I Want You To Know We’re Still Here by Esther Safran Foer

Title: I Want You To Know We're Still Here
Author: Esther Safran Foer 
Genre: Non-fiction, Biography, World War II, Holocaust

Esther Safran Foer grew up in North America, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. Her growing up years were haunted by her parents' pasts which were ever present but never spoken of and relegated to remaining locked up secrets. The impetus to seek out a more complete understanding of her history came when Esther's mother casually mentioned that her father had had a wife and daughter who were both killed during the Holocaust. This bombshell piece of news was completely unexpected and precipitated her journey to find out more about her sister. Esther went with her son back to their family's homeland of Ukraine, where they followed the brave and devastating footsteps of her ancestors and met other survivors of that terrible time. In this enthralling tale of her search for her sister we are given the opportunity to join her as she is finally able to gain a more complete picture of her ancestors' lives and to restore her knowledge of her family tree. Most cathartic of all for Esther as well as for the reader is that she is finally able to grieve all that was so tragically lost and put to rest the burdens that she had unwittingly been carrying for decades.

- Elizabeth

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The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust by Edith Hahn Beer

Edith Hahn was a young woman studying law in Vienna when she was forced to give up her education, her home, and her life when she was banished to the Jewish ghetto and forced to wear a yellow star. Knowing she was being hunted, in a serious act of defiance, Edith ripped the yellow star from her clothing and spent every night looking for a safe place to sleep. Fearful Edith turned to a Christian friend, Edith used her friend's identity and fled to Munich. In  Munich, she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who wound up falling in love with her. Despite protestation and the confession of her Jewish identity, Werner married Edith and kept her identity a secret.

In her memoir, The Nazi Officer's Wife, Edith Hahn Beer recalls her life of fear in the face of Nazism. A tale of courage and bravery, this is a complex, troubling, and triumphant story.

The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard

When Aron was eight years old, his large Jewish family moved from their impoverished Polish village to Warsaw so his father could take a better job. His older brothers also found work and his mother took in laundry. Aron and his younger brother attended school. But their relatively better circumstances did not last long. The German army soon marched into Poland and into Warsaw. Eventually they established the Warsaw Ghetto, literally walling in the Jewish population, forcing 400,000 people into a small area of the city. Families had to double and triple up. Not only shelter, but food, medicine, fuel and clothing were in very short supply. Families began to rely on their smallest children for support. The children were able to leave the ghetto through small openings in the wall and then return, smuggling in the necessities of life. Aron joined a gang engaged in this activity. It was risky labor and getting caught could be fatal. Consequently, life became cheap. The children became inured to the pain and death of others, easily betraying and sacrificing cohorts to protect themselves. Aron lost all the members of his family, one by one, to disease and deportation. Then his fellow gang members either died or turned against him. Eventually he was put out of his own home by a squatter family and nearly died on the streets. Only the efforts of Dr. Janusz Korczak, a real life hero who advocated for and protected children even before the war, saved his life. Dr. Korczak found and brought Aron into his orphanage. Eventually, under the patient care of the doctor, Aron recovered his strength and, more importantly, his ability to empathize with others. He became a valuable assistant to Korczak, accompanying him on the begging excursions needed to feed the orphans. All in the ghetto were in bodily danger, but Aron’s humanity had been saved. Few stories on this subject have a happy ending but the right unhappy ending can be uplifting. 

Check out The Book of Aron at the library!

Margot by Jillian Cantor

At some point in life, whether it be in school or based on personal interests, chances are you've read the classic, The Diary of Anne Frank. Thanks to Anne's diary quite a bit is known about the Franks and the Annex they hid out in to avoid Nazi persecution during World War II, yet not much is known about Anne's older sister Margot.

