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The Best Books About The Holocaust (Fiction & Nonfiction)

“What are the best books about the Holocaust?” We looked at 249 books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 34 titles, all appearing on 3 or more “Best Books About The Holocaust” lists, are ranked below by how many lists they appear on. The remaining 200+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!



Top 34 Best Books About The Holocaust



34 .) All But My Life: A Memoir written by Gerda Weissmann Klein

All But My Life: A Memoir

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Riot
  • Goodreads
  • Paperback Swap

All But My Life is the unforgettable story of Gerda Weissmann Klein’s six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. From her comfortable home in Bielitz (present-day Bielsko) in Poland to her miraculous survival and her liberation by American troops—including the man who was to become her husband—in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in 1945, Gerda takes the reader on a terrifying journey. Gerda’s serene and idyllic childhood is shattered when Nazis march into Poland on September 3, 1939. Although the Weissmanns were permitted to live for a while in the basement of their home, they were eventually separated and sent to German labor camps. Over the next few years Gerda experienced the slow, inexorable stripping away of “all but her life.” By the end of the war she had lost her parents, brother, home, possessions, and community; even the dear friends she made in the labor camps, with whom she had shared so many hardships, were dead. Despite her horrifying experiences, Klein conveys great strength of spirit and faith in humanity. In the darkness of the camps, Gerda and her young friends manage to create a community of friendship and love. Although stripped of the essence of life, they were able to survive the barbarity of their captors. Gerda’s beautifully written story gives an invaluable message to everyone. It introduces them to last century’s terrible history of devastation and prejudice, yet offers them hope that the effects of hatred can be overcome.



33 .) An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin written by Gad Beck

An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin

Lists It Appears On:

  • Airship Daily
  • Dig Books
  • Early Bird Books

That a Jew living in Nazi Berlin survived the Holocaust at all is surprising. That he was a homosexual and a teenage leader in the resistance and yet survived is amazing. But that he endured the ongoing horror with an open heart, with love and without vitriol, and has written about it so beautifully is truly miraculous.



32 .) Boy 30529 written by Felix Weinberg

Boy 30529

Lists It Appears On:

  • Airship Daily
  • Book Riot
  • Signature Reads

Anyone who survived the extermination camps must have an untypical story to tell. The typical camp story of the millions ended in death … We, the few who survived the war and the majority who perished in the camps, did not use and would not have understood terms such as ‘holocaust’ or ‘death march.’ These were coined later, by outsiders. In 1939 twelve-year-old Felix Weinberg fell into the hands of the Nazis. Imprisoned for most of his teenage life, Felix survived five concentration camps, including Terezin, Auschwitz, and Birkenau, barely surviving the Death March from Blechhammer in 1945. After losing his mother and brother in the camps, he was liberated at Buchenwald and eventually reunited at seventeen with his father in Britain, where they built a new life together. Boy 30529 is an extraordinary memoir of the Holocaust, as well as a moving meditation on the nature of memory.



31 .) Everything Is Illuminated written by Jonathan Safran Foer

Everything Is Illuminated

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • The Culture Trip

A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, however, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into new forms; a ‘blind’ old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis, Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive – a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down…



30 .) Hana’s Suitcase: A True Story written by Karen Levine

Hana's Suitcase: A True Story

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Goodreads
  • Read Brightly

In 2000, a suitcase arrived at a children’s Holocaust education center in Tokyo, Japan, marked “Hana Brady, May 16, 1931.” The center’s curator searches for clues to young Hana and her family, whose happy life in a small Czech town was turned upside down by the invasion of the Nazis.



29 .) In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer written by Irene Gut Opdyke

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Goodreads
  • Read Brightly

“You must understand that I did not become a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defier of the SS and the Nazis all at once. One’s first steps are always small: I had begun by hiding food under a fence.” Through this intimate and compelling memoir, we are witness to the growth of a hero. Irene Gut was just a girl when the war began: seventeen, a Polish patriot, a student nurse, a good Catholic girl. As the war progressed, the soldiers of two countries stripped her of all she loved — her family, her home, her innocence — but the degradations only strengthened her will. She began to fight back. Irene was forced to work for the German Army, but her blond hair, her blue eyes, and her youth bought her the relatively safe job of waitress in an officers’ dining room. She would use this Aryan mask as both a shield and a sword: She picked up snatches of conversation along with the Nazis’ dirty dishes and passed the information to Jews in the ghetto. She raided the German Warenhaus for food and blankets. She smuggled people from the work camp into the forest. And, when she was made the housekeeper of a Nazi major, she successfully hid twelve Jews in the basement of his home until the Germans’ defeat. This young woman was determined to deliver her friends from evil. It was as simple and as impossible as that.



