Holocaust Bibliography
Abells, Chana Byers. The Children We Remember. Greenwillow Books, 1986. Through
moving photographs and spare text, Abells recreates what daily life was like for Jewish
children and their families
Ackerman, Karen. The Night Crossing. Knopf, 1994. A touching story of how a Jewish
family escaped Nazi terror by fleeing to Switzerland.
Alma, Ann, Brave deeds: How One Family Saved Many from the Nazis. Groundwood
Books, 2008. Told through the eyes of a child, this is the story of the Braals, two people
who willingly put themselves in great danger in order to save the lives of those less
fortunate. Throughout, sidebars provide further information about Dutch resistance
workers and traitors, Dutch Jews, bombing missions, false identity cards, the war, and
more.
Altman, Linda Jacobs. Escape- Teens on the Run: Primary Sources from the Holocaust.
Enslow Publishers, c2010. Discusses children and teens on the run during the Holocaust
in Europe, including the different ways young people escaped the Nazis, places of refuge
in Europe, and hiding and resistance.
Anne Frank: Her Life in Words and Pictures from the Archives of the Anne Frank House.
Roaring Brook Press, 2009. Photographs, illustrations, and maps accompany historical
essays, and diary excerpts, providing an insight to Anne Frank and the massive upheaval
which tore apart her world.
Bachner, Mila. Before my Eyes: a Memoir of Childhood During the Holocaust. Targum,
2010.
Bogacki, Tomasz. The Champion of Children: the Story of Janusz Korczak. Farrar Straus
Giroux, 2009. In his most beautiful and heartfelt book, Tomek Bogacki tells the story of a
courageous man who, during one of the grimmest moments in world history, dedicated
his life's work, and ultimately his life itself, to children.
Borden, Louise. His Name was Raoul Wallenberg: Courage, Rescue, and Mystery During
World War II. Houghton Mifflin, 2012. An amazing and inspirational World War II story
about how one man saved the lives of many.
Chapman, Fern Schumer. Is it night or day? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. In 1938,
Edith Westerfeld, a young German Jew, is sent by her parents to Chicago, Illinois, where
she lives with an aunt and uncle and tries to assimilate into American culture, while
worrying about her parents and mourning the loss of everything she has ever known.
Based on the author's mother's experience, includes an afterword about a little-known
program that brought twelve hundred Jewish children to safety during World War II.
Clark, Kathy. Guardian Angel House. Second Story Press, c2009. When Mama decides
to send Susan and Vera to a Catholic convent to hide from the Nazi soldiers, Susan is
shocked. Will the two Jewish girls be safe in a building full of strangers?
Dogar, Sharon. Annexed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. The story of the boy who
loved Anne Frank.
Fried, Leah. Nan's long journey. Feldheim, 2009. Nan is only ten years old when the
winds of war begin to sweep through her native Berlin. Orphaned at a young age, little
Nan is sent by her gentile father to Zurich, Switzerland, where her stern grandmother
cares for her under duress, insisting that Nan forget her deceased mother and the threads
that inexplicably bind her to Judaism.
Ginsburg, Marvell. The Tattooed Torah. Union of American Hebrew Congregations,
1994. By telling the story through the "eyes" of the "small special Torah", the most holy
of religious objects, the young reader gains an appreciation of how Jewish life and culture
were desecrated during the Holocaust years.
Gleitzman, Morris. Then. Henry Holt, 2010. In early 1940s Poland, ten-year-old Felix
and his friend Zelda escape from a cattle car headed to the Nazi death camps and struggle
to survive, first on their own and then with Genia, a farmer with her own reasons for
hating Germans.
Hassan, Yaël. A Paris sous l’occupation. Paris : Casterman, 2000. Créée pour le jeune
lecteur, cette collection est une première initiation à l'histoire. Elle l'invite à suivre des
héros de son âge, vivant dans un passé proche ou lointain, tout au long d'une journée où
se mêlent l'aventure et le quotidien. Tout en restituant la vérité historique, chaque livre
ouvre les portes de l'imaginaire et du rêve qui éveillent chez l'enfant le goût véritable du
passé.
Hesse, Karen. The Cats in Krasinski Square. New York : Scholastic Press, 2004.Two
Jewish sisters, escapees of the infamous Warsaw ghetto, devise a plan to thwart an
attempt by the Gestapo to intercept food bound for starving people behind the dark Wall.
Heuvel, Eric. A Family Secret. Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers,
2009. While searching his Dutch grandmother's attic for yard sale items, Jeroen finds a
scrapbook which leads Gran to tell of her experiences as a girl living in Amsterdam
during the Holocaust, when her father was a Nazi sympathizer and Esther, her Jewish
best friend, disappeared.
Heuvel, Eric. The Search. Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2009.
