Holocaust Memory Project: Children of the Holocaust

Irena Sendler was born into a Catholic family in Poland in 1910. Throughout the German occupation in World War II, Irena worked tirelessly to help save Poland's Jews from the Nazi horror. Irena saved at least 2,500 Jewish children from certain death during the Holocaust. By the time of her death in 2008, Irena had been honored by the governments of Poland and Israel, Pope John Paul II, and many of those she had rescued. **LOG IN WITH YOUR NETWORK USERNAME AND PASSWORD TO READ THIS EBOOK ON FOLLETTSHELF**

In the #1 New York Times bestseller, 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. 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.

Irene Gut was just seventeen in 1939, when the Germans and the Russians divided and devoured her native Poland. In an instant her life would be transformed—distilled to flight, capture, escape, and hiding. After being rounded up outside of church one Sunday, Irene was put to work for the German Army. Her blond hair, her blue eyes, her youth;these bought her the relative safe job of kitchen helper and waitress in an officers' dining room. But behind this Aryan mask, Irene began to wage her own war. She picked up snatches of conversation along with the Nazi's dirty dishes and passed the information to Jews in the ghetto. She raided the German Warenhaus for food and blankets. She smuggled Jews from the work camp into the forest. And , when she was made the housekeeper for a Nazi Major, she managed to hide twelve people in the basement of his home and to keep them safe there until the Germans' defeat. Irene Gut Opdyke has received many honors for her actions: Israel's Medal of Honor, recognition from the Vatican, a permanent place in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Miriam M. Brysk is a Holocaust child survivor from Warsaw, Poland. She was interned in the Lida ghetto in Belarus, then escaped with her parents and joined the nearby partisans in the Lipiczany forest.

"Who will look after me . . . and why can't we all go together?" Kurt Fuchel asked his father these questions, as the young boy prepared to embark on a journey to England . . . alone. Fuchel was one of ten thousand children who made this journey shortly before World War II began. In 1938, Jews searched for a way out of Germany. But anti-Jewish laws and nations unwilling to accept fleeing refugees made escape difficult or impossible. England's effort to save the children effort came to be known as the Kindertransport, and author Ann Byers discusses the heroes who organized the transports and the children who were saved from the Holocaust.

In Budejovice, a quiet village in the Czech republic, laws and rules were introduced to restrict the freedom of Jewish people during the dark days of World War II. In a small shack on the small plot of land allocated to the village's Jewish youth, some brave young people decided to create a newspaper to show that despite the new dangers in their lives, they were still creative, energetic and adventurous. Though most of the village's Jews did not survive the war, copies of the newspaper did. The Underground Reporterschronicles how these youth held out hope for a peaceful world to come.

From 1938 to 1945, the Nazi regime of Germany hunted down, imprisoned, and killed millions of European Jews but was especially aggressive toward Jewish children. To survive, children evaded the murderous Nazis by disguising their identity, hiding in secret places, or living on the run. After the Holocaust, many Jewish children faced the future as orphans.

They hid wherever they could for as long as it took the Allies to win the war -- Jewish children, frightened, alone, often separated from their families. For months, even years, they faced the constant danger of discovery, fabricating new identities at a young age, sacrificing their childhoods to save their lives. These secret survivors have suppressed these painful memories for decades. Now, in The Hidden Children, twenty-three adult survivors share their moving wartime experiences -- some for the first time. There is Rosa, who hid in an impoverished one-room farmhouse with three others, sleeping on a clay pallet behind a stove; Renee, who posed as a Catholic and was kept in a convent by nuns who knew her secret; and Richard, who lived in a closet with his family for thirteen months. Their personal stories of belief and determination give a voice, at last, to the forgotten. Inspiring and life-affirming, The Hidden Children is an unparalleled document of witness, discovery, and the miracle of human courage.

Reflecting on the devastation of war and the power of human kindness, Rescuing the Children tells the story of the Kindertransport and how over 10,000 children were saved by brave people who took action in desperate times. A compilation of survivor's memories and illustrated with archival photos, this important book details the rescue mission that transported children from Nazi-ruled countries to the safety of Britain.

One of the thousands of Jewish children murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators, Georges Halpern (1935-44) was torn from his parents in 1943 and spent his final two years at the children's home in Izieu, France. While at Izieu, Georgy regularly wrote letters and sent drawings to his parents, describing his life at the children's home, his dreams and his sorrow. Today, this remarkable collection of letters and drawings remains a testament to the courage and hope of a young boy caught in the midst of one the darkest chapters in the history of mankind. Georgy's hopes for being reunited with his family ended with his murder at the age of eight in a gas chamber at Auschwitz. Born in Bucharest, Serge Klarsfeld was just 8 years old when his family's home was raided by the Gestapo. While he, his mother and sister escaped, his father was killed at Auschwitz. Attorney, author and leading historian on the fate of the Jews in France during the Second World War, Klarsfeld has fought relentlessly to bring Nazi officials to justice.