28 .) Mapping the Bones written by Jane Yolen

Mapping the Bones

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Read Brightly

The year is 1942, and Chaim and Gittel, Polish twins, are forced from their beautiful home and made to live in the Lodz Ghetto. Their family’s cramped quarters are awful, but when even those dire circumstances become too dangerous, their parents decide to make for the nearby Lagiewniki Forest, where partisan fighters are trying to shepherd Jews to freedom in Russia. The partisans take Chaim and Gittel, with promises that their parents will catch up — but soon, everything goes wrong. Their small band of fighters is caught and killed. Chaim, Gittel, and their two friends are left alive, only to be sent off to Sobanek concentration camp. Chaim is quiet, a poet, and the twins often communicate through wordless exchanges of shared looks and their own invented sign language. But when they reach Sobanek, with its squalid conditions, rampant disease, and a building with a belching chimney that everyone is scared to so much as look at, the bond between Chaim and Gittel, once a source of strength, becomes a burden. For there is a doctor there looking to experiment on twins, and what he has in store for them is a horror they dare not imagine.



27 .) Milkweed written by Jerry Spinelli

Milkweed

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • Pragmatic Mom

He’s a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he’s a boy who realizes it’s safest of all to be nobody. Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable—Nazi-occupied Warsaw of World War II—and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan.



26 .) Ordinary Men written by Christopher Browning

Ordinary Men

Lists It Appears On:

  • Five Books
  • Goodreads
  • Signature Reads

Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs. Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever. While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition. Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.



25 .) Sarah’s Key written by Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah's Key

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • The Odysse Online

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family’s apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France’s past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl’s ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d’Hiv’, to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah’s past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.



24 .) The Boy on the Wooden Box written by Leon Leyson

The Boy on the Wooden Box

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • Pragmatic Mom

Even in the darkest of times—especially in the darkest of times—there is room for strength and bravery. A remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list. Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow. Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, a man named Oskar Schindler, who saved Leon Leyson’s life, and the lives of his mother, his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory—a list that became world renowned: Schindler’s List. This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Most notable is the lack of rancor, the lack of venom, and the abundance of dignity in Mr. Leyson’s telling. The Boy on the Wooden Box is a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you’ve ever read.



23 .) The Hiding Place written by Corrie ten Boom

The Hiding Place

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • Pragmatic Mom

At one time Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that there would ever be a story to tell. For the first fifty years of her life nothing at all out of the ordinary had ever happened to her. She was an old-maid watchmaker living contentedly with her spinster sister and their elderly father in the tiny Dutch house over their shop. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. However, with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, a story did ensue. Corrie ten Boom and her family became leaders in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish people in their home in a specially built room and aiding their escape from the Nazis. For their help, all but Corrie found death in a concentration camp. The Hiding Place is their story.



22 .) The Last Jew of Treblinka written by Chil Rajchman

The Last Jew of Treblinka

Lists It Appears On:

  • Airship Daily
  • Book Bub
  • Early Bird Books

Before me sits a young woman. I cut off her hair, thick and beautiful, and she grasps my hand and begs me to remember that I too am a Jew. She knows that she is lost. ‘But remember,‘ she says, ‘you see what is being done to us. That‘s why my wish for you is that you will survive and take revenge for our innocent blood, which will never rest.‘ She has not had time to get up when a murderer who is walking between the benches lashes her on the head with his whip. Blood shows on her now shorn head. That evening, the blood of tens of thousands of victims, unable to rest, thrust itself upwards to the surface.—from The Last Jew of Treblinka Why do some live while so many others perish? Tiny children, old men, beautiful girls. In the gas chambers of Treblinka, all are equal. The Nazis kept the fires of Treblinka burning night and day, a central cog in the wheel of the Final Solution. There was no pretense of work here like in Auschwitz or Birkenau. Only a train platform and a road covered with sand. A road that led only to death. But not for Chil Rajchman, a young man who survived working as a “barber” and “dentist,” heartsick with witnessing atrocity after atrocity. Yet he managed to survive so that somehow he could tell the world what he had seen. How he found the dress of his little sister abandoned in the woods. How he was forced to extract gold teeth from the corpses. How every night he had to cover the body-pits with sand. How ever morning the blood of thousands still rose to the surface. Many have courageously told their stories, and in the tradition of Elie Wiesel’s Night and Primo Levi’s Survival at Auschwitz and The Drowned and the Saved, Rajchman provides the only survivors’ record of Treblinka. Originally written in Yiddish in 1945 without hope or agenda other than to bear witness, Rajchman’s tale shows that sometimes the bravest and most painful act of all is to remember.