After recounting her experience as a Jewish girl living in Amsterdam during the
Holocaust, Esther, helped by her grandson, embarks on a search to discover what
happened to her parents before they died in a concentration camp.
Hilde and Eli : Children of the Holocaust. Holiday House, 1994. This picture book tells
the parallel stories of two real children who died during the Holocaust.
Innocenti, Roberto. Rose Blanche. Creative Education, 1985. This award-winning
picture book depicts War World II through the eyes of a young German girl. It is
powerful and poignant, and appropriate for all ages.
Kacer, Kathy. Hiding Edith: A True Story. Second Story Press, 2006. Edith Schwalb was
one of many Jewish children who were hidden by the Jewish Scouts of France in a large
house in the village of Moissac. The townspeople helped to protect the children, warning
the house mother of Nazi raids, during which time the young scouts disappeared into the
hills on camping trips. Schwalb's story is told from the beginning of her family's
hardships through the end of the war, and includes the typical privations and separations
of Holocaust memoirs.
Kacer, Kathy. The Diary of Laura's Twin. Second Story Press, 2008. For Laura's Bat
Mitzvah, her rabbi gives her the journal of Sara Gittler, a Holocaust prisoner who never
got to celebrate her coming of age. Laura researchs Sara's life and shares her Bat Mitzvah
with her "twin" at the ceremony.
Kacer, Kathy. To Hope and Back: The Journey of the St. Louis. Second Story Press,
2011. The tragic true history of the ship St. Louis. It left Germany in May 1939 full of
Jewish passengers seeking refuge in Cuba, but was denied port in Cuba, the US, and
Canada, before returning to Europe, where many died in the Holocaust. Through the eyes
of two children, Sol and Lisa, both of whom survived the war and shared their
experiences, we see the journey begin with excitement and hope and end in frustration
and fear. The children's chapters alternate with those of the captain, Schroeder, a German
who was sympathetic to the Jews. Through his eyes we get the facts that are kept from
the children.
Kacer, Kathy. Whispers from the Camps. Puffin Canada, 2009. The stories in Whispers
from the Camps are harrowing accounts from children who survived being captured and
imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Stripped of their clothes, their possessions, and,
in many cases, their families, they nevertheless held on to the hope of freedom. Despite
the insurmountable odds against survival, these children lived to tell their tales.
Kacer, Kathy. Whispers from the Ghettos. Puffin Canada, 2009. The stories in Whispers
from the Camps are harrowing accounts from children who survived being captured and
imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Stripped of their clothes, their possessions, and,
in many cases, their families, they nevertheless held on to the hope of freedom. Despite
the insurmountable odds against survival, these children lived to tell their tales in the
second installment of the Whispers series.
Kacer, Kathy. Whispers in Hiding. Puffin Canada, c2010. When faced with the prospect
of deportation to a ghetto or concentration camp, many Jews tried to find ways to hide.
Whether in the attic of a neighbour's house, in a cave on a hilltop, or within the stacks of
hay in a barn, those in hiding often had to change their identity and conceal their Jewish
roots. Hiding meant going hungry for weeks or months, being left in the cold, and living
in constant fear of being discovered. But due to the kindness of strangers or the quick
thinking of the children in these stories, they lived to tell their tales.
Kaufman, Lola Rein. The Hidden Girl: a True Story of the Holocaust. Scholastic, 2008.
After deciding to donate the dress her mother had made for her to a museum, Lola Rein
Kaufman, survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, decides that it is finally time to speak publicly
about her experiences.
Kor, Eva Mozes. Surviving the Angel of Death: the Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz.
Tanglewood, 2009. Among Holocaust survivor stories, Eva Kor's experience as a 10year-old guinea pig of Dr. Josef Mengele in Auschwitz is exceptional. It is the story of a
child facing extraordinary evil and cruelty. Eva Kor has been the subject of a
documentary,"Forgiving Dr. Mengele," and other media coverage.
Kramer, Ann. Anne Frank: the Young Writer who Told the World her Story. National
Geographic, 2007. An introduction to Anne Frank and the circumstances that affected her
life and brought about her death in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Lakin, Patricia. Don't Forget. Tambourine Books, 1994. In this picture book, Sarah visits
local shops in her multicultural neighborhood. Among the shops is the grocery store of
Mr. and Mrs. Singer who have blue numbers tattooed on their arms. The Singers help
Sarah to realize that as painful as the past is, it must never be forgotten.
Laskier, Rutka. Rutka's Notebook : a Voice from the Holocaust. Yad Vashem, 2008. The
long-lost diary of 14-year-old Rutka Laskier, "The Polish Anne Frank". Photographs,
illustrations, essays, and diary excerpts, providing an insight to Rutka and the massive
upheaval which tore apart her world.
