Night by Elie Wiesel is a haunting and a personal memoir of his experiences as a Jewish teenager during the Holocaust. Wiesel recounts his time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where he witnesses unimaginable cruelty, loses his family and struggles with faith and survival. The book is a powerful testament to the horrors of the Holocaust, capturing the brutality of the camps and the psychological toll it takes on those imprisoned.
Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz is a powerful novel based on the true story of Jack Gruener, a Jewish boy who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. The story follows Yanek, a young boy whose life is shattered when the Nazis invade Poland. As he is forced from his home and taken through ten different concentration camps, he endures unimaginable cruelty, starvation and loss. Despite everything, Yanek refuses to give up hope, clinging to the promise of survival.
The Devil’s Arithmetic is a novel written by Jane Yolen. It begins with Hannah Stern, a 12 year old Jewish girl from current day New Rochelle, celebrating Passover with her relatives. Suddenly, Hannah is transported to 1941, where she is mistaken for a girl named Chaya. Hannah and the other Jewish people in her village are then tricked into going to a Nazi concentration camp. Hannah and her new friends go through all kinds of torture and eventually can’t take it anymore.
Resistance is a historical fiction novel by Jennifer A. Nielsen. It follows Chaya Linder, a Jewish girl in German-occupied Poland. After her siblings disappear, she becomes a courier and joins a resistance cell. After a mission goes wrong, she is sent on a journey to save more lives at the Warsaw Ghetto. The emotional moments are the standout in this novel. The ending was bittersweet, made even more impactful by the impeccable writing from Nielsen.
The Diary of Anne Frank and Related Readings, edited by Frances Goodrich, is Historical Non-Fiction. Hiding with the Van Pels family was the Frank family. Among the Frank family was Anne Frank, a young woman who, no matter what happens, is always so cheerful. The Frank family, along with the Van Pels family, goes into hiding in the Secret Annex. The Secret Annex is a very tight place. There are strict rules, and everyone has to obey them. Anne writes down her feelings and what goes around in the annex.
White Rose is an inspiring and active historical fiction novel by Kip Wilson. This book is about Sophie and her brother who fight for not their freedom but the freedom of others. They hand out pamphlets outside their college classrooms talking about World War II that has taken many innocent Jewish lives. They get caught and are sentenced to death for their betrayal to their country.
This historical fiction book written by Jennifer A. Nielsen is engrossing and suspenseful, with crazy plot twists and diverse characters. Chaya (the main character) is a resistance fighter against the Nazis. She teams up with a girl she despises at first and quickly learns to love her like a sister. They move from ghetto to ghetto, trying to help their people fight. This book discusses the struggles the Jews had to face in the hands of their enemy. Resistance has made me realize what true courage and strength is.