21 .) The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million written by Daniel Mendelsohn

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • My Jewish Learning

In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer’s search for the truth behind his family’s tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic—part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work—that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history. The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust—an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives’ fates. That quest eventually takes him to a dozen countries on four continents, and forces him to confront the wrenching discrepancies between the histories we live and the stories we tell. And it leads him, finally, back to the small Ukrainian town where his family’s story began, and where the solution to a decades-old mystery awaits him. Deftly moving between past and present, interweaving a world-wandering odyssey with childhood memories of a now-lost generation of immigrant Jews and provocative ruminations on biblical texts and Jewish history, The Lost transforms the story of one family into a profound, morally searching meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Deeply personal, grippingly suspenseful, and beautifully written, this literary tour de force illuminates all that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.



20 .) The Search written by Eric Heuvel

The Search

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Flashlight Worthy Books
  • Pragmatic Mom

Esther remembers her own experience of the Holocaust as a Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, and recounts to her grandson Daniel and his friend Jeroen how she escaped from the Nazis and survived by going into hiding in the countryside. Her parents were not so lucky. Esther knows they were sent to a concentration camp and died there, and with Daniel’s help she embarks on a search to discover what happened to them during the last months of their lives. After tracking down an old friend who now lives in Israel, Esther finally learns the shocking story of how her parents met their fates at Auschwitz.



19 .) The Storyteller written by Jodi Picoult

The Storyteller

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Bustle
  • Goodreads

Some stories live forever . . . Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t, and they become companions. Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret—one that nobody else in town would ever suspect—and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor. If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well. With her own identity suddenly challenged, and the integrity of the closest friend she’s ever had clouded, Sage begins to question the assumptions and expectations she’s made about her life and her family. When does a moral choice become a moral imperative? And where does one draw the line between punishment and justice, forgiveness and mercy? In this searingly honest novel, Jodi Picoult gracefully explores the lengths we will go in order to protect our families and to keep the past from dictating the future



18 .) This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen written by Tadeusz Borowski

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Lists It Appears On:

  • Airship Daily
  • Goodreads
  • My Jewish Learning

Tadeusz Borowski’s concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where the will to survive overrides compassion and prisoners eat, work and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles, and where the line between normality and abnormality completely vanishes. Published in Poland after the Second World War, these stories constitute a masterwork of world literature.



17 .) What The Night Sings written by Vesper Stamper

What The Night Sings

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Read Brightly

For fans of The Book Thief and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas comes a lushly illustrated novel about a teen Holocaust survivor, who must come to terms with who she is and how to rebuild her life. After losing her family and everything she knew in the Nazi concentration camps, Gerta is finally liberated, only to find herself completely alone. Without her Papa, her music, or even her true identity, she must move past the task of surviving and onto living her life. In the displaced persons camp where she is staying, Gerta meets Lev, a fellow teen survivor who she just might be falling for, despite her feelings for someone else. With a newfound Jewish identity she never knew she had, and a return to the life of music she thought she lost forever, Gerta must choose how to build a new future.



16 .) Four Perfect Pebbles : A Holocaust Story written by Marion Blumenthal Lazan and Lila Perl

Four Perfect Pebbles : A Holocaust Story

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • Paperback Swap

The twentieth-anniversary edition of Marion Blumenthal Lazan’s acclaimed Holocaust memoir features new material by the author, a reading group guide, a map, and additional photographs. “The writing is direct, devastating, with no rhetoric or exploitation. The truth is in what’s said and in what is left out.”—ALA Booklist (starred review) Marion Blumenthal Lazan’s unforgettable and acclaimed memoir recalls the devastating years that shaped her childhood. Following Hitler’s rise to power, the Blumenthal family—father, mother, Marion, and her brother, Albert—were trapped in Nazi Germany. They managed eventually to get to Holland, but soon thereafter it was occupied by the Nazis. For the next six and a half years the Blumenthals were forced to live in refugee, transit, and prison camps, including Westerbork in Holland and Bergen-Belsen in Germany, before finally making it to the United States. Their story is one of horror and hardship, but it is also a story of courage, hope, and the will to survive.



