Oregon Holocaust Memorial Resources
Memoirs
Auerbacher, Inge. I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust. New York: Prentice Hall, 1987. (middle school +)
History, poetry, and personal narrative accompanied by drawings and photographs combine in the slim volume to present a concise, child's eye view of the Holocaust. From 1942 to 1945, Auerbacher was incarcerated in the Terezin ghetto in Czechoslovakia.
Ayer, Eleanor H. Parallel Journeys. New York: Atheneum, 1995. (middle school +)
Alternating chapters contrast the wartime experiences of two young Germans - Helen Waterford, who was interned in a Nazi concentration camp, and Alfons Heck, a member of the Hitler Youth. The volume is composed mainly of excerpts from their published autobiographies, connected by Ayer's overview of the era.
Boas, Jacob. We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust. New York: Henry Holt, 1995. (middle school +)
Boas, a Holocaust survivor, recounts the stories of five young Jews, including Anne Frank, whose diaries describe their observations and feelings during the Holocaust. These are their stories, in their own words.
Cretzmeyer, Stacy. Your Name is Renee: Ruth Kapp Hart'zs Story as a Hidden Child in Nazi-Occupied France. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. (middle school +)
In Nazi-occupied France in 1941, four-year-old Ruth Knapp learns that it is dangerous to use her own name. She is warned to use the name Renee which is French. French families in the countryside risk their lives to protect Ruth and her family as they flee one home after another. Abruptly separated from her parents, Ruth lives out the war hidden in a Catholic convent. A paper bag containing a few pieces of candy, smuggled into Ruth's hands, is the little girl's only clue that her parents are still alive.
Drucker, Olga Levy. Kindertransport. New York: Holt, 1992. (middle school +)
Born in Germany in 1927, Olga Levy was one of the many Jewish children evacuated from Germany to England during 1939 and 1939. She was separated from her parents for six years, until they were reunited in the US in 1945.
Fenelon, Fania. Playing for Time. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,. 1997. (high school +)
Fenelon recounts her experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. Nazis transported her from the Drancy camp in Paris to Auschwitz. Although her descriptions reveal the horrors of the camps, the book's primary focus is on her experiences in the Auschwitz-Birkenau women's orchestra.
Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. (middle school +)
One of the most read works in Holocaust literature, this classic account presents an eloquent picture of adolescence for a Jewish girl growing up during the Holocaust years in Amsterdam, Holland, until her hiding place is discovered.
Frankl, Viktor. Man's Search for Meaning. New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., 1959. (middle school +)
After three years at Birkenau and other Nazi prisons, Dr. Frankl gained freedom only to learn that almost his entire family had been wiped out. But during, and indeed partly because of the suffering and degradations of those harrowing years, he developed his theory of logotherapy or modern day psychotherapy. His memoir recounts his life at Birkeanu living in hope that he would see his wife again.
Friedman, Henry. I'm No Hero. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999. (high school +)
Friedman traces his experiences from his childhood before the Holocaust into life in hiding, together with his family, and alone, and his postwar adventures as he rebuilds his life and recreates a world. Director of the WA State Holocaust Resource Center
Fry, Varian. Assignment: Rescue: An Autobiography by Varian Fry. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1945. (middle school +)
Personal account of a man honored as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Israeli government, Varian Fry was the man could was able to enter Vichy France where thousands of people had fled Hitler's Germany. He describes the methods he used to help thousands of hunter men and women to safety. The renowned artist, Marc Chagall, was one of the Jews brought to the USA by Varian Fry.
Garner, Eleanor Ramrath. Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany. Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, Inc., 1999. (middle school +)
This is a memmoir of Eleanor Ramrath who as a girl of nine, left the USA to Germany, where her father was offered a job. When the war breaks out, her family is crossing the Atlantic, and they cannot return. Her family faced separation, threats from the Gestapo, bombings, starvation, the final fierce battle for Berlin, and the terrors of Soviet occupancy.
Gies, Miep, and Alison L. Gold. Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Women Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. (high school +)
Miep Gies, along with her husband, was among the people who helped the Frank family while they were in hiding. Her story is an important supplement to Anne Frank's diary as it adds historical background and an outside perspective to Anne's story. Gies enables the reader to understand what was happening both inside and outside the secret annex.
