The Holocaust: History and Literature
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General Resources and Recommendations
- Jewish Book Council: Recommended Fiction and Non-Fiction on the HolocaustJewish Book Council, founded in 1944, is the longest-running organization devoted exclusively to the support and celebration of Jewish literature. This is their list of suggested readings.
- Suggested Podcasts and Audio about the HolocaustThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's suggested list of podcasts and audio.
- The United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumThis is the official museum for the Holocaust in the United States. A fantastic and reliable resource for researching the Holocaust.
Non-Fiction Books
Why?: Explaining the Holocaust
Explains the why behind the Holocaust, how it started, and its effects.
The Holocaust (eBook)
This collection of essays explores genocide and persecution of the European Jews and others during World War II. Essays include the historical background on the systematic, state-sponsored murder and persecution by the Nazi regime. Topics include race superiority, threats to the German community, and personal narratives by those impacted directly or indirectly by the Holocaust.
Explaining the Holocaust (eBook)
Seventy years after it took place, the Holocaust committed against the Jews of Europe during World War II continues to cast a giant shadow over humankind.
Night
Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps.
The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation forces, hid in the back of an Amsterdam office building for two years.
A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction
What is the difference between writing a novel about the Holocaust and fabricating a memoir? Do narratives about the Holocaust have a special obligation to be 'truthful'--that is, faithful to the facts of history? Ruth Franklin investigates these questions as they arise in the most significant works of Holocaust fiction.
The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism
Walter Laqueur here offers both a comprehensive history of anti-Semitism as well as an illuminating look at the newest wave of this phenomenon.
Why We Watched
The Allies stood by and watched Nazi Germany imprison and then murder six million Jews during World War II. How could the unthinkable have been allowed to happen?
Rain of Ash
A major new history of the genocide of Roma and Jews during World War II and their entangled quest for historical justice Jews and Roma died side by side in the Holocaust, yet the world did not recognize their destruction equally.
Roots of Hate
William I. Brustein provides a systematic comparative and empirical examination of anti-Semitism in Europe before the Holocaust.
Fiction
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale
A brutally moving work of art--widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written--Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author's father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
Number the Stars
Through the eyes of ten-year-old Annemarie, we watch as the Danish Resistance smuggles almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark, nearly seven thousand people, across the sea to Sweden.
The Book Thief
When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist-books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.