In the shouted words of a woman bound for Auschwitz to a man about to escape from a cattle car, If you get out, maybe you can tell the story! Who else will tell it?”Our Crime Was Being Jewish contains 576 vivid memories of 358 Holocaust survivors. These are the true, insider stories of victims, told in their own words. They include the experiences of teenagers who saw their parents and siblings … parents and siblings sent to the gas chambers; of starving children beaten for trying to steal a morsel of food; of people who saw their friends commit suicide to save themselves from the daily agony they endured. The recollections are from the start of the warthe home invasions, the Gestapo busts, and the ghettosas well as the daily hell of the concentration camps and what actually happened inside.
Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and this hefty collection of stories told by its survivors is one of the most important books of our time. It was compiled by award-winning author Anthony S. Pitch, who worked with sources such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to get survivors’ stories compiled together and to supplement them with images from the war. These memories must be told and held onto so what happened is documented; so the lives of those who perished are not forgottenso history does not repeat itself.
Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
more
Everyone should read this book, to help them know what went on in Europe, especially Germany and Poland, during World War II.
The gut wrenching words and descriptions from survivors and liberators of the Nazi concentration camps must remain a part of history so it will not be repeated. May there never be such atrocities again.
A most heart-wrenching tale! It is impossible to get through this book without experiencing so many different emotions; on so many different levels. This story remains with one long after reading it.
How does one review a book of first-person accounts of the Holocaust from survivors and military personnel? I have held the Holocaust in horror from the first time I learned about it in elementary school. But there is no way to know just how much the Jewish people suffered under Hitler’s “final solution.” Many of the accounts were similar and all left me feeling so sad about man’s inhumanity to man. If anyone has any doubt that the Holocaust was real, they need to read this book to learn how people who were at different locations at different times had many of the same kinds of experiences. I still can’t put myself in the place of any of those people who suffered unbelievably at the hands of the Nazis but I pray that this kind of activity never happens again.
This was a very difficult book to read but should be required reading for any person
Very good book with first-hand narrative of those in and around the ultimate extermination. It was not put together in any kind of sequence. When reading each excerpt, the reader had to figure out at which point of those many years that the narrator was talking. Other than that, nice book.
The best of the worst.
Statements, snippets, and paragraphs from hundreds of Holocaust survivors.
Every imaginable aspect of that horrific period is personalized here.
You’re sorry it happened, but glad to be able to understand and relate. How and where can you categorize the unbelievable? These sobering word pictures are unforgettable and obviously factual.
You hope you’ve been exposed to “overkill” long before you reach the end of this collection of testimonials…. but you can’t stop.
FOLLOWING the end are photographs depicting that horror that we all hope never to see again.
Brief, concise recollections by concentration camp survivors and by the soldiers, mostly Americans, who discovered the horrors. Highly recommended. The short narratives make this very readable.
THIS BOOK WAS SAD BUT. AWESOME WHAT EVERYONE ENDURED. IT MUST NEVER
HAPPEN AGAIN.
Haunting.
An amazing reality of what truly happened! If they lived this, then yes, others can read about their life. This stark reality brought me to tears.
Tragic tales of the Holocaust.
This is not a book for the faint of heart or easy reading. It has 700 pages of short vignettes, if one can call them that, about the horrors of WWII Nazi concentration camps. The longest covers 2 page while most are a page or less. The stories are overwhelming and emotionally hard to read.
Despite that I recommend it’s being read. As I read I kept a list of the various concentration camps and that list totaled 30!
Very good. Informative
Short well done. Informative. New perspective. I recommend it.
I certainly cannot say that I enjoyed the book; but I couldn’t put it down. I simply could not wrap my head around the fact that this was true; that these horrific things happened. I knew about the halocaust, but it’s so different reading individual stories. I must admit I realized a new depth of hate after reading this. But I believe everyone should read this!!
For those who want first-hand information on the Holocaust and it’s lasting effects on survivors, the information is here in a series of short remembrances by many different camp survivors.
Interesting reading if you are interested in learning more about the atrocities
of the Holocaust!!!
Absolutely the best book on the Holocaust I’ve ever read. Should be part of every high schools reading list.
Very important book.