15 .) I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up In the Holocaust written by Livia E. Bitton-Jackson

I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up In the Holocaust

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • Imagination Soup

What is death all about? What is life all about? So wonders thirteen-year-old- Elli Friedmann, just one of the many innocent Holocaust victims, as she fights for her life in a concentration camp. It wasn’t long ago that Elli led a normal life; a life rich and full that included family, friends, school, and thoughts about boys. A life in which Elli could lie and daydream for hours that she was a beautiful and elegant celebrated poet. But these adolescent daydreams quickly darken in March 1944, when the Nazis invade Hungary. First Elli can no longer attend school, have possessions, or talk to her neighbors. Then she and her family are forced to leave their house behind to move into a crowded ghetto, where privacy becomes a luxury of the past and food becomes a scarcity. Her strong will and faith allow Elli to manage and adjust somehow, but what Elli doesn’t know is that this is only the beginning and the worst is yet to come…. A remarkable memoir. I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a story of cruelty and suffering, but at the same time a story of hope, faith, perseverance and love.



14 .) Sophie’s Choice written by William Styron

Sophie's Choice

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • OIF
  • The Culture Trip

Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman’s past–one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.



13 .) Survival in Auschwitz written by Primo Levi

Survival in Auschwitz

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Bustle
  • Dig Books
  • Goodreads

Durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Primo Levi, vingt-quatre ans, juif, lutte auxcotes des maquisards antifascistes du Piemont. Capture en 1943, il se retrouvepeu apres a Auschwitz, ou il demeurera plus d’un an avant d’etre libere par l’armeerusse en janvier 1945.Au camp, il observe tout. Il se souviendra de tout, racontera tout: la promiscuitedes blocks-dortoirs, les camarades qu’on y decouvre a l’aube, morts de froid et defaim; les humiliations et le travail quotidiens, sous les coups de trique des kapos;les selections periodiques ou l’on separe les malades des bien-portants pourles envoyer a la mort; les pendaisons pour l’exemple; les trains, bourres de juifset de tziganes, qu’on dirige des leur arrivee vers les crematoires…Et pourtant, dans ce recit, la dignite la plus impressionnante; aucune haine, aucunexces, aucune exploitation des souffrances personnelles, mais une reflexionmorale sur la douleur, sublimee en une vision de la vie. Paru en 1946, Si c’est un homme est considere comme un des livres les plusimportants du XXe siecle. Parce qu’il est familier des grands textes philosophiques, Raphael Enthoven resout avec une talentueuse sobriete la difficile equation que pose le texte de Primo Levi: comment nommer l’innommable ? Remerciements a Benoit Peeters, ecrivain, pour sa lecture de l’interview de Primo Levi par Philippe Roth. Avec le soutien de la Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah



12 .) The Upstairs Room written by Johanna Reiss

The Upstairs Room

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Imagination Soup
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Softonic

In the part of the marketplace where flowers had been sold twice a week – tulips in the spring, roses in the summer – stood German tanks and German soldiers. Annie de Leeuw was eight years old in 1940 when the Germans attacked Holland and marched into the town of Winterswijk where she lived. Annie was ten when, because she was Jewish and in great danger of being captured by the invaders, she and her sister Sini had to leave their father, mother, and older sister Rachel to go into hiding in the upstairs room of a remote farmhouse. Johanna de Leeuw Reiss has written a remarkably fresh and moving account of her own experiences as a young girl during World War II. Like many adults, she was innocent of the German plans for Jews, and she might have gone to a labor camp as scores of families did. “It won’t be for long and the Germans have told us we’ll be treated well,” those families said. “What can happen?” They did not know, and they could not imagine… but millions of Jews found out.



11 .) Yellow Star written by Jennifer Roy

Yellow Star

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Goodreads
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Softonic

The niece of Syvia Perlmutter, one of only twelve child survivors of the Lodz ghetto in Poland, shares her aunt’s experiences of the Holocaust in free verse that relates the courage and heartbreak she lived during a time of terrible circumstances.



10 .) Man’s Search for Meaning written by Viktor E. Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Bustle
  • Dig Books
  • Goodreads
  • Signature Reads

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man’s Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.



