“Leaving Poland for England at the end of World War II, Silvana is accompanied by eight-year-old, near-feral Aurek, with whom she shares traumatic wartime memories that set them apart from her husband, who has remade himself as an Englishman to forget the past (From the Publisher).”
By Mark Sullivan
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian
A teenage boy in 1940s Italy becomes part of an underground railroad that helps Jews escape through the Alps but is forced by his parents to enlist as a German soldier for his own protection, where he becomes a spy for the Allies.
By Robert Sharenow
German soldiers take Peter from a Warsaw orphanage, and soon he is adopted by Professor Kaltenbach, a prominent Nazi, but Peter forms his own ideas about what he sees and hears and decides to take a risk that is most dangerous in 1942 Berlin.
By Jim Shepard
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
“Aron, one of the children of the Warsaw Ghetto who smuggle and trade things through the “quarantine walls” to keep their people alive, is rescued by a Jewish-Polish doctor who instills within him the importance of revealing to the world the atrocities they have all suffered (From the Publisher).”
By Marcus Zuzak
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Wednesday, January 27, 2010. 7 PM.
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel - a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
By Elle Feldman
Peter Van Pels hid in the attic with Anne Frank and died in the camps just before liberation. This novel attempts to answer the question: What if he survived, forged a new identity, and came to the U.S. after the war?
By Jane Yolen
A retelling of the Sleeping Beauty tale finds Briar Rose living in forests patrolled by the German army during World War II in a dark tale of the Holocaust.
By David R. Gillham
Recommended By Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Tuesday, January 28, 2014. 1:30 PM.
Hiding her clandestine activities behind the persona of a model Nazi soldier's wife at the height of World War II, Sigrid Schroeder dreams of her former Jewish lover and risks everything to hide a mother and two young children who she believes might be her lover's family.
Four young women haunted by unspeakable memories and losses, afraid to begin to hope, find salvation in the bonds of friendship and shared experience even as they confront the challenge of re–creating themselves in a strange new country.
By Ronald H. Balson
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
The National Jewish Book Award-winning author of The Girl From Berlin explores the human cost of war and the consequences of survival in the story of a Polish business owner who seeks justice for a wartime betrayal.
By Jonathan Safran Foer
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
“This highly imaginative debut novel features a protagonist with the same name as the author… His mission, as he ventures through the farmlands, is to find Augustine, who may have saved the grandfather he never knew from the Nazis (Library Journal).”
By Alison Pick
“Holding onto the hope that he and his family will be able to weather the oncoming Nazi occupation, Pavel Bauer, a fiercely patriotic secular Jew, finds his world unraveling as his government, business partners, and neighbors turn their backs on him and his family (From the Publisher).”
By Elie Wiesel
A profoundly moving novel about a Holocaust survivor's struggle to remember both the heroic and the shameful events of his past, and about his American-born son's need to assimilate his father's life into his own.
By Armando Lucas Correa
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
Stripped of her family’s privileges by the Nazi party in 1939 Berlin, Hannah Rosenthal forges a pact that she will remain true to her best friend, Leo, before embarking on a refugee ship bound for Havana, where rumors of a deadly plot force her to make an impossible choice.
By Irma Joubert
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
A young girl who escaped a train bound for Auschwitz is taken in by a Polish freedom fighter for the duration of the war, only to meet up with him years later in Apartheid era South Africa.
By Carol Matas
When German soldiers arrive in Zloczow during World War II, a young Jewish girl must decide whether or not to conceal her identity and work for a Nazi in Germany in order to survive.
By Julie Orringer
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director
Orringer’s first novel is a grand love story and an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are torn apart by war in 1937 Paris.
By Asher Kravitz
Recommended By Isabel Zinman, Readers' Services Librarian
The Jewish Dog is the story of Caleb, a unique dog born in Germany in 1935. When events separate him from his Jewish owners, he is adopted by a Nazi family, employed by the SS as a military dog, and witnesses first-hand the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. It is a story of heroism, survival, and brave friendship, told from the perspective of an intelligent creature who views the world from only 20 inches above the ground, yet who sees more clearly than many humans. Deeply ironic and even humorous, The Jewish Dog wonders what, if anything, distinguishes man from dog.
