War Survivor Memoir

Yaakov was the youngest son of the Kotowskis, a well-to-do Jewish family in the small Polish town of Skulsk, who enjoyed the respect and admiration of local Jews and Christians alike. The quiet life of the family was disrupted abruptly when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Soon, its members were deported to a faraway village where they suffered horrific torments at the hands of the Germans and their collaborators.

Growing up in Australia’s suburbs, Paul never really felt like he fit in. But something in Paul always told him that there was a world out there that he needed to explore—he just didn’t know how to access it. The Australian military was the answer, but that service almost came to a brutal end when Paul was attacked by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor. Paul lost a hand and a leg, but he refused to accept limitations. In fact, the attack opened the door to a whole new life. One that would see Paul dedicate himself to the very animals that had tried to kill him….

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut fictionalised his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden in 1945. Vonnegut was imprisoned in a cellar while the firestorm raged through the city, wiping out generations of innocent lives. Victor Gregg remained aboveground throughout the firebombing. This is his true eyewitness account of that week in February 1945. Already a seasoned soldier with the Rifle Brigade, Gregg joined the 10th Parachute Regiment in 1944. He was captured at Arnhem, where he volunteered to be sent to a work camp rather a POW camp.

Hungary, 1944. Almost half a million Jewish Hungarians are deported to Auschwitz. Among the few surviving Hungarian Jews from this era were young men who, like Ervin Wolf, were forced into the brutal Labor Service where they were cut off from the outside world and forced to endure inhumane brutalities and servitude. Once freed, a new oppression took hold as communist rule under Stalin turned friends to foes, enveloped the nation in fear and suspicion, and tested everyone’s character and strength.

In this courageous story of innocence taken so young, Hescheles reveals the stark daily realities of the horrific Jewish genocide. She was not afraid to be shot, but to be buried alive - the fate reserved for children. Written with descriptive immediacy during history’s ghastliest episode, this extraordinary notebook is an inspiring example of a Holocaust survivor bearing witness to the memories of a lost people. Complete with a recent forward, Hescheles exemplifies how life and hope can continue beyond unimaginable tragedy.

After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust - in ghettos, on death marches, and in concentration camps - a young couple seeks refuge in Canada. They settle into a new life, certain that the terrors of their past are behind them. They build themselves a cozy little cottage on a lake in Muskoka, a cottage that becomes emblematic of their victory over the Nazis. The charming retreat is a safe haven, a refuge from haunted memories. That is, until a single act of unspeakable violence defiles their sanctuary.

When little Hannelore Zack left Cologne, Germany, on a train bound for London as a seven-year-old mädchen (young girl), she had no way of knowing that she was part of the Kindertransport, an epic rescue effort that would save 10,000 Jewish children from Hitler's Nazi regime. Written over a four-year period, A Garland for Ashes is both a gripping detective story recounting the heartbreaking process of discovering her family's fate and a poignant account of her journey from vengeful hatred to forgiveness and release from bitterness.

There was a place far worse than Changi - Singapore's Outram Road Gaol. Deprivation here was so extreme that there really was a fate worse than death. Stubborn Buggers is the story of 12 Australian POWs who fought and survived the battle for Malaya, then captivity and slave labour, followed by the unimaginable hardships of Outram Road Gaol.

It is a story of how they dealt with the brutality of the Japanese military police, the feared Kempeitai.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Mira was only 12 years old when World War II broke out and 17 when the Nazis finally caught up with her. Torn apart from her family, she went on to survive four concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and a Death March when she was too weak to walk. She lived when almost everyone she knew did not. At 88, living in Australia, Mira is diagnosed with cancer and her daughter, a journalist, decides to interview her to distract her from her illness.

A wonderful trip through time and a whild journey of trails and tribulations.

Kati and her younger sister, Ilonka, arrive in Canada with painful memories from the Holocaust, which has taken both of their parents. Their harrowing time alone in the Budapest ghetto is fresh in their minds, as are their fragile hopes to be adopted. But their lives in Toronto are far from what they expected, and full of broken promises. As the sisters navigate their new surroundings, they each grow fiercely strong and independent, while holding onto the comfort that they will be Never Far Apart.

Among millions of Holocaust victims sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944, Priska, Rachel and Anka each passed through its infamous gates with a secret. Strangers to each other, they were newly pregnant and facing an uncertain fate without their husbands. Alone, scared and with so many loved ones already lost to the Nazis, these young women were privately determined to hold on to all they had left: their lives and those of their unborn babies.

Assigned to the 504th Bombardment Group in the Pacific Theater, Hanley became a flight engineer on a B-29 bomber squad. On his seventh mission, he and his crew were shot down over Japan. In Accused War Criminal, Hanley shares his experiences from his training and commissioning to his deployment on a failed mission that led to his capture. He recounts how he managed to survive as a prisoner of war until his eventual rescue and recovery. With candid honesty and telling details, this is a humbling and harrowing tale of one man's bravery under unimaginable circumstances.

From the bustling city of Paris to the quaint countryside village of Champlost, France, Where Courage Lives follows ten-year-old Muguette Szpajzer and her family as they seek refuge from the war. Written in vignettes with child-like charm and innocence, Muguette’s memoir provides rich insight into rural life during wartime upheaval, honoring both her indomitable mother and the courage of the people of Champlost.

Follow the winding path of a Jewish refugee turned US Army interrogator who ends up processing Nazi scientists during WWII. Fred Michel was a teenager when he escaped Nazi Germany with his family. When war broke out, he was drafted and trained at Camp Ritchie, a high level intelligence center. He ended up at an obscure fort along the Potomac River known only as P.O. Box 1142.

This is one of the last great untold stories of the Holocaust. Josef Lewkowicz was the only one left alive in his extended family of 150. The survivor of six concentration camps, he became a Nazi hunter, responsible for bringing to justice his greatest tormentor, the Butcher of Plaszow, as well as the murderous SS camp Kommandant Amon Goeth. Working as part of a covert operation, he also helped to rescue hundreds of orphaned children who had been hidden by doomed parents during the ghetto clearances in Poland. Many of these children were able to begin new lives in Israel.

Un día ordinario se transforma en extraordinario por algún suceso que marca nuestras vidas y nos obliga a tomar decisiones que no estaban en nuestros planes. Al cambiar un camino ya establecido, nos alejamos de lo conocido para entrar en un mundo diferente que nos obliga a plantearnos interrogantes que antes no teníamos y un cierto temor nos invade al entrar en una búsqueda que sabemos será difícil y, quizás también, dolorosa.

Dark skies and barbed wire fences were all Bluma Plaskovsky saw as she stepped down from the train onto the main platform of Auschwitz-Birkenau. After surviving the Wehrmacht’s decimation of her hometown, Bluma and what remained of her family were finally put on the long, harsh train ride through inhuman conditions that seemed to last an eternity.

Holocaust survivor Henry Melnick was born in Lodz, Poland. Shortly after the Nazis occupied Poland in 1939, he was sent to perform slave labor in the Nowy Sącz, Tarnów, and Szebnie ghettos and work camps. He was then transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buna, Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.

“Don’t cry darling. We need this baby. You will see.” With these words from her husband, Zoltán, Ibolya Rechnitzer’s fear of being pregnant during the uncertainty of wartime is somewhat eased. But in November 1942, four months after their baby, Andy, is born, Zoltán is drafted into the forced labour service of the Hungarian army and Ibolya must cope, alone, as a single mother and a Jew facing persecution in Budapest. Her son gives her a reason to fight, and Ibolya protects him fiercely during the war and after, when she must make a crucial decision that will forever alter their lives.