9 .) Rena’s Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz written by Rena Kornreich Gelissen

Rena's Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz

Lists It Appears On:

  • Airship Daily
  • Book Bub
  • Early Bird Books
  • Goodreads
  • Signature Reads

Sent to Auschwitz on the first Jewish transport, Rena Kornreich survived the Nazi death camps for over three years. While there she was reunited with her sister Danka. Each day became a struggle to fulfill the promise Rena made to her mother when the family was forced to split apart–a promise to take care of her sister. One of the few Holocaust memoirs about the lives of women in the camps, Rena’s Promise is a compelling story of the fleeting human connections that fostered determination and made survival a possibility. From the bonds between mothers, daughters, and sisters, to the links between prisoners, and even prisoners and guards, Rena’s Promise reminds us of the humanity and hope that survives inordinate inhumanity.



8 .) The Devil’s Arithmetic written by Jane Yolen

The Devil's Arithmetic

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Book Bub
  • Goodreads
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • The Odysse Online

Hannah thinks tonight Passover Seder will be the same as always. But this year she will be mysteriously transported into the past. Only she knows the horrors that await.



7 .) The Reader written by Bernhard Schlink

The Reader

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Dig Books
  • Goodreads
  • Irish Times
  • The Culture Trip

Sie ist reizbar, rätselhaft und viel älter als er… und sie wird seine erste Leidenschaft. Eines Tages ist sie spurlos verschwunden. Erst Jahre später sieht er sie wieder – als Angeklagte im Gerichtssaal. Die fast kriminalistische Erforschung einer sonderbaren Liebe und bedrängenden Vergangenheit.



6 .) Number the Stars written by Lois Lowry

Number the Stars

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Book Bub
  • Bustle
  • Dig Books
  • Goodreads
  • OIF
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Softonic

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It’s now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are “relocated,” Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen’s life.



5 .) The Book Thief written by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief

Lists It Appears On:

  • A Mighty Girl
  • Book Bub
  • Bustle
  • Dig Books
  • Flashlight Worthy Books
  • Goodreads
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • The Culture Trip
  • The Odysse Online

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still. By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.



4 .) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas written by John Boyne

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Dig Books
  • Goodreads
  • Imagination Soup
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Read Brightly
  • Softonic
  • The Culture Trip
  • The Odysse Online

Berlin 1942 When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance. But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.



3 .) Maus written by Art Spiegelman

Maus

Lists It Appears On:

  • Airship Daily
  • Book Bub
  • Book Riot
  • Bustle
  • Dig Books
  • Goodreads
  • Irish Times
  • OIF
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Signature Reads
  • Softonic
  • The Culture Trip

By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival – and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents. A contemporary classic of immeasurable significance.



2 .) Night written by Elie Wiesel

Night

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Book Riot
  • Bustle
  • Dig Books
  • Five Books
  • Goodreads
  • Irish Times
  • OIF
  • Paperback Swap
  • Softonic
  • The Culture Trip
  • The Odysse Online

Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel’s testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.



1 .) The Diary of a Young Girl written by Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl

Lists It Appears On:

  • Book Bub
  • Bustle
  • Dig Books
  • Goodreads
  • My Jewish Learning
  • OIF
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Pragmatic Mom
  • Softonic
  • The Culture Trip
  • The Odysse Online

Anne Frank’s extraordinary diary, written in the Amsterdam attic where she and her family hid from the Nazis for two years, has become a world classic and a timeless testament to the human spirit. Now, in a new edition enriched by many passages originally withheld by her father, we meet an Anne more real, more human, and more vital than ever. Here she is first and foremost a teenage girl—stubbornly honest, touchingly vulnerable, in love with life. She imparts her deeply secret world of soul-searching and hungering for affection, rebellious clashes with her mother, romance and newly discovered sexuality, and wry, candid observations of her companions. Facing hunger, fear of discovery and death, and the petty frustrations of such confined quarters, Anne writes with adult wisdom and views beyond her years. Her story is that of every teenager, lived out in conditions few teenagers have ever known.




