Oregon Holocaust Memorial Resources
History
Abzug, Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart: Amerifns and the Liberation of the Concentration Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. (high school+)
Using the diaries, letters, photographs, and oral testimonies of American GIs and journalists, Abzug analyzes the reactions of the first eyewitnesses who entered the concentration camps in Germany and analyzes the reactions of the first eyewitnesses who entered the concentration camps in Germany and Austria during the spring of 1945.
Adelson, Alan, and Robert Lapides, eds. Lodz Ghetto: Inside a Community under Siege. New York: Viking Penguin, 1991. (high school+)
As the source book for film, "Lodz Ghetto," this work is a supplement to the documentary but it also stands on its own. It contains both German and ghetto documents as well as the personal expressions of ghetto residents in a variety of forms, including diaries, speeches, paintings, photographs, essays, and poems.
Allen, Willilam S. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945. New York: Franklin Watts, 1984. (high school+)
Northeim, a small town of medieval origins in the center of prewar Germany, is the setting for this study of the impact of Nazism on a single community.
Altshuler, David. Hitler's War Against the Jews - The Holocaust: A young Reader's Version of the War Against the Jews, 1933-1945 by Lucy Dawidowicz. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, 1966 (middle school+)
Arad, Yitzhak. Ghetto in Flames. New York: Holocaust Publications, 1982. (high school+)
For centuries, its large number of rabbinic scholars ensured Vilna a central place in the church life of Lithuanian Jewry. Arad's study focuses on the life, struggled, and annihilation of the Jews of Vilna in the period between 1941 and 1944.
Bachrach, Susan D. Tell Them That We Remember: The Story of the Holocaust. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1994. (middle school+)
Bachrach tells the story of the Holocaust as presented in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in brief, thematic segments illustrated by artifacts and historical photographs. Sidebars tell the personal stories of more than 20 young people of various social and religious backgrounds and nationalities who suffered or died during the Holocaust.
Bachrach, Susan D. The Nazi Olympics. Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1994. (middle school+)
Bachrach traces the troubled history of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, examining the Nazi dictatorship, the escalating persecution of German Jews, and the abortive movement in the United Sates to boycott the games. She tells the complete story of the Games, focusing not only on the athletes who competed but also on those who were banned from competition.
Bauer, Yehuda and Nili Keren. A History of the Holocaust; revised version. New York: Franklin Watts, 2002. (high school+)
Broader in scope than the title indicates, this work examines the origins of anti-Semitism and Nazism as well as the history of Jewish-German relationships. Bauer also arranges material on the Holocaust as well as the history of Jewish-German relationships. Bauer also arranges material on the Holocaust by individual country; this is useful for following events in each nation and for demonstrating the scope of the Holocaust. One of the most readable general histories for high school students.
Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000. (high school+)
As indicated in the title, the book tells the story of the Holocaust as presented in the Museum. It includes more than 200 photos from the Museum's archives and artifact collection and many eyewitness accounts from the Museum's oral and video history collections. The three parts of the book, which correspond to the three main exhibition floors, cover the rise of the Nazis to power, the ghettos and camps, and rescue, resistance, and the postwar period.
Block, Gay, and Malka Drucker. Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992. (high school +)
Interviews and full-size color portraits of 49 ordinary individuals from ten countries who risked their lives to help Jews by hiding them, sharing their food rations, forging passports and baptismal certificates, and raising Jewish children as their own. The rescuers' portraits are presented by country of origins, and a brief historical overview of rescue efforts in each country precedes their personal stories.
Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. (high school +)
This book examines in minute and graphic detail the sequence of events and individual actions and reactions that made it possible for ordinary men to become mass murderers - men who, in cold blood and up close, shot and killed thousands of men, women, and children.
Chaikin, Miriam. A Nightmare in History: The Holocaust, 1933-1945. New York: Clarion, 1987. (middle school +)
The author effectively weaves personal narratives into this concise, readable history. She presents the facts clearly and succinctly but never allows the reader to forget the faces behind the facts.
Cohen-Sherbok, Dan. Atlas of Jewish History. New York: Routledge, 1994. (high school+)
Cohen-Sherbok traces the development of Jewish history from ancient times to the present day, placing the Holocaust within the larger context of almost 5,000 years of Jewish history. He includes more than 100 maps and 24 black-and-white illustrations.
Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1984. (high school+)
Conot provides a detailed history of the Nuremberg Trials. He covers the preparations for the trials, the interrogation and indictment of the major Nazi war criminals, the prosecution of the trial, strategies used by the defense, and the verdict and execution of the sentences handed down by the International Military Tribunal in 1946. Also included is a brief discussion of the difficulties involved in organizing the Nuremberg Trials, which involved representatives from the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.
Davidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945. New York: Bantam Books, 1975. (high school +)
The book presents a systematic account as to why and how the Nazis carried out its genocide of the Jews, and how the Jews responded to the assault - first against their rights, next their livelihood, and then their lives.
Flender, Harold. Rescue in Denmark. New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1963. (high school+)
Covers the Danes' successful operation to rescue most of its Jewish residents and the profound admiration of the world. Individual stories of rescue are cited here as well as more general historical background and a look at the reasons for the Nazis' failure to implement the "Final Solution" in Denmark.
Friedman, Ina. The Other Victims: The First-Personal Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000. (middle school+)
Friedman focuses on non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. She interviews Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious figures, the disabled, and members of other victim groups. Information is included on Blacks and homosexuals, although she was unable to provide interviews.
Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War. New York: Henry Hold and Co., 1987. (high school +)
Book in which Gilbert interweaves first-person testimony through the text in order to illustrate the impact the Nazis' policy had on individuals and communities.
Grossman, Mendel. My Secret Camera: Life in the Lodz Ghetto. San Diego: Gulliver Books, 2000. (high school+)
Mendel Grossman was a Jewish photographer who depicted life in the Lodz ghetto in 1941 and 1942.
Hampton Roads Holocaust Survivors, Liberators, & Rescuers. To Life: Stories of Courage and Survival. Virginia Beach, VA: Holocaust Commission and United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. (middle school +)
This is a collection of Holocaust stories by survivors, rescuers, and liberators who also have an American story to tell. All of those interviewed live in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Each personal account contains information as well as particular elements about the destruction in various countries under Nazi occupation as experienced by people of different ages, situations, and backgrounds.
Hayes, Peter, ed. Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust in a Changing World. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1991. (high school+)
Various aspects of the Holocaust are examined by sixteen leading scholars.: Raul Hilberg, Saul Friedlander, Yehuda Bauer, Michael Marrus, Christopher Browning, Lawrence Langer and others. Also included is a critical essay by Alvin Rosenfeld on the popularization of Anne Frank.
Hayes, Peter, ed. Lessons and Legacies, Volume III: Memory, Memorialization, and Denial. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern Press, 1999. (high school+)
A collection of essays by noted scholars dealing with integrating the Holocaust into several disciplinary fields, the German context of the Holocaust, issues of memorialization, and combating Holocaust denial.
Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews (student text). New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985. (high school+)
This edition of Hilberg's classic work is an abridgment of the original, three-volume edition. The focus here is on the Nazis and their destruction process, from the concentration of the Jews in ghettos to the killing operations of the mobile units and the death camps. This essential history is recommended for more advanced students.
Hilberg, Raul. Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. (high school+)
In his most recent work, Hilberg expands his focus from the study of the perpetrator alone to include victims and bystanders. He also includes rescuers and Jewish resisters, groups that he ignored in his earlier works; however, the attention he gives to these groups is minimal. His main focus continues to be on the destruction and those responsible for it. Hitler's role is more than here than in the earlier work.
(The) Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures. Lincolnwood, Ill.: 2003.
This is a remembrance designed to be held in one's hands. It is a portable archive which includes 2,000 photographs, a 3,000-item timeline, and 250 sidebars detailing significant people, places, issues, and events.
Landau, Elaine. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. New York: Macmillan, 1992. (middle school+)
After briefly describing the creation of the Warsaw ghetto, the author concentrates on the 28 days of the uprising. Both text and photographs are graphic at times but only to the extent necessary to describe the events accurately.
Marrus, Michael, and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. New York, Basic Books, 1981. (high school+)
Marcrus and Paxton examine the fate of the Jews in Vichy, France. They outline the anti-Semititic policy of the Vichy government and its collaboration with the Nazis.
Mayer, Milton. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-1045. Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1966. (high school+)
After the war, Mayer, an American journalist, interviewed ten men of different backgrounds but from the same German town in an effort to determine, through their eyes, what had happened in Germany and what had made it possible.
