There is no shortage of books about the Holocaust—tales of suffering, escape, tragedy. No matter how many I read, I am always delighted when I find one that brings an unusual perspective to the genre of survivor stories. These ten true stories—eight memoirs and two autobiographical novels, are some of my favorites. I recommend them to you.
The Jewish War and The Victory by Henryk Grynberg.
Two short autobiographical novels that should count as one, The Jewish War tells of the survival of a Jewish boy in Nazi Poland and is followed by The Victory, which tells of his experiences after the war in a devastated Poland occupied by the Soviets.
The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How one Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust by Edith Hahn Beer with Susan Dworkin.
Truth is stranger than fiction in this gripping story of a young, Jewish woman who hides in Germany using false papers, falls in love with a Nazi Party member and soldier, and marries him. Even though he knows her true identity, his love for her allows him to keep her secret and protect her throughout the war.
Other People’s Houses by Lore Segal
Written as a novel, this intimate memoir tells the personal tale of a ten-year-old girl sent from Austria to England in December 1938 on a “Kindertransport.” It recounts her reunion with her family in England and their subsequent time as refugees in the Dominican Republic.
A Lucky Child by Tomas Buergenthal
Level and even, this book differs from others because of the long 50 years between the events and the writing of the memoir. One of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz and the Death March, Buergenthal occasionally breaks stride to tell how he reacted to certain events in his later life as a result of his experiences in the Nazi camps.
Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler by Trudi Kanter
Both light and tragic, this memoir is about a young milliner in pre-WWII Vienna who takes charge of the successful escape of herself, her lover, and her parents from Nazi-occupied Austria. The clear writing reveals glimpses of the elegant world of pre-war Vienna, the millinery business, and life in London during WWII.
Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
This two-volume, graphic-novel memoir, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, is the deeply moving story of a father and his son. The black-and-white “comic-book” format reveals a document of human importance. Over the course of a year, the author listens to his father’s narrative of holocaust survival and shares with the reader that story, as well as his relationship with his father, his feelings while listening to the story, the problems of writing about it, and how this emotional year affects his life and his marriage.
An Unbroken Chain by Henry A Oertelt
This memoir is based on the “chain” of circumstances and events that kept the author alive during the Holocaust. Short chapters that tell of the things the author considers instrumental to his survival are interspersed with longer chapters that tell the actual sequence of events as remembered by the author.
Parallel Journeys by Elenor Ayer with Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck
The memoirs of Helen Waterford, a Jewish Auschwitz survivor, and of Alfons Heck, a boyhood officer in the Hitler Youth, are combined with well-researched background information about the war, the formation of the Hitler Youth organizations and the Nazi Jewish policy. The book is an outgrowth of the speaking partnership that began in 1980 with the meeting of Heck and Waterford, after which they joined together to bring the honest and cautionary stories of their Hitler-era experiences to audiences.
My German Question, Growing Up in Nazi Berlin by Peter Gay
An interesting and intimate memoir told from the perspective of a Columbia University professor as he looks back on his life as a young Jewish boy in Berlin in the 1930s. Gay recounts his schoolboy perspective, as well as his adult thoughts about his childhood, the bravery and ingenuity his father needs to complete the complex emigration process, and the courage of non-Jewish friends who help during these terrible times of growing panic.
Leap into Darkness by Leo Bretholz with Michael Olesker
Bretholz’s memoir, told with the help of a professional journalist, is full of intimate details, as well as the thoughts and feelings of a young man during the seven years of WWII where he spends running and hiding in Belgium and France. This memoir provides an intimate and realistic look at Drancy, the infamous internment camp near Paris, as well as the especially exciting episode about Leo’s escape from a transport train heading to Auschwitz.
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