books: concentration camp

books: concentration camp

books:

Concentration camp

Corrie ten Boom, Elizabeth and John Sherrill

Chosen, 2006

A story of unwavering faith in the face of persecution and Nazi tyranny
The Hiding Place is the moving true-life account of Corrie ten Boom and her family who sheltered persecuted Jews in Nazi-oocupied Holland during World War Two. They did this at great personal risk, but they did it because of their unwavering faith in God, and because ...

Night (Oprah's Book Club)

Elie Wiesel

Hill and Wang, 2006

A new day for Night
I was happy to see that this book was added to Oprah's book club, this ment that millions who never knew of this book would read it or at least hear it's story. I read this in college as part of the debates on wither the US should have entered WW2 before 1941. When I ...

Boy in the Striped Pajamas

John Boyne

David Fickling Books, 2007

wow.
I literally just finished reading this novel about ten minutes ago. I found myself just staring at the last page, waiting for some grand explanation to pop out and make it all better, but, of course, that did not happen. This book is deep, and it really makes you ...

The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2002

The nail in the coffin of the Soviet State
"A stone is not a human being, and even stones get crushed." This was an absolutely brutal, yet enlightening read. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a young, decorated Red Army officer who served bravely during the war, only to be arrested, tortured, and sent to the Gulag ...

Survival In Auschwitz

Primo Levi

Touchstone, 1996

The Experiences and Reflections of an Italian Jew at Auschwitz
My review of this classic emphasizes matters not raised by previous reviewers, and is based upon the 1986 edition which combines SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ, THE REAWAKENING, and AFTERWORD... Levi wasn't sent to or near the gas chambers and crematoria. Instead, he was ...

The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.)

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007

The best book I have read in years! A real eye-opener.
For any who have any nostalgia for the Soviet Union, this book should put it to rest. This book is hard to categorize; it is more than one man's opinion, but less than an objective history. It is, as Solzhenitsyn puts it, "an experiment in literary investigation": a ...

The Hiding Place

Corrie Ten Boom, John Scherrill, ...

Bantam Books, 1974

Wonderful book....
The Hiding Place should be read by EVERY Christian. Corrie and her sister's testimony in this book is just like reading the Bible's testimony of the new Believers! Need to feel inspired? Read The Hiding Place.

The Devil's Arithmetic (Puffin Modern Classics)

Jane Yolen

Puffin, 2004

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC by Jane Yolen is required reading at my school, as it is in many middle/junior high schools across the country. I've been meaning to read it for several years but never did, until my son read it this year as an eighth grader. He insisted I read ...

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Classics)

Tadeusz Borowski

Penguin Classics, 1992

A remembrance of things past
Imre Kertesz, a concentration camp survivor and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature often asks in his work: is there life after Auschwitz? Can one live with the ineffable guilt that accompanies survival against all odds? For Borowski the answer appears to be no. ...

The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (Newly Expanded Paperback Edition)

Simon Wiesenthal

Schocken, 1998

Is forgiveness possible when God takes a leave?
I've used Wiesenthal's The Sunflower as a text in college courses several times. On each occasion my original high estimation of Wiesenthal's narrative grows, while my dissatisfaction with the chorus of responses that takes up nearly two-thirds of the latest edition ...

The Drowned and the Saved

Primo Levi

Vintage, 1989

As important as a book gets
It is redundant to praise this book or describe its background, which has been done very well by other reviewers. This was Levi's final wrestling with the implications of what he called the Lager (he didn't use the term 'Holocaust'), not only as he experienced it, but ...

Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers

Filip Muller

Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 1999

Riviting
Nobody should be critical of the writing "style" of this book. The man who wrote it doesn't claim to be a professional writer. He relates his own eyewitness accounts of the most horrific scenes, worse than any fiction imaginable. The book details the planned and ...

Gulag: A History

Anne Applebaum

Anchor, 2004

Like science fiction--portrays a strange yet familiar world.
Better than science fiction, if you want to expand your mind. The strength, wisdom, and authentic humanity of survivors shine through on every page. When I saw the size of Anne Applebaum's "Gulag" (almost 600 pages), I thought I would just read a chapter here and ...

Farewell to Manzanar

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Houghton Mifflin, 2002

Great book
The book was very well written and you could actually put yourself in some of the incidents that happened through her life. It is very hard to belief that this discrimination happened in our country less that 75 years ago. Great read.

I Am David

Anne Holm

Harcourt Paperbacks, 2004

A beautiful read
This story is about David, a boy who has spent most of his life in concentration camps of Eastern Europe. When he is given a chance to escape, he does so with the expectation that he will be caught and returned to the camps at any moment. Eventually, he accepts that he ...