Meltzer, Milton. Never to Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust. New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1977. (middle school+)
Meltzer's history focuses on the Jewish perspective on the Holocaust, including brief histories of anti-Semitism and of Jewish resistance. One of the first books on the Holocaust written for young people.
Meltzer, Milton. Rescue: The Story of How Gentiles Saved Jews in the Holocaust. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. (middle school +)
The work focuses on the non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews through Nazi-occupied Europe. The author uses material excerpted from diaries and letters, personal interviews, and eyewitness accounts.
Paldiel, Mordecai. Sheltering the Jews: Stories of Holocaust Rescuers. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1966. (middle school +)
As Director of the Office at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem dealing with "the Righteous Among the Nations," Dr. Paldiel himself a "hidden child," holds a doctorate in Holocaust Studies from Temple University. Dr. Paldiel writes about the sacrifice and heroism among the Gentiles, including some Christians, who defied the killing machines of the Nazi Third Reich, to save Jews without monetary reward.
Patterson, Charles. Anti-Semitism: The Road to the Holocaust and Beyond. New York: Walker and Co., 1988. (high school +)
As the title implies, the history of anti-Semitism includes the years both before and after the Holocaust. Patterson begins with ancient and medieval times and concludes with a discussion of modern anti-Semitism in various parts of the world.
Plant, Richard. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals. New York: Henry Holt, 1986. (high school +)
The Nazis condemned homosexuals as "socially aberrant." Soon after Hitler came to power in 1933, Storm Troopers raided nightclubs and other places where homosexuals met. Plant argues that about 10,000 people were imprisoned as homosexuals and many of them perished in concentration camps.
Read, Anthony, and David Fisher. Kristallnacht: The Tragedy of the Nazi Night of Terror. New York: Random House, 1989. (high school +)
Beginning with a brief background and ending with the Evian conference, the focus of this work is the events of Kristallnacht itself and its immediate aftermath, including the response of ordinary Germans, the Nazi follow-up, and in the international response.
Rogasky, Barbara. Smoke and Ashes: The Story of the Holocaust. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1977. (middle school +)
Blending a narrative of historical events with personal testimonies, Rogasky poses these questions: How did the Holocaust happen and why? Couldn't anyone stop it? How could the Jews let it happen? She also includes a chapter on non-Jewish victims.
Schilling, Donald. G. Lessons and Legacies II: Teaching the Holocaust in a Changing World. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1998. (high school +)
This volume includes a collection of essays written by noted scholars on recent developments in Holocaust history, methodology for teaching the Holocaust, and strategies for integrating the study of the Holocaust into an interdisciplinary environment.
Strom, Margot Stern. Facing History and Ourselves: Elements of Time. Brookline, MA, 1994. (middle school +)
A major resource that provides a detailed discussion as to why and how video testimony by Holocaust survivors should and can be incorporated into the classroom. Also, the purpose of the book is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and anti-Semitism I order to promote the development of a more human and informed citizenry. By tracing the historical roots of the events that led to the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and moral choices they confront in their own lives.
Totten, Samuel, and Stephen Feinberg, ed. Teaching and Studying the Holocaust, Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2001. (middle school +)
This book is comprised of thirteen chapters by some of the most noted Holocaust educators in the U.S. In addition to chapters on establishing clear rationales for teaching this history, the book includes individual chapters on incorporating primary documents, first-person accounts, film, literature, art, drama, music, and technology into a study of the Holocaust. It also includes a major chapter on Holocaust historiography.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Historical Atlas of the Holocaust. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1995. (high school +)
The atlas presents the story of the Holocaust in detail - country by country, ghetto by ghetto, and camp by camp. It includes more than 230 full-color maps and accompanying text, from the location of Jewish and Romani (Gypsy) communities in 1933 to the makeup of postwar Europe in 1949-1950.
Zuccotti, Susan. The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival. Lincoln: University of Nebraska press, 1996. (high school +)
Zuccotti examines the Holocaust in Italy. She notes the generous acts toward Jews that characterized the behavior of many Italians during the Holocaust but also notes the fact that anti-Semitic legislation was passes in Italy almost without dissent. Some Italians collaborated with the Germans in the deportation of Jews from Italy.
Zuccotti, Susan. The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. (high school +)
Zuccotti examines the response to the Holocaust of ordinary French people. She draws on memoirs, government documents, and personal interviews with survivors to tell the story of French men and women, Jews and non-Jews during the Holocaust.