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From Schmelt Camp to “Little Auschwitz”: Blechhammer’s Role in the Holocaust is the first in-depth study of the second largest Auschwitz subcamp, Blechhammer (Blachownia Śląska), and its lesser known yet significant prehistory as a so-called Schmelt camp, a forced labor camp for Jews operating outside the concentration camp system. Drawing on previously untapped archival documents and a wide array of survivor testimonies, the book provides novel findings on Blechhammer’s role in the Holocaust in Eastern Upper Silesia, a formerly Polish territory annexed to Nazi Germany in the fall of 1939, where 120,000 Jews lived. Established in the spring of 1942 to construct a synthetic fuel plant, the camp’s abhorrent living conditions led to the death of thousands of young Jews conscripted from the ghettos or taken off deportation convoys from Western Europe. Blechhammer was not only used for selecting parts of the Jewish ghetto population for Auschwitz, but also for killing pregnant women and babies. As an Auschwitz satellite, Blechhammer became the scene of brutal executions and massacres of prisoners refusing to go on the Death March. This microhistory unearths the far-reaching complicity of often overlooked perpetrators, such as the industrialists, factory guards, policemen, and “ordinary” civilians in these atrocities, but more importantly, it focuses on the victims, reconstructing the prisoners’ daily life and suffering, as well as their survival strategies. 

Paul Celan (1920–1970) was recognized as the greatest poet of the German language shortly before his tragic death just shy of his fiftieth birthday, when he drowned himself in the Seine. He described his “Todesfuge” (“Death Fugue”) as a “tombstone” for his mother, who perished in the Holocaust. Celan’s work is often viewed as a rejoinder to Theodor Adorno’s dictum that it was barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz. While the commentary on Celan’s contributions to poetics and Holocaust literature is voluminous, little has been written about his life itself. Anna Arno provides the definitive biography. Paul A Life follows the poet from his birthplace, Czernowitz (today Chernivtsi, Ukraine), to Bucharest, where he was part of an important circle of Surrealists, then onto Vienna, where he met and fell in love with Ingeborg Bachmann, and finally to Paris. Although in his final years he was haunted by bouts of mental illness, his life cannot be defined by its implosion. Paul Celan was an ardent, inveterate romantic whose many meaningful relationships left their mark on his poetry. He also cultivated intense, often fraught dialogues with such thinkers as René Char, Yves Bonnefoy, and Martin Heidegger. Drawing upon a linguistically wide range of archival sources and the most up-to-date research, Arno presents a complete picture of Celan’s life. Here is the essential story of a towering figure in modern poetry. 

Discover a powerful, untold chapter of Holocaust history and a daughter’s enduring quest to know the story that began a generation before her birth. From childhood, Julie Brill struggled to understand how her father survived as a young Jewish boy in Belgrade, where Nazis murdered 90 percent of the Jewish population without gas chambers or cattle cars. Through exacting research, a bit of luck, and three emotional trips to Serbia, she pieces together her family’s lost past, unearths secrets, and returns to her father a small part of what the Nazis his own family history. 

This unforgettable true story of the Holocaust will captivate you and sweep you away. Hours will pass by in a flash as you are gripped with anticipation, breathlessly waiting to find out what happens next. As you read, your heart will stop and you will be moved to the deepest depths of your soul. You will be torn apart, yet equally surprised by the miracles that happen along the way. This is a story about love, loss, faith, hope and survival. It is about the strength of the human spirit and the incredible will to survive. The unbelievable events that take place will remain with you forever. It was written so that we may never forget what happened during the Holocaust, and so it will never be repeated again. It was written so that the lives of the people will have meaning and remain in our hearts forever. Based on fact that is weaved into an epic story, this historical fiction book is a true masterpiece. It will grab you from the very first page and make your jaw drop. This book contains all the elements of a best seller: action, suspense, romance, intrigue, and inspiration. The style of writing makes you feel like you are right there with the characters, experiencing life as a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi camp, praying to live for one more day. 

A compelling nonfiction graphic novel, Whistleblowers is the true story of four courageous individuals who risked their careers—or their lives—to confront the unfolding Holocaust. Who were the whistleblowers? Alan Cranston—a young journalist and future U.S. senator who exposed the truth of Hitler’s plans. Henry Morgenthau, Jr.—a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's cabinet who confronted the President over the plight of Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler Jan Karski—an eyewitness to Nazi atrocities who met with American and British officials to alert them about the death camps. Josiah E. DuBois Jr.—an American civil servant who blew the whistle on colleagues inside the Roosevelt administration who were blocking the rescue of refugees. Acclaimed author Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and award-winning comics creator Dean Motter bring to life these tales of moral courage in the face of genocide. 

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