New Books in our Library!

All of these books and more are available to check out from our new library! Please email Amanda@holocaustcenterseattle.org

Escape in Time: Miri's Riverting Tale of Her Family's Survival During World War II

By Ronit Lowenstein-Malz

Nessya’s grandmother, Miri Eneman Malz, has friends, a loving family—and a secret: she is a Holocaust survivor. When twelve-year-old Nessya learns the truth, she wants to know what happened. After decades of silence, Grandma Miri decides it’s time to tell her story. It all begins one terrible day in the spring of 1944, when Germany crosses Hungary’s border and soldiers arrive in Miri’s hometown of Munkács. Suddenly, the Jews are trapped and in danger. Surrounded by war and unimaginable hatred, the family makes a daring escape. But that is only the beginning, and over the course of the year new threats continually confront them. Incredibly, despite numerous close calls, they defy the odds and live. Based upon actual memoirs, this is the story of the Eneman family . . . of their remarkable ingenuity, astonishing luck, boundless courage, and unending love.

On Amazon

A Good Place to Hide: How One French Community Saved Thousands of Lives During World War II

By Perter Grose 

The untold story of an isolated French community that banded together to offer sanctuary and shelter to over 3,500 Jews in the throes of World War II. Nobody asked questions, nobody demanded money. Villagers lied, covered up, procrastinated and concealed, but most importantly they welcomed.This is the story of an isolated community in the upper reaches of the Loire Valley that conspired to save the lives of 3,500 Jews under the noses of the Germans and the soldiers of Vichy France. It is the story of a pacifist Protestant pastor who broke laws and defied orders to protect the lives of total strangers. It is the story of an eighteen-year-old Jewish boy from Nice who forged 5,000 sets of false identity papers to save other Jews and French Resistance fighters from the Nazi concentration camps. And it is the story of a community of good men and women who offered sanctuary, kindness, solidarity and hospitality to people in desperate need, knowing full well the consequences to themselves.

On Amazon

The Story of an Underground: The Resistance of the Jews of Kovno in the Second World War

By Dov Levin & Zvie A. Brown 

This is the story of the fighting underground of the Jews of Kovno, Lithuania, in World War II. The authors, historians Zvie A. Brown and Dov Levin, were themselves members of the Kovno underground, and this well-researched book based on documentary material, verbal testimonies, and written memoirs of witnesses, among other sources is supplemented by the authors own personal accounts. The authors here describe the first steps of the organized Jewish underground in the Kovno Ghetto, its desperate search for allies outside the ghetto, and its first bloodstained attempts to break through the ring of isolation and establish a base of support for partisan battle. They relate the insurgence at its height: contacts with partisans in the forest, acquisition of weapons and equipment, and training of fighters for partisan warfare. The authors paint a picture of daily life in the partisan brigades, including the tense relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish fighters. They relate the final days of the underground as the ghetto was being destroyed, and then the last journey of the Kovno brigades from the forest bases back to liberated Kovno.

On Amazon

The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc: Found in Auschwitz by the Red Army in 1945 and first published in San Francisco in 2014

Here is the extraordinary Diary of Rywka Lipszyc, finally published 70 years after it was created. Handwritten in a school notebook between October 1943 and April 1944, this remarkable diary depicts the nightmare of life under the Nazis in Poland's infamous Lodz ghetto-through the eyes of a brilliant, 14-year-old Jewish girl. With the eloquence of an innocent, Rywka vividly chronicles the disease, starvation, deportations, fear and cruelty she witnessed. She lost her entire family-parents, brother, and two sisters-in Nazi ghettos and killing centers. Yet in the face of despair, she reveals a belief in God and a faith in humanity that inspired in her a determination to live. In 1945, Rywka's diary was found in the ruins of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria by a doctor serving with the liberating Soviet Army. For more than a half-century the diary remained among the doctor's private possessions, until after her death, when her granddaughter emigrated from the USSR and brought it to Jewish Family and Children's Services' Holocaust Center in San Francisco. Sensitively translated, with footnotes, historical essays, photographs, maps, news clippings, and the gripping story of the recent search for Rywka Lipszyc-whose fate has never been determined-this book is sure to enter the ranks of the most poignant Holocaust testimonies, a tale of darkness and light, faith and love.

On Amazon

From the Red Desert to Jerusalem

By Elia Kahvedjian 

From the Red Desert to Jerusalem is the remarkable autobiography of a remarkable man. Urfa-born Elia Kahvedjian witnessed the Genocide of Armenians as a 5-year-old boy. The book tells of his adventures in the badlands of Turkey and Syria, his eventual move to Jerusalem, and his many achievements as a top photographer, painter, and community leader in the Holy City. The book was translated into English by his eldest son Harout Kahvedjian of Toronto.

On Amazon

Marie-Anne at Seabury Middle School

Last week, Continuing Generations speaker, Marie-Anne Harkness spoke to students at Seabury Middle School in Tacoma.  Check out their blog to see pictures and hear about her visit!

http://seaburymiddleschool.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/a-holocaust-hero/

Rafle du Vel d'Hiv

Buses waiting at the entrance to the Velodrome d'Hiver, where almost 13,000 Jews were assembled before being transported to Drancy and other French transit camps. Paris, France, July 16 and 17, 1942.
— Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris. Photo from USHMM.

July 16th and 17th mark the anniversary of the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv - the massive roundup of Jews in Paris, France in 1942.

Yad Vashem describes:

On July 16-17, 1942, in one of the most brutal and overt deportation operations, thousands of French police gathered up 12,884 Parisian Jews-including families with children, and irrespective of sex, age, and physical condition-and placed them in the Velodrome d’Hiver stadium without any provisions whatsoever. In several locations, children were separated from their parents. The victims were loaded aboard cattle cars and sent to Drancy en route to Auschwitz.

This deportation evoked the first substantial manifestations of opposition to the Vichy regime among several segments of the French population. It was impossible to keep the arrests of the Jews secret, and the brutality invoked in separating families was fiercely protested. The fact that most of the arrests were made by French police prompted charges against the force concerning collaboration with the Nazi regime on the part of France and its institutions, particularly with respect to the murder of Jews in this country.

During 1942, nearly 30,000 Jews were deported from Paris. (USHMM)

Susan Redd, a long-time French Teacher, scholar of the Holocaust in France, and member of the Holocaust Center's Education Advisory Committee comments:
"Thank you for posting this sad anniversary of the round-up of Jews by the French 'milice,' who gave more than demanded. The Nazis only requested 12,000 male Jews, but the enthusiastic antisemitic militia gave families of Jews, besides confiscating things of value from them."

Roundup of Jews. Paris, France, ca. 1942.
— YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York. Photo from USHMM.

A recent novel, Sarah's Key, has highlighted this experience and has become a popular read among book groups.