A total of 15,000 children under the age of 15 passed through Terezin camp between 1942-44. Less than 100 survived. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears.

Bauhaus trained, she taught art to children in a concentration camp.

The harrowing account of the experiences of a Jewish family during World War II, based on a diary the author began at age 8.

A Caldecott Honor artist recounts her own gripping memoir of childhood of imprisonment and uncommon bravery in Nazi-occupied Poland. Illustrated with 12 pages of archival photos.

What was the secret to surviving the death camps? How did you keep from dying of heartbreak in a place of broken hearts and broken bodies? "Think of it as a game, Jack," an older prisoner tells him. "Play the game right and you might outlast the Nazis." Caught up in Hitler's Final Solution to annihilate Europe's Jews, fifteen-year-old Jack is torn from his family and thrown into the nightmarish world of the concentration camps. Despite intolerable conditions, Jack resolves not to hate his captors, and vows to see his family again. He forges friendships with other prisoners, and together they struggle to make it one more hour, one more day. But even with his strong will to live, can Jack survive the life-and-death game he is forced to play with his Nazi captors? Award-winning author Andrea Warren has crafted an unforgettable true a story of courage, friendship, family love, and a boy becoming a man in the shadow of the Third Reich.

The life story of three children who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Listen to the stories of Alicia, Civia, Ann, George, Judith, Akiva, Larry, and Tonia-eight survivors of the Holocaust, and eight of the bravest, most resilient men and women you'll ever have the privilege to hear. They came from different parts of Europe-Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Romania -- but they were all children when war, persecution, and imprisonment interrupted their lives. And when liberation finally came, they were still young people, alone and homeless in a world that didn't know what to do with them. The end of World War II is not the end of the story of the Holocaust. Howard Greenfeld's groundbreaking book features primary source material, as well as more than 80 archival blackand-white photographs, and presents a chapter in history that is often overlooked: from war to liberation to the DP camps to emigration and beyond. "Includes historical sidebars, suggestions for further reading and index.

Text and photographs briefly describe the fate of Jewish children after the Nazis began to control their lives.

Discusses the loss of childhood both emotionally and physically as a result of the Holocaust on children across Europe.

First-person accounts of fourteen Holocaust survivors who as children were hidden from the Nazis by non-Jews.

These are the true-life accounts of nine Jewish boys and girls whose lives spiraled into danger and fear as the Holocaust overtook Europe. In a time of great horror, these children each found a way to make it through the nightmare of war. Some made daring escapes into the unknown, others disguised their true identities, and many witnessed unimaginable horrors. But what they all shared was the unshakable belief in -- and hope for -- survival. Their legacy of courage in the face of hatred will move you, captivate you, and, ultimately, inspire you.

During the Holocaust, many Jewish teens went into hiding-in homes, in barns, in the woods-to avoid being captured and killed. Others managed to disguise themselves as non-Jews. This book explores their experiences and feelings when hiding from the Nazis.

U.S. soldiers liberated many Nazi concentration camps, often without being psychologically prepared for it. This volume presents the riveting stories of two teenage liberators and two teenage camp survivors who were liberated by American troops.

Tells the true stories of children who escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport, a rescue mission led by concerned British to save Jewish children from the Holocaust.

In March 2000, a suitcase arrived at a children's Holocaust education center in Tokyo, Japan. Hana Brady was written on the outside. Children who saw the suitcase on display were full of questions and the director decided to find the answers.

Lisa and Sol board the luxury ship St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany, on May 13, 1939. Lisa and her family are in first class; Sol and his parents are below in tourist class. The children have mixed feelings—they're excited to be beginning this voyage to a better life and sad to be leaving their old lives behind. They are Jewish, as are almost all of the 937 passengers on board, and although war has not been officially declared in Europe, the Nazis have been persecuting Jews for years. As they set sail for Cuba, the atmosphere on the ship is optimistic, led by the German captain Gustave Shröder, who is determined to see his passengers to safety. But as they learn that Hitler's propaganda has turned the country against them, the mood changes to despair. They are turned away—first from Cuba, then the United States, and then Canada. The story of Lisa and Sol is set against the tragic true history of the St. Louis. Denied entry from port after port, the captain was forced to return his Jewish passengers to Europe, where many died in the Holocaust. Through the eyes of Sol and Lisa, we see the injustice and heartbreak that were caused by the prejudice and hatred of so many.

A photohistory focusing on the young who struggled through the brutality of the Holocaust following the destruction of their world of family & friends.

Remember World War II: Kids Who Survived Tell Their Stories allows readers to understand the war not as seen through the eyes of soldiers but through the eyes of children who survived the bombings, the blackouts, the hunger, the fear, and the loss of loved ones caused by the war.