By Ronald Balson
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
Holocaust survivor Lena Woodward enlists the help of lawyer Catherine Lockhart and private investigator Liam Taggart to help her resolve a secret from her past in Nazi-occupied Poland.
By Belva Plain
Two sisters separated by adoption and a romantic betrayal emigrate to America from Berlin after their parents fall victim to the Nazis.
By Martha Hall Kelly
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk
The lives of three women converge at the Ravensbruck concentration camp as Caroline Ferriday resolves to help from her post at the French consulate, Kasia Kuzmerick becomes a courier in the Polish resistance, and Herta Oberheuser takes a German government medical position.
By Alyson Richman
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Tuesday, January 24, 2012. 1PM & 7:30 PM.
“From the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the Occupation, to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit- and the strength of memory (From the Publisher).”
By Jillian Cantor
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian
In a reimagining of the life of Anne Frank's sister Margot, Margie Franklin, working as a secretary at a Jewish law firm in Philadelphia, finds her carefully constructed life falling apart when her sister becomes a global icon.
By Art Speigelman
Series Maus
Recommended By Adrienne Rein, Library Clerk
Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying past, and history itself.
Genre Holocaust Fiction, Biography/Memoir, Modern Era, Graphic Novels, Graphic Non-Fiction
Teen Genre History, Graphic Novels
By Affinity Konar
Arriving at Auschwitz in 1944, twin sisters Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in each other when they become part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, where they experience horrors unknown to other inmates.
Genre Historical Fiction, Modern Era, Holocaust Fiction, Survival Stories (Fiction)
Teen Genre Adult Books for Teens
By Ransom Riggs
Series Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist
After a family tragedy, Jacob feels compelled to explore an abandoned orphanage.
By Sara Young
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
“One of the lesser-known aspects of the Nazi regime was the Lebensborn program, which promoted the expansion of the "master race" by encouraging German women and those who were racially "pure" in its occupied countries to bear as many children as possible. Young explores the experiences of these women in her fictional story of Cyrla… Unbeknown to the officials, Cyrla is half Jewish and must walk a tightrope as she plots her escape (Library Journal).”
By Elie Wiesel
Series The Night Trilogy
Wiesel questions the limits of conscience: Can Holocaust survivors forge a new life despite their memories? Wiesel's trilogy offers insights on mankind's attraction to violence and on the temptation of self-destruction.
By Kristin Hannah
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Rosalia White, Library Clerk, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
Reunited when the elder's husband is sent to fight in World War II, French sisters Vianne and Isabelle find their bond as well as their respective beliefs tested by a world that changes in horrific ways.
Genre Modern Era, Holocaust Fiction, European Fiction, French Fiction, World War II Fiction, Historical Fiction, Cultural Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Loss/Grief, Secrets, Separation, Relationships, Family Relationships, Men/Women Relationships, Romance/Love Stories, Historical Romance, Survival Stories (Fiction), War Stories (Fiction), World War II
Teen Genre Adult Books for Teens
By Michael Lavigne
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director
When Michael’s father, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, hands him a box of moldy old journals, an amazing adventure begins – one that takes the reader from the concentration camps of Poland to a love story in Palestine, from a cancer ward in New Jersey to a hopeless marriage in San Francisco. While reading the journals, Michael becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about his father.
By Lois Lowry
In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten–year–old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.
Genre Teen Books for Adults, Modern Era, Historical Fiction, Holocaust Fiction
Teen Genre Classical Literature, Fiction, For Middle Schoolers
Kids Genre Historical Fiction, Top 20 (Fall 2011)
By Morris Gleitzman
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
After living in a Catholic orphanage for nearly four years, a naïve Jewish boy runs away and embarks on a journey across Nazi-occupied Poland to find his parents.
By Ronald H. Balson
Recommended By Susan L., Library Page
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Tuesday, April 25, 2017. 1:30 PM.
Elliot Rosenzweig, a wealthy Chicago philanthropist, is attending opening night at the opera. Ben Solomon, a retired Polish immigrant, makes his way through the crowd and shoves a gun in Rosenzweig's face, denouncing him as former SS officer. Rosenzweig uses his enormous influence to get Solomon released from jail, but Solomon commences a relentless pursuit to bring Rosenzweig before the courts to answer for war crimes.