Golabek, Mona, and Lee Cohen. The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival. New York: Warner Books, 2002. (middle school +)
Concert pianist Mona Golabek, shares her memoir of her mother's j ourney through World War II and the gift that became her enduring legacy to her daughter: the gift of music. For Mona's mother, Lisa Jura, the long journey began as a child of a Jewish family in Vienna. Lisa was a musical prodigy and her parents managed to secure a berth for their daughter aboard the Kindertransport. Lisa left her beloved family and homeland and made her way to a home for displaced children at 243 Willesden Lane orphanage.
Hillsesum, Etty. An Interrupted Life. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. (middle school +)
An adult counterpart to Anne Frank, Etty Hillseum was born in 1914 to a family of privileged Dutch Jews. She was twenty-nine years old when she died at Auschwitz. Her diary, published forty years after her death, gave the world an extraordinary look at life in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation as revealed in her diary.
Hillesum, Etty. Letters from Westerbork. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. (middle school +)
Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew, wrote letters vividly describing the transit camp, Westerbork, the last stop before her departure to Auschwitz. She describes the crowded wooden barracks, the labyrinths of barbed wire, and the field of wildflowers at the edge of the camp. Later, farmers found a postcard she had thrown from the train. It read: "We left the camp singing."
Holliday, Laurel. Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries. New York: Pocket Books, 1995. (middle school +)
Holliday provides an anthology of diaries written by children in Nazi-occupied Europe. She includes the writing of twenty-three boys and girls ages ten through eighteen. Their diaries illustrate the diverse experiences of children during World War II and the Holocaust.
Isaacman, Clara, and Joan A. Grossman. Clara's Story. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication society, 1984. (middle school +)
Clara and her family fled anti-Semitism in Romania to Belgium in 1940. Like so many others, they were then threatened a second time by the Nazi invasion of Belgium. By constantly moving from one hiding place to another, everyone but Clara's father survived.
Kern, Alice. Tapestry of Hope. Portland, OR: Printed in USA by Alice Kern, 1988. (middle school+).
Koehn, Ilse. Mischling, Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany. New York: Puffin Books, 1990. (middle school +)
Unaware of her Jewish heritage, Ilse was six years old when the Nuremberg "racial laws" declared her a "Mischling, second degree," a person with one Jewish grandparent. Her story is that of a little girl whose comfortable world has been turned upside down for no apparent reason.
Leitner, Isabella. Isabella: From Auschwitz to Freedom. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. (middle school +)
Leitner, a survivor of Auschwitz, recounts the ordeal of holding her family together after her mother was killed. Leitner describes her deportation from Hungary in the summer of 1944, her experiences in Auschwitz, and her evacuation to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near the end of the war.
Levi, Primo. Moments of Reprieve. New York: Summit Books, 1986. (high school +)
Levi was deported from Turin, Italy, to the Auschwitz camp in Poland in 1943. He presents a collection of short stories that celebrate his survival at Auschwitz.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Macmillan, 1987. (high school +)
Levi was an Italian Jew captured in 1943 who was still at Auschwitz at the time of the liberation. He not only chronicles the daily activities in the camp but also his inner reactions to it and destruction of the inner as well as the outer self.
Meed, Vladka. On Both Sides of the Wall. Washington, D.C.: Holocaust Library, 1993.
This is a memoir of the Warsaw ghetto by one of the young smugglers who maintained contact between the ghetto and the "Aryan" side of the city. Working for the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), Vladka Meed helped smuggled weapons and ammunition into the ghetto.
Nir, Yehuda. The Lost Childhood. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991. (senior high +)
This memoir chronicles six years in the life of a Polish Jewish boy, his mother, and his sister, all who survived the Holocaust by obtaining false papers and posing as Catholics. Nir lost almost everything, including his father, his possessions, his youth and innocence, and his identify, but he managed to live with the help of chance, personal resourcefulness, and the support of his family.
Oertelt, Henry A. An Unbroken Chain: My Journey through the Nazi Holocaust. Minneapolis: Lener Publications Co., 2000. (middle school +)
Henry Oertelt retraces the harrowing sequence of events that forever changed his destiny. Evading certain death time after time, Henry links eighteen incidents into the chain of his life. Beginning as a Jewish youth in Germany, the author relates his existence in wartime Berlin, the concentration camps, and eventually his liberation.
Orenstein, Henry. I Shall Live: Surviving Against All Odds, 1939-1945. New York: Beaufort Books, 1987. (high school +)
Henry along with his family, survive for a few years hiding in Poland until they surrender due to starvation. His parents are shot and Henry is sent to five other camps including Majdanek, a death camp, until his liberation.