The 200+ Additional Best Books To Learn More About The Jewish Holocaust In WW2



#BooksAuthorsLists
35A Faraway Island A Mighty Girl
Flashlight Worthy Books
36A Scrap of Time and Other StoriesIda FinkAirship Daily
Irish Times
37Between Shades of GrayRuta SepetysGoodreads
Pragmatic Mom
38Briar RoseJane YolenA Mighty Girl
Goodreads
39
Edith’s Story : The True Story of a Young Girl’s Courage and Survival During World War II
 A Mighty Girl
Paperback Swap
40
Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust
 A Mighty Girl
Read Brightly
41If This Is A ManPrimo LeviIrish Times
The Culture Trip
42Irena’s ChildrenTilar J. MazzeoA Mighty Girl
Book Bub
43Lilac GirlsMartha Hall KellyBook Bub
Goodreads
44Making Bombs for Hitler A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
45Odette’s Secrets Pragmatic Mom
Read Brightly
46Odin’s Promise A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
47OnceMorris GleitzmanBook Bub
Flashlight Worthy Books
48One Candle A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
49Paper Hearts A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
50Prisoner B-3087Alan GratzBook Bub
Pragmatic Mom
51Schindler’s ListThomas KeneallyBook Bub
Goodreads
52Seeking Refuge Pragmatic Mom
Pragmatic Mom
53Suite FrançaiseIrène NémirovskyGoodreads
Softonic
54The Berlin Boxing ClubRobert SharenowRead Brightly
The Odysse Online
55The Boy Who DaredSusan Campbell BartolettiGoodreads
Pragmatic Mom
56The Butterfly A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
57
The Cat with the Yellow Star Coming of Age in Terezin
 A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
58The Cats of Krasinski Square A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
59THE INVISIBLE BRIDGEJULIE ORRINGERBustle
Goodreads
60The Librarian of AuschwitzAntonio IturbeA Mighty Girl
Book Bub
61The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the HolocaustEdith Hahn BeerBook Bub
Goodreads
62The NightingaleKristin HannahBook Bub
Goodreads
63The PianistWladyslaw SzpilmanBook Bub
Goodreads
64The Red Ribbon A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
65The Sound of Freedom A Mighty Girl
Pragmatic Mom
66The Zookeeper’s WifeDiane AckermanBook Bub
Goodreads
67Those Who Save UsJenna BlumBook Bub
Goodreads
68When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit A Mighty Girl
Read Brightly
69Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance and RescueKathryn J. AtwoodA Mighty Girl
Airship Daily
70A Bag of Marbles Pragmatic Mom
71A Family Secret Flashlight Worthy Books
72
A Little History of the World: Illustrated Edition
 Pragmatic Mom
73A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young BoyThomas BuergenthalGoodreads
74AliciaAlicia Appleman-JurmanGoodreads
75All the Light We Cannot SeeAnthony DoerrGoodreads
76Alma Rosé Early Bird Books
77
Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II
 Pragmatic Mom
78Anna and the Swallow Man Read Brightly
79Anne Frank Signature Reads
80
Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust
 Softonic
81Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank FamilyMiep GiesGoodreads
82Annexed Softonic
83Ashes Pragmatic Mom
84AuschwitzLaurence ReesGoodreads
85AUSCHWITZ AND AFTERCHARLOTTE DELBOBustle
86Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness AccountMiklós NyiszliGoodreads
87Austerlitz Signature Reads
88Badenheim 1939Aharon AppelfeldMy Jewish Learning
89Benno and the Night of Broken Glass Read Brightly
90
Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity
 Softonic
91Beyond Courage Pragmatic Mom
92Black Earth Signature Reads
93Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and StalinTimothy SnyderMy Jewish Learning
94Born SurvivorsWendy HoldenBook Bub
95Broken AngelsGemma LivieroBook Bub
96Brundibar Pragmatic Mom
97Children’s Books Heal Pragmatic Mom
98Clifford’s Blues Early Bird Books
99
Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany
 Softonic
100DawnElie WieselGoodreads
101Death Had Two Sons Early Bird Books
102EchoesDanielle SteelBook Bub
103Eichmann Before Jerusalem Signature Reads
104Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of EvilHannah ArendtMy Jewish Learning
105Erika’s Story A Mighty Girl
106Escape from Sobibor Early Bird Books
107Escape from Warsaw Pragmatic Mom
108
Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport
 Pragmatic Mom
109Esfir Is Alive A Mighty Girl
110Fania’s Heart Pragmatic Mom
111Finding RebeccaEoin DempseyBook Bub
112
Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin
 Pragmatic Mom
113Five ChimneysOlga LengyelMy Jewish Learning
114Fragments of Isabella Early Bird Books
115
From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics and Racism in Germany
 Softonic
116From Holocaust to Harvard Early Bird Books
117Gentle Hands Pragmatic Mom
118Gertruda’s Oath Signature Reads
119Gifts From the Enemy Pragmatic Mom
120Girl in the Blue CoatMonica HesseBook Bub
121Good-bye, Marianne Pragmatic Mom
122Greenhorn Pragmatic Mom
123Guardian Angel House Flashlight Worthy Books
124Haven Early Bird Books
125he Boy Who Dared Pragmatic Mom
126
Hedy’s Journey: The True Story of a Hungarian Girl Fleeing the Holocaust
 A Mighty Girl
127HHhHLaurent BinetThe Culture Trip
128
Hidden Like Anne Frank: Fourteen True Stories of Survival
 Pragmatic Mom
129Hitler Youth Pragmatic Mom
130Holocaust Picture Books for kids Pragmatic Mom
131Honorable Mentions Pragmatic Mom
132I Am David Pragmatic Mom
133I Cannot Forgive Paperback Swap
134
I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from the Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944
 Pragmatic Mom
135
I Will Bear Witness 1942-1945: A Diary of the Nazi Years
 Softonic
136
I Will Come Back for You: A Family in Hiding During World War II
 Read Brightly
137I Will Plant You a Lilac TreeLaura HillmanThe Odysse Online
138If I Should Die Before I Wake Softonic
