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Daughters of the occupation : a novel / by Sanders, Shelly,1964-author.;
"Based on a true story, this is a powerful novel about a Jewish family who were victims of Nazi genocide in Latvia, one of the Baltic states. It is based on the little known, horrific Rumbula Massacre when 30,000 Jews were slaughtered in two days in 1941. In 1941, Miriam, the matriarch of the family, is the sole survivor of this horrendous massacre. She has had to make a 'Sophie's Choice' - and abandon her children to the care of a Gentile friend who hides them. She and her parents are rounded up and made to live in the Jewish Ghetto in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Miriam, along with thousands of other Jews, is forced marched to the execution pits. Incredibly, she manages to escape the carnage when night falls. Through a series of dramatic events, she finds sanctuary in the countryside - and manages to hide for three years to survive the war. Consumed by guilt, she is reunited finally with her daughter - but has lost her son. Thirty-five years later, living in Chicago with her family, Miriam's grand-daughter Sarah tries desperately to ferret out Miriam's family secret to find out what happened. Miriam does not want to revisit the past. But Sarah persists and eventually finds out enough to impel her to travel to Riga, then under Soviet control and at the height of the Cold War, to try to find her uncle, Miriam's lost son. But her search for the truth may threaten her freedom, when she comes face to face with the KGB. Told in alternating chapters between 1941 and 1976, this gripping novel delves into the trauma that survivors of genocide face down through the generations"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Jewish families; Rumbula Massacre, Rumbula, Latvia, 1941; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The light in hidden places : a novel based on the true story of Stefania Podgórska / by Cameron, Sharon,1970-;
Sixteen-year-old Catholic Stefania Podgórska has worked in the Diamant family's grocery store for four years, even falling in love with one of their sons, Izio; but when the Nazis came to Przemyâsl, Poland, the Jewish Diamants are forced into the ghetto (and worse) but Izio's brother Max manages to escape, and Stefania embarks on a dangerous course--protecting thirteen Jews in her attic, caring for her younger sister, Helena, and keeping everything secret from the two Nazi officers who are living in her house.LSC
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Burzminski, Stefania Podgórska; Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust; Jews; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The forbidden daughter : the true story of a holocaust survivor / by Klein Jakob, Zipora,author.;
"The unforgettable true story of a girl born in the Kovno Ghetto, and the dangerous risk her parents faced in defying the barbarous Nazi law prohibiting childbirth. Elida Friedman was not supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth. Yet despite the fear of death, Dr. Jonah Friedman and his wife Tzila, choose to bring a daughter into the world, a little girl they name Elida -- meaning non-birth in Hebrew. To increase their child's chance of survival, the Friedmans smuggle the baby out of the ghetto and into the arms of a non-Jewish farm family when Elida is only three months old. It is the beginning of a life marked by constant upheaval. When the Nazis raze the entire Kovno Ghetto, Jonah and Tzila are among those killed. Their only child is left orphaned and alone, dependent on the kindness of strangers. Despite her circumstances, Elida grows up, changing families, countries, continents, and even names, countless times. Surviving the war and the Holocaust that stole her parents, the young woman never gives up hope. In her lifelong pursuit to find love and belonging, she works to rebuild her identity and triumph over her terrible circumstances. A moving, powerful chronicle of overcoming impossible odds, Elida, the Forgotten Ghetto Girl is the true story of one unforgettable woman and her will to survive"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Creative nonfiction.; Personal narratives.; Katzman, Elida.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jewish children in the Holocaust;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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We were the lucky ones / by Hunter, Georgia,1978-author.;
An extraordinary, propulsive novel based on the true story of a family of Polish Jews who scatter at the start of the Second World War, determined to survive, and to reunite. It is the spring of 1939, and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows ever closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships facing Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurc family will be flung to the far corners of the earth, each desperately trying to chart his or her own path toward safety. As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death by working endless hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an extraordinary will to survive and by the fear that they may never see each other again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere. In a novel of breathtaking sweep and scope that spans five continents and six years and transports readers from the jazz clubs of Paris to the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to Krakow's most brutal prison and the farthest reaches of the Siberian gulag, We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the capacity of the human spirit to endure in the face of the twentieth century's darkest moment"--
Subjects: Jewish fiction.; Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Holocaust survivors; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jewish families; Jews, Polish; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The teacher of Warsaw : a novel / by Escobar, Mario,1971-author.; Abernathy, Gretchen,translator.; translation of:Escobar, Mario,1971-Maestro.English.;
Includes bibliographical references."International bestselling author Mario Escobar captures the strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of kindness in this moving novel based on the true story of a brave Polish teacher who cared for hundreds of orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Korczak, Janusz, 1878-1942; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Cesare : a novel of war-torn Berlin / by Charyn, Jerome,author.;
On a windy night in 1937, a seventeen-year-old German naval sub-cadet is wandering along the seawall when he stumbles upon a gang of ruffians beating up a tramp, whose life he saves. The man is none other than spymaster Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Canaris adopts the young man and dubs him "Cesare" after the character in the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for his ability to break through any barrier as he eliminates the Abwehr's enemies. Canaris is a man of contradictions who, while serving the regime, seeks to undermine the Nazis and helps Cesare hide Berlin's Jews from the Gestapo. But the Nazis will lure many to Theresienstadt, a phony paradise in Czechoslovakia with sham restaurants, novelty shops, and bakeries, a cruel ghetto and way station to Auschwitz. When the woman Cesare loves, a member of the Jewish underground, is captured and sent there, Cesare must find a way to rescue her. Cesare is a literary thriller and a love story born of the horrors of a country whose culture has died, whose history has been warped, and whose soul has disappeared.