Pawel, Ursula. My Child is Back. Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell Press, 2000. (middle school +)
Ursula Pawel relates her experiences in Germany from her birth in 1926 to the start of a new life in the USA after the war. Her father was a Jew, her mother a Christian, and although their marriage shocked some relatives, such "mixed marriages" were not uncommon in the 1920s. With Hitler's rise to power, persecution of Jews, including "half Jews", Ursula was sent to a concentration camp, but her parents were sent to their deaths at Auschwitz.
Perl, Lila, and Marion Blumenthal Lazan. Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1996. (middle school +)
As a young Jewish girl, Marion Blumenthal hoped she could find four pebbles of almost exactly the same size and shape, meaning that her family would remain whole. For the next six-and-a half years, the Blumenthals were forced to live in refugee, transit, and prison camps. Eventually, all four survived Bergen-Belsen and immigrated to the USA.
Reiss, Johanna. The Upstairs Room. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. (middle school +)
Reiss, from a Dutch Jewish family, tells the story of the years she spent hiding with her sister in the farmhouse of a Dutch family who protected them. She relates her experiences after the war in a sequel, The Journey Back.
Sender, Ruth M. The Cage. New York: Macmillan, 1986. (middle school +)
Sender's account of her experiences is most of the most graphic and dramatic in young people's literature. Her story begins just before the Nazi invasion of Poland continues through life in the Lodz ghetto and finally, at Auschwitz. A sequel, To Life, continues her narrative from liberation to her arrival in the U.S. in 1950.
Siegal, Aranka. Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary, 1939-1944. London: Dent, 1982. (middle school +)
A nine-year old girl named Piri, describes the bewilderment of being a Jewish child during the German occupation of her hometown (then in Hungary and now in Ukraine) and relates the ordeal of trying to survive in the ghetto.
Sierakowiak, Dawid, Alan Adelson, and Kamil Turowski. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Dawid Sierakowiak was a fifteen-year old boy in the Lodz ghetto in German-occupied Poland when he began writing this diary. Edited and annotated by Adelson and Turowski, Dawid provides an account of daily life in the Lodz ghetto.
Tec, Nechama. Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood. New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1984. (high school +)
The author and her family were Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust on the "Aryan" side of the ghetto. Although she escaped the worst horrors of the Holocaust, her story add another dimension to Holocaust literature. She describes her childhood experiences as seen through the child's eyes, but with the added perspective of her adult perception.
Ten Boom, Corrie. The Hiding Place. New York: Bantam Books, 1971. (middle school +)
Written in the first person, this memoir read like an adventure book as it tells the story of a Christian woman and her sister who were arrested for helping Jews and were subsequently sent to a concentration camp.
Toll, Nelly S. Behind the Secret Window: A Memoir of a Hidden Childhood during World War II. New York: Dial Books, 1993. (middle school +)
Toll recounts the details of her family life in Lvov, Poland, before World War II and her experiences, told from the child's perspective, of her eighteen months in hding with her mother. The narrative is accompanied by twenty-nine reproductions of watercolor paintings that Toll created during those difficult months.
Warren, Andrea. Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. (middle school +)
The true story of Jack Mandelbaum's life as a fifteen year-old caught up in Hitler's Final Solution. Jack must learn to live hour to hour, day to day. As told to Andrea Warren, Mr. Mandelbaum resolves not to hate his captors and vows to see his family again.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam, 1982. (middle school +).
Wiesel is one of the most eloquent writers of the Holocaust, and this book is his best-known work. This narrative describes his experience in Auschwitz.
Yoors, Jan. Crossing: A Journal of Survival and Resistance in World War II. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971. (high school +)
Every summer during his teen years, Yoors left his comfortable, upper-middle class family life in Belgium to travel around Europe with a Romani (Gypsy) family. This journal focuses on the participation of Yoors and his fondly remembered Romani friends in resistance activities during World War II.
Zapruder, Alexandra. Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust. New Haven, Conn.: 2002. (high school +)
A collection of diaries written by young people during the Holocaust reflects a vast and diverse range of experiences - some of the writers were refugees, others were hiding or passing as non-Jews, some were imprisoned in ghettos. Excerpts from fifteen diaries are included , ten of which have never been translated and published in English. The diaries ranged in age from twelve to twenty-two; some survived the Holocaust, but most perished.
Zar, Rose. In the Mouth of the Wolf. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983. (middle school +)
Zar's story is unusual because she is one of the few Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust years in Poland . She fled the Piotrkow ghetto and lived under false papers as a Christian Pole. She survived the war working in the household of a German officer and his wife.