Margot, a work of fiction by Jillian Cantor, is written from Margot Frank's perspective had she survived and not died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945 along with her sister Anne. Margot follows Margie Franklin (Margot Frank's Americanized name) as she's a typist for a law firm in the United States during the 1950s. Settling on Philadelphia after the war, Margie struggles to find her true love Peter van Pelt, who lived alongside the Franks during hiding in the Annex. Margie does everything she can to keep her former identity hidden including lying to her friends, wearing a sweater even in the hottest weather to cover up the tattooed number on her arm, saying Shabbat in secrecy on Friday nights and even denying any Jewishness. When The Diary of Anne Frank comes to theaters, Margie's life is turned upside down. Will she reveal her true identity or do everything she can to avoid embracing who she once was?

Much of the book reflects on Margot's life during hiding while also focusing on the overwhelming guilt she would feel, as many did feel as a Holocaust survivor. Cantor has woven a wonderful story around the classic Diary of Anne Frank and such a tragic historical event while shining light on the stories of survival and never forgetting where one comes from.

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Letting it Go by Mieiam Katin

In this book, graphic artist Miriam Katin explores hatred and resentment and the difficulty of Letting it Go. Katin was born a Hungarian Jew during World War II. She and her mother endured much hardship trying to survive. For this reason, she has hated Germany and particularly Berlin nearly all her life. Eventually she immigrated to the United States, married and had a son. When her son informs her of his intention to live Berlin, she must struggle between two emotions: her love for her son and her hatred of Berlin. After two visits to Berlin, she finally realizes that Germany and Berlin have changed and she must do so as well. She observes that just as the evil of the past must be acknowledged, so must the changes brought about by a new generation and new attitudes. Graphic books are not only for children and teens. Many are thoughtful examinations of adult experiences.  Letting it Go is a graphic memoir in which the author uses skillful pencil drawings as well as words to explain her struggle to leave the past behind. 

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Boy 30529: A Memoir by Felix Weinberg

There are a lot of Holocaust memoirs out there.  This one is a little bit different.  Czech-English physicist Felix Weinberg does not like to refer to himself as a “camp survivor.”  He considers it a series of miracles that he lived and his family did not.  But I find it hard to call Weinberg anything but a survivor.  This book tells the story of a teenager who survived not only Terezín, but Auschwitz-Birkenau, Blechhammer, the Blechhammer death march, Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald.  Once the war was over, Weinberg vowed only to look toward the future.  But years of not talking about his experiences left him feeling that he owed it to both his living and deceased relatives to put his story on paper.

Much of this book is a monument to his family.  Weinberg’s memories begin when he was a young child living in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem), Czechoslovakia.  He speaks fondly of the beautiful family home. How he and his mother, father and brother went to visit his mother’s parents in Prague during the holidays.  He talks about his health obsessed father, Victor,  who always took the family on nature outings, fed them all vitamins and even went so far as to hire a gymnastics trainer for young Felix. 

In 1939, Weinberg’s father left Czechoslovakia for London where he was arranging to move the entire family.  Hitler invaded the country in March of that year.  Victor had secured three Red Cross transportation passes for the remaining Weinbergs but through some sort of red tape or missing documents, they were not allowed to leave the country.  Nelly, Felix’s mother, moved them all to the small town of Wildenschwert (Ústí nad Orlicí) to live with the family of Rudolph Pick, a family friend.  Things continued to deteriorate in Czechoslovakia.  Soon, Felix was refused access to the local school due to his status as a Jew.  Food shortages worsened.  The SS even had the nerve to confiscate all of the skis belonging to Jews living in that mountain town.  Rudolph and Nelly decided to send inexperienced Felix to live at a nearby farm where he would be well fed.  This arrangement lasted about a week.  The Germans requisitioned the Picks’ large home in 1942 and the Weinbergs were soon after deported to Terezín; beginning a five year journey of horror and chance survival.

Weinberg’s short memoir is striking in its straightforward tone but is not filled with ghastly details of Nazi atrocities.  Felix explains that he does not remember large portions of those five years; that his mind enabled him to “see without seeing” as a coping mechanism.  Weinberg defied so many odds by surviving the war and his everyday account of life in Nazi concentration camps makes for an enthralling read.  Boy30529 is a thoughtful account of one man’s family and his experience during the holocaust.