WEEK 6 10 Books

10 Essential Books About the Holocaust That You Didn’t Read in Class

Here are 10 books that I assume would be labeled as controversial books since the title is what it is. 😜

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman: One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. 

2. An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin by Gad Beck: I can almost guarantee that you couldn't find this book in a school. WHO KNOWS. His memoir provides a look at a gay man’s coming of age in Nazi Berlin, showing how the human spirit can triumph over bigotry and violence.

3. A Scrap of Time and Other Stories by Ida Fink: 

Fink’s collection of short stories offer an intimate look into the lives of families during the Holocaust, providing a perspective from survivors, witnesses and victims in the villages of occupied Poland. Fink is a Polish Holocaust survivor and a master of the written word, diving head first into the horrors and tragedies that she and those she loved were forced to face.

4. The Journal of Helene Berr by Helene Berr : She writes about the issues that consume her life: friends, studies, boys and the growing impact of France’s Nazi occupiers. 

5. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoirby Chil Rajchman

Rajchman was one the of lone survivors of the Treblinka extermination camp, and he provides a devastating account of his experience in this memoir. 

6. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski

This collection of short stories was originally titled Farewell to Maria, a seemingly strange title for a Holocaust book until you learn Borowski’s history.

7. Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance and Rescue by Kathryn J. Atwood

This collection chronicles 26 engaging stories of brave women from Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain and the United States.

8. Things We Couldn't Say by Diet Eman

It’s rare that “love story” and “Holocaust story” are in the same sentence, but this book manages to combine the two with the incredible real-life story of Diet Eman and Hein Sietsma.

9. Boy 30529 by Felix Weinberg

Weinberg was only 12 when he was forced into a concentration camp in 1939, yet he survived five different concentration camps, including Auschwitz and the Death March from Blechhammer in 1945, reuniting with his father in Britain only after being liberated at Buchenwald. 

10. Rena’s Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz by Rena Kornreich Gelissen

This is one of the few Holocaust memoirs that details the lives of women in concentration camps. It tells the story of Rena Kornreich, who went to great lengths to keep her promise to her mother that she would protect her sister Danka. It’s a story of the bonds between family and a reminder of what we can risk and endure for those we love.

The genre of memoir often gets poked fun at, and in a time where every “struggling” 20-something seems to have one, that may make sense. Still, it’s good to remember what an important and profound medium the memoir can be. It allows victims to have a voice and to take ownership over their own story. After all, these memoirs will act as the voice of the Holocaust when the victims are no longer with us and able to tell us their stories first-hand.