139Isaac’s Army Signature Reads
140Islam and Nazi Germany’s War Haaretz
141Jack and Rochelle Early Bird Books
142Jacob’s Rescue Paperback Swap
143
Jars of Hope: How One Woman Helped Save 2,500 Children During the Holocaust
 A Mighty Girl
144JudenratIsaiah TrunkFive Books
145Karolina’s TwinsRonald H. BalsonBook Bub
146Katarina Softonic
147King of the JewsLeslie EpsteinMy Jewish Learning
148
Let The Celebrations Begin: A Story of Hope for the Liberation
 A Mighty Girl
149Letters from Nuremberg Signature Reads
150
Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project
 A Mighty Girl
151
Lily Renee, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer
 A Mighty Girl
152Maggot Moon Pragmatic Mom
153Magician of Auschwitz Pragmatic Mom
154Mama Smiles Pragmatic Mom
155
Mara’s Stories: Glimmers in the Darkness
 Flashlight Worthy Books
156Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles BeganArt SpiegelmanGoodreads
157Mendelssohn Is On The RoofJiri WeilThe Culture Trip
158MischlingAffinity KonarBook Bub
159Moments of Reprieve Signature Reads
160Ms. YingLing Reads Pragmatic Mom
161
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past
 Haaretz
162My Mother’s Ring Softonic
163No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War A Mighty Girl
164Notes from the Warsaw GhettoEmanuel RingelblumFive Books
165Now (Once book series) Softonic
166On the Natural History of DestructionWG SebaldIrish Times
167One Green Apple Pragmatic Mom
168Other People’s Houses Early Bird Books
169Playing for the Commandant Pragmatic Mom
170Ponary Diary, 1941-1943Kazimierz SakowiczMy Jewish Learning
171
Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture
 Haaretz
172Rachel’s Hope Pragmatic Mom
173Remember Me Pragmatic Mom
174Resistance Pragmatic Mom
175ResistanceNew! A Mighty Girl
176risoner B-3087 Pragmatic Mom
177Rose Blanche Softonic
178Rose Under Fire A Mighty Girl
179Sepharad Early Bird Books
180Skylark and Wallcreeper Pragmatic Mom
181So Far From the Sea Pragmatic Mom
182Sprout’s Bookshelf: Pragmatic Mom
183Star of Fear, Star of Hope A Mighty Girl
184Stone Angel A Mighty Girl
185Summer of My German SoldierBette GreeneThe Odysse Online
186Survival in the Shadows Early Bird Books
187Swimming Across: A Memoir Paperback Swap
188
The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust
 Haaretz
189The Book of AronJim ShepardBook Bub
190The Cage A Mighty Girl
191
The Children of Willesden Lane: A True Story of Hope and Survival During World War II – Young Readers Edition
 A Mighty Girl
192The Children’s War Pragmatic Mom
193The Collini CaseFerdinand von SchirachIrish Times
194
The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne
 Haaretz
195The Destruction of the European JewsRaul HilbergFive Books
196The Edelweiss Pirates Pragmatic Mom
197The End of the Line Pragmatic Mom
198
The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia
 Pragmatic Mom
199The Entertainer and the Dybbuk Flashlight Worthy Books
200The Extra Pragmatic Mom
201
The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler
 Pragmatic Mom
202The Fourth Musketeer Pragmatic Mom
203The German GirlArmando Lucas CorreaBook Bub
204The Girl in the Blue Coat A Mighty Girl
205The Girl in the Green Sweater A Mighty Girl
206The Girl in The Red CoatRoma LigockaThe Odysse Online
207The Hidden Life of Otto Frank Softonic
208The Hiding Game A Mighty Girl
209
The Holocaust: Racism and Genocide in World War II
 Pragmatic Mom
210
The Holocaust: The Origins, Events, and Remarkable Tales of Survival
 Pragmatic Mom
211The Journal of Helene BerrHelene BerrAirship Daily
212The Last Jews in Berlin Early Bird Books
213
The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank
 Softonic
214The Length of a String Pragmatic Mom
215
The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism
 Softonic
216
The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi
 Pragmatic Mom
217The Nerdy Bookclub. Pragmatic Mom
218The Night Trilogy Signature Reads
219The Origins of TotalitarianismHannah ArendtIrish Times
220
The Other Half of Life Based on the True Story of the MS St. Louis
 Flashlight Worthy Books
221The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.George SteinerMy Jewish Learning
222The Promise Pragmatic Mom
223The Silver Music BoxMina BaitesBook Bub
224The Stars Will Guide You Flashlight Worthy Books
225The Story of Anne Frank Softonic
226The Tattooist of AuschwitzHeather MorrisGoodreads
227
The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank’s Window
 Read Brightly
228The True Story of Hansel and GretelLouise MurphyGoodreads
229The War Below Pragmatic Mom
230The Warsaw Anagrams Signature Reads
231
The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom
 Softonic
232The Whispering Town A Mighty Girl
233
The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark
 Pragmatic Mom
234They Were Like Family to Me: Stories Haaretz
235Things We Couldn’t SayDiet EmanAirship Daily
236This Kid Reviews Books Pragmatic Mom
237
To Live and Fight Another Day: The Story of a Jewish Partisan Boy
 Flashlight Worthy Books
238
To Look a Nazi in the Eye: A Teen’s Account of a War Criminal Trial
 Pragmatic Mom
239Tomorrow is a Stranger Pragmatic Mom
240Torn Thread Paperback Swap
241
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba
 Flashlight Worthy Books
242Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman’s Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi GermanyMarie Jalowicz SimonMy Jewish Learning
243Upon the Head of the GoatAranka SiegalBook Bub
244We All Wore Stars Softonic
245We Were the Lucky OnesGeorgia HunterBook Bub
246
When We Were Shadows: A Holocaust Remembrance Book for Young Readers
 Pragmatic Mom
247
Where We Once Gathered: Lost Synagogues of Europe
 Pragmatic Mom
248
Who Was the Woman Who Wore the Hat?
 Pragmatic Mom
249Why? Explaining the Holocaust Haaretz