Levine, Karen. Hana's Suitcase : a True Story. Second Story Press, 2002. A biography of
a Czech girl who died in the Holocaust, told in alternating chapters with an account of
how the curator of a Japanese Holocaust center learned about her life after Hana's
suitcase was sent to her. (French title: La valise d'Hana: une histoire vrai)
Levy, Debbie. The Year of Goodbyes: a True Story of Friendship, Family and Farewells.
Disney-Hyperion Books, 2010. The author's mother's 1938 autograph book filled with
inscriptions from family and friends, is the inspiration for a collection of narrative poems
about life in Nazi Germany for a Jewish family trying to escape the horrors.
Littlesugar, Amy. Willy et Max: une Histoire de l'Holocauste. Scholastic, 2010. n
Belgium during World War II, Willy becomes friends with Max and his Jewish family,
and although they become separated, they remain related by a bond of friendship and a
special painting.
McDonough, Yona. The Doll with the Yellow Star. H. Holt, 2003. When France falls to
Germany at the start of World War II, nine-year-old Claudine must leave her beloved
parents and friends to stay with relatives in America, accompanied by her doll, Violette.
Meyer, Susan. Black Radishes. New York : Delacorte Press, 2011. Gustave, having been
forced to move from Paris to the countryside after his parents decided it was not safe for
Jews to live in the city during World War II, meets a Catholic girl named Nicole, whose
family is part of the French Resistance, and together they devise a plan to rescue his
friend and family members from the Nazi occupied territory.
Mochizuki, Ken. Passage to Freedom : The Sugihara Story. Lee & Low Books, 1997. The
story of consul Sugihara who unable to ignore the plight of Jewish refugees, wrote visas
for them to escape the Nazi threat.
Morpurgo, Michael. The Mozart Question. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2008.
A young journalist goes to Venice, Italy, to interview a famous violinist, who tells the
story of his parents' incarceration by the Nazis, and explains why they can no longer
listen to the music of Mozart. Includes an author's note about the Nazi Holocaust.
Oppenheim, Levey. The Lily Cupboard. HarperCollins, 1992. Miriam, a young Jewish
child, is sent to the country to hide with a non-Jewish family. Beautifully illustrated
Polacco, Patricia. The butterfly. Philomel Books, 2000. During the Nazi occupation of
France, Monique's mother hides a Jewish family in her basement and tries to help them
escape to freedom
Pryor, Bonnie. Simon's Escape: a Story of the Holocaust. Enslow, 2010. Simon, a young
Polish Jew, and his family are forced by Nazis to leave their home for the filth and
hunger of the Warsaw ghetto then, when his family is all taken away, he escapes to fight
for survival in the countryside. Includes facts about the Holocaust.
Rubin, Susan Goldman. Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto. Holiday
House, 2011. Using toolboxes, ambulances, and other ingenious measures, Irena Sendler
defied the Nazis and risked her own life by saving and then hiding Jewish children. Her
secret list of the children's real identities was kept safe, buried in two jars under a tree in
war-torn Warsaw. An inspiring story of courage and compassion, this biography includes
a list of resources, source notes, and an index.
Rubin, Susan Goldman. The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for the Truth,
Holiday House, 2009. In 1958, in Linz, Austria, demonstrators interrupted a performance
of The Diary of Anne Frank, claiming that Anne Frank never existed. Determined to
prove otherwise, Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, set out to find the Gestapo
officer who arrested the Franks years before.
Ruelle, Karen Gray. The Grand Mosque of Paris: a Story of how Muslims Saved Jews
During the Holocaust. Holiday House, 2008. During the Nazi occupation of Paris, no Jew
was safe from arrest and deportation to a concentration camp. Few Parisians were willing
to risk their own lives to help. Yet many Jews found refuge in an unlikely place, the
sprawling complex of the Grand Mosque of Paris. Not just a place of worship but also a
community center, this hive of activity was an ideal temporary hiding place for escaped
prisoners of war and Jews of all ages, including children.
Russo, Marisabina. I will Come Back for You: a Family in Hiding During World War II.
Schwartz & Wade, 2011. A grandmother tells her granddaughter the story of the charm
bracelet that represent her own childhood experiences while she and her family tried to
evade the Nazis in Italy during World War II.
Sachs, Marilyn. A Pocket Full of Seeds. Puffin Books, 1994. During World War II in
occupied France, a young Jewish girl returns from an overnight visit with a friend to find
her family has disappeared.
Sanders, Ronald. Storming the Tulips. Stonebrook Pub, c2011. Presents the stories of
twenty students who attended the First Montessori School in Amsterdam during the
Holocaust, discussing the hardships and tragedies the children faced when friends and
family members disappeared, some were sent to death camps, some joined the Nazi
youth, and some struggled to find food.
Sharenow, Rob. The Berlin Boxing Club. HarperTeen, 2011. In 1936 Berlin, fourteenyear-old Karl Stern, considered Jewish despite a non-religious upbringing, learns to box
from the legendary Max Schmeling while struggling with the realities of the Holocaust.
Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk. Stolen child. Scholastic Canada, 2009. Nadia arrives in
Canada after the end of World War II, from the Displaced Persons' camp where she has
spent the last five years. But troubling memories and dreams begin to haunt her, and she
questions her true identity.
Steiner, Connie Colker. Shoes for Amélie. Lobster Press, 2001. Every week strangers
come to Lucien's farm in the French countryside only to leave in secrecy a few days later.
From the whispering of people around him, Lucien learns there is a war on and that Jews
are in trouble. This heart-warming tale of friendship and loyalty during World War II was
inspired by the true stories of the villagers and farmers in the Plateau Vivarais-Lignon
region of France. It is a sensitive introduction to European history, as seen through the
eyes of a young boy whose family shelters Jewish refugees.
Stuchner, Joan Betty. Honey Cake. Random House, 2008. David and his family live in
Denmark during the Nazi occupation, until September 1943 when their neighbors help
smuggle them to Sweden to escape Hitler's orders to send the Danish Jews to
concentration camps. Includes a recipe for honey cake, typically made to celebrate the
Jewish New Year.
Talbott, Hudson. Forging Freedom : A True Story of Heroism during the Holocaust.
Putnam's Sons, 2000. Chronicles the brave exploits of Jaap Penraat, a young Dutch man,
who risked his life during World War II to save the lives of over 400 Jews.
Taylor, Peter Lane. The Secret of Priest's Grotto : a Holocaust Survival Story. Kar-Ben,
2007. Two explorers survey caves in the Western Ukraine and relate the story of how an
extended Jewish family, fleeing persecution by the Nazis, lived for two years in a large
cave, Popowa Yama, and survived the war.
Tchernia, Gil. Je ne suis pas contagieux: un enfant Juif prisonnier dans le camp de
Drancy. Archimede; L'école des loisirs, 2007. Ce livre est le témoignage véridique du
cauchemar vécu par un enfant qui a échappé de justesse à la déportation et à la mort.
Méditons les leçons du passé et prenons garde au présent pour préserver l'avenir.
Thomson, Ruth. Terezin : Voices from the Holocaust. Candlewick Press, 2011. Through
inmates' own voices--from secret diary entries and artwork to excerpts from memoirs and
recordings narrated after the war--"Terezin" explores the lives of Jewish people in one of
the most infamous of the Nazi transit camps.
Vander Zee, Ruth. L’étoile d’Erika. Toulouse : Milan, 2003. Cette histoire relate
l’histoire d’une femme, Erika, ayant échappé par miracle à l’Holocauste... grâce à sa
mère.
Vaughan, Marcia K. Irena's Jars of Secrets. Lee & Low Books, 2011. The story of Irena
Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker who helped rescue nearly 2500 Jewish children
from the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.
Waxman, Laura Hamilton. Anne Frank. Lerner Publications Company, 2009. An
exploration of the life of Anne Frank that describes her family's attempts to escape Nazi
persecution and the diary which her father published after her death in a concentration
camp.
Whitney, Kim Ablon. The Other Half of Life: a Novel Based on the True Story of the MS
St. Louis. Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. In 1939, fifteen-year-old Thomas sails on a German ship
bound for Cuba with more than nine hundred German Jews expecting to be granted safe
haven in Cuba.
Wild, Margaret and Julie Vivas. A Time for Toys. Kids Can Press, 1991. This book
relates the effort of a group of women imprisoned in Belsen to make toys for all the
children who where held there.
Wiviott, Meg. Benno and the Night of Broken Glass. Kar-Ben, 2010. In 1938 Berlin,
Germany, a cat sees Rosenstrasse change from a peaceful neighborhood of Jews and
Gentiles to an unfriendly place where, one November night, men in brown shirts destroy
Jewish-owned businesses and arrest or kill Jewish people. Includes facts about
Kristallnacht.
Wood, Angela. Holocaust: the events and their impact on real people. DK Publishing,
2007. Survivors tell their stories on DVD
Zullo, Allan. Escape: Children of the Holocaust. Scholastic, 2009. Features seven true
stories of brave boys and girls who lived through the Holocaust. Their compelling
accounts are based on exclusive, personal interviews with the survivors. Using real
names, dates and places, these stories are factual versions of their recollections.
DVD
I'm still here: real diaries of young people who lived during the Holocaust. Directed by
Lauren Lazin ; written by Alexandra Zapruder ; produced by Lauren Lazin, Allison
Leiking, Alexandra Zapruder ; co-producer, Katy Garfield ; a presentation of MTV News
and Documentaries.
Miracle at midnight. Walt Disney Home Video, 2004. When word of the Nazi plot to
arrest Denmark's Jews leaks out, Christian families such as the Kosters band together to
thwart the impending raid by aiding their Jewish neighbors in hiding.