By Pam Jenoff
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
Sixteen–year–old Noa, forced to give up her baby fathered by a Nazi soldier, snatches a child from a boxcar containing Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp and takes refuge with a traveling circus, where Astrid, a Jewish aerialist, becomes her mentor.
By Charles Belfoure
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian
Tuesday, June 28, 2016. 1:30 PM.
A Parisian architect is paid handsomely to devise secret hiding spaces for Jews in his Nazi-occupied country but struggles with risking his life for a cause he is ambivalent towards, until a personal failure brings home their suffering.
By Sara Houghteling
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services
“Set in a Paris darkened by World War II, Sara Houghteling’s sweeping and sensuous debut novel tells the story of a son’s quest to recover his family’s lost masterpieces, looted by the Nazis during the occupation (From the Publisher).”
By Philip Roth
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director, Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian
In a novel of alternative history, aviation hero and isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh defeats Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election, negotiating a cordial accord with Adolf Hitler, accepting his conquest of Europe and anti-Semitic policies, and igniting a storm of fear for Jewish families throughout America.
By Ellen Marie Wiseman
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
In 1938 Germany, seventeen-year-old Christine Bolz, a domestic forbidden to return to the wealthy Jewish family she works for, and to her employer’s son Isaac, confronts the Gestapo and the horrors of Dachau to be with the man she loves.
By Kristin Harmel
Recommended By Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian
An American newlywed, an eleven-year-old Jewish girl, and a British Royal Air Force soldier are brought together by fate and loss in Nazi-occupied Paris, where together they find the courage to survive.
By Tatiana de Rosnay
Recommended By Susan L., Library Page
American Journalist Julia Jarmond researches the brutal 1942 Nazi roundup in Paris and stumbles upon a connection between her family and one of the victims, which compels Julia to learn more about the girl's life.
The story of a Catholic war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who risked his life and went bankrupt in order to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps. He employed Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army. At the same time he tries to stay solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant and negotiates business with a vicious Nazi commandant.
Became the movie: Schindler’s List.
By Chris Bohjalian
Recommended By Betty Petreshock, Reference Librarian
In the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives. At the center is eighteen-year-old Anna, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats, and her first love, a twenty-year-old prisoner of war named Callum.
By Elizabeth Rosner
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
“It’s not hard to like this lyrical, gently paced debut that confronts the terrible legacy carried by children of trauma and tragedy. Paula Perel and her older brother Julian bear the anguish of their father’s Holocaust memories in vastly different ways … thoughtful, earnest novel … (Kirkus Reviews).”
By Jodi Picoult
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
Becoming friends with Josef Weber, an old man who's particularly loved in her community, Sage Singer is shocked when one day he asks her to kill him and reveals why he deserves to die, causing her to question her beliefs--and to wonder if his request would be murder or justice.
By Elliot Perlman
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk
“Working as a street cleaner at a large city hospital, paroled felon Lamont forges an unlikely friendship with a dying man; while struggling professor Adam discovers wrenching historical recordings of victims of the Holocaust (From the Publisher).”
“A gifted novelist's account of a foreign occupation, written while it was taking place, with history and imagination jointly evoking a bitter time, correcting and enriching our memory (Washington Post).”
By Heather Morris
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Tuesday, January 28, 2020. 1 PM.
A novel based on the true story of an Auschwitz–Birkenau survivor traces the experiences of a Jewish Slovakian who uses his position as a concentration–camp tattooist to secure food for his fellow prisoners.
By Pam Jenoff
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director
“Defending the brother of a Holocaust hero against allegations of World War II crimes, fiercely independent attorneys Charlotte Gold and Jack Harrington slowly fall for one another, while their client refuses to help in his own defense and claims that proof of his innocence lies within an intricate clock (From the Publisher).”
By Mary Doria Russell
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
"Mary Doria Russell sets her first historical novel against this dramatic background, tracing the lives of a handful of fascinating characters. Through them, she tells the little-known but true story of the network of Italian citizens who saved the lives of forty-three thousand Jews during the war’s final phase (From the Publisher)."
By Louise Murphy
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Monday, July 23, 2012. 7 PM.
A retelling of the classic fairy tale, set in Nazi-occupied Poland, follows two Jewish children, left by their father and stepmother to seek refuge in a dense forest, as they wander the woods until being taken in by Magda, an eccentric old woman called a witch by local villagers, who is determined to save them despite the arrival of a German officer.