22 Best Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography Holocaust Book Sources/Lists



SourceArticle
A Mighty Girl Holocaust Remembrance Day: 40 Mighty Girl Books About the
Airship Daily 10 Essential Books About the Holocaust That You Didn’t Read
Book Bub 46 Powerful and Moving Books About the Holocaust
Book Riot The Books About the Holocaust That Changed My Life
Bustle 10 Books You Should Read on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Dig Books Top 10 Books on The Holocaust – Best Book Recommendation
Early Bird Books 15 Holocaust Books You Have Never Read Before
Five Books The Best Books on The Holocaust | Five Books Expert
Flashlight Worthy Books The Holocaust in Fiction for Children – Flashlight Worthy Books
Goodreads Popular Holocaust Books – Goodreads
Haaretz The 7 best new books about the Holocaust
Imagination Soup Children’s Books About The Holocaust
Irish Times Holocaust Memorial Day: 10 books that bear witness
My Jewish Learning 10 Holocaust Books You Should Read
OIF 5 Banned Books That Will Help You Learn About the Holocaust
Paperback Swap List of 110 Holocaust Survivor Books
Pragmatic Mom 39 Haunting Holocaust Books for Kids
Read Brightly 13 Children’s and YA Books to Help Remember the Holocaust
Signature Reads No Excuse for Ignorance: Books to Understand the Holocaust .
Softonic 25 Best novels about the Holocaust 2018
The Culture Trip 11 Important Holocaust Books You Should Read
The Odysse Online 10 Books To Read About The Holocaust