Subjects: War fiction.; Historical fiction.; Nazis; Jews; World War, 1939-1945; Anti-Nazi movement; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Goddess of Warsaw : a novel / by Barr, Lisa,author.;
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Woman on Fire, the harrowing and ultimately triumphant tale of a Jewish WWII assassin turned Hollywood star. In 2005, Siena Hayes is Hollywood's latest It Girl, but she has her sights set higher than the screen, she wants to be behind the camera. So when Siena meets Lena Browning, the enormously mysterious and famous actor from decades past, Siena sees her big break. Siena wants to direct Lena's biopic-but Lena's past may turn out to be more than Siena bargained for. Before she was a "Living Legend," Lena Browning was Bina Blonski, a member of Warsaw's Jewish elite whose life and family were destroyed by the Nazis. In 1943, in the ghettos of Warsaw, Bina lives with her husband, Jakub. Determined to fight back against Nazi rule, beautiful, blonde Bina acts as a spy on the Aryan side fearlessly protecting the remaining Warsaw Jews, gaining intel, and stealing weapons. Along the way, her feelings grow more complicated as she falls in love with Aleksander, an ally to her in resistance ... and Jakub's brother. But the cause prevails-and Lena accomplishes amazing feats of bravery, though she can't help but sacrifice so much in the process ... Over a decade after escaping the ghetto, Bina, who now goes by Lena, has risen to fame in Hollywood. She sees her old life at every turn and hungers for revenge against the Nazis who are still everywhere around her. This is Lena's chance to right the past's wrongs and perhaps even find the happy ending she never had."--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Actresses; Man-woman relationships; Nazis; Revenge; Secrecy; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 2
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The Goddess of Warsaw [text (large print)] : a novel / by Barr, Lisa,author.;
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Woman on Fire, the harrowing and ultimately triumphant tale of a Jewish WWII assassin turned Hollywood star. In 2005, Siena Hayes is Hollywood's latest It Girl, but she has her sights set higher than the screen, she wants to be behind the camera. So when Siena meets Lena Browning, the enormously mysterious and famous actor from decades past, Siena sees her big break. Siena wants to direct Lena's biopic-but Lena's past may turn out to be more than Siena bargained for. Before she was a "Living Legend," Lena Browning was Bina Blonski, a member of Warsaw's Jewish elite whose life and family were destroyed by the Nazis. In 1943, in the ghettos of Warsaw, Bina lives with her husband, Jakub. Determined to fight back against Nazi rule, beautiful, blonde Bina acts as a spy on the Aryan side fearlessly protecting the remaining Warsaw Jews, gaining intel, and stealing weapons. Along the way, her feelings grow more complicated as she falls in love with Aleksander, an ally to her in resistance ... and Jakub's brother. But the cause prevails-and Lena accomplishes amazing feats of bravery, though she can't help but sacrifice so much in the process ... Over a decade after escaping the ghetto, Bina, who now goes by Lena, has risen to fame in Hollywood. She sees her old life at every turn and hungers for revenge against the Nazis who are still everywhere around her. This is Lena's chance to right the past's wrongs and perhaps even find the happy ending she never had."--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Large print books.; Novels.; Actresses; Man-woman relationships; Nazis; Revenge; Secrecy; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The song of the jade lily : a novel / by Manning, Kirsty,author.; Manning, Kirsty.Jade lily.;
Includes bibliographical references.1939: Two young girls meet in Shanghai, also known as the "Paris of the East". Beautiful local Li and Jewish refugee Romy form a fierce friendship, but the deepening shadows of World War II fall over the women as they slip between the city's glamorous French Concession district and the teeming streets of the Shanghai Ghetto. Yet soon the realities of war prove to be too much for these close friends as they are torn apart. 2016: Fleeing London with a broken heart, Alexandra returns to Australia to be with her grandparents, Romy and Wilhelm. Her grandfather is dying, and over the coming weeks Romy and Wilhelm begin to reveal the family mysteries they have kept secret for more than half a century. As fragments of her mother's history finally become clear, Alexandra struggles with what she learns while more is also revealed about her grandmother's own past in Shanghai. After Wilhelm dies, Alexandra flies to Shanghai, determined to trace her grandparents' past. Peeling back the layers of their hidden lives, she is forced to question what she knows about her family-- and herself.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Jews; Family secrets; Female friendship; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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Once we were home / by Rosner, Jennifer,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From Jennifer Rosner comes a novel based on the true stories of children stolen in the wake of World War II. Ana will never forget her mother's face when she and her baby brother, Oskar, were sent out of their Polish ghetto and into the arms of a Christian friend. For Oskar, though, their new family is the only one he remembers. When a woman from a Jewish reclamation organization seizes them, believing she has their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves. Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a relative seeks to retrieve him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem. Renata, a post-graduate student in archaeology, has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past--except for her own. After her mother's death, Renata's grief is entwined with all the questions her mother left unanswered, including why they fled Germany so quickly when Renata was a little girl. Two decades later, they are each building lives for themselves, trying to move on from the trauma and loss that haunts them. But as their stories converge in Israel, in unexpected ways, they must each ask where and to whom they truly belong."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Belonging (Social psychology); Holocaust survivors; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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