear behind me the sound of army
vehicles, German vehicles.
Soon, our turn will come.
Our turn to be taken to another
camp, taken to Auschwitz.
I reach Barrack 19, I reach my home.
Mama's arms encircle me, full of
warmth and sadness.
Everything will be alright.
Everything will be alright.
*Much thanks to RandomHouse and Amazon for their help with
the book annotations and book cover photographs.
WebPage by: Kimberley Schmidt 11-29-02
