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We could say that Adele and her sister went out of the lion’s den into the lion’s mouth.

Adele née Grynholc and her sister, Tola, lost their parents to illness just before the Germans occupied Vilna, Lithuania, in June 1941. Only teenagers, the sisters were invited by an uncle to come to the Kovno Ghetto where he would look after them. After various mishaps on their way to Kovno—for one, all their possessions were stolen—they arrived at the Kovno Ghetto. There for twelve hours a day, Adele was forced to labor for the SS, unloading bricks and heavy cement bags from freight trains and working for the Luftwaffe repairing and expanding the military airfield.

During the fall of 1943, Adele and Tola were deported from the ghetto via cattle cars to Klooga Labor Camp in Estonia where the conditions were brutal. Food was scarce and even water was rationed. Adele worked at various jobs in Klooga; the worst was in a factory making cement blocks that were needed as fortifications. No easy work!

Adele Jochelson’s memoir, In the Lion’s Mouth, describes the liquidation of the camp and how she and Tola survived—two of only eighty survivors. The sisters survived because of Adele’s courage and wisdom, qualities manifest even at her young age of nineteen. Readers will be inspired by her memoir, a testimony to resilience and grace.

Yosef Mednik was born in Mizoch; Feiga Geldi, in Shumsk. Both towns are in Poland, about twenty miles apart. Married in 1939 before WWII began, in 1941 the desperate couple fled east in advance of the EinsatzgruppenAktions (mobile killing squads). Their families refused to flee with them, thus dooming themselves to a tragic fate.

Yosef and Feiga journeyed east, settling temporarily in Zaporizhia, Ukraine. When the Germans caught up with them, they fled farther east with the Red Army, ending up in Tašhkent, in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Their experiences of life on a kolkhoz, a collective farm, and, for Yosef, in the Polish/Soviet Army are profoundly moving.

Yosef and Feiga Mednik experienced the Holocaust in places readers rarely hear about. Most readers know about the ghettos and concentration camps but are not cognizant of the number of Jewish refugees who fled to the U.S.S.R. Yosef’s and Feiga’s experiences in Tašhkent on the kolkhoz and in the Polish/Soviet Army provide readers with a better understanding of where Jews fled to escape murder at the hands of the Nazis. This is a part of the Holocaust that has not been fully explored. We can be grateful to Gary Mednick’s determination to publish his parents’ memoir, Flight to Tašhkent, for enlightenment about Jews in the Soviet Union during the Holocaust.

Bertha Frydman Borowick was born one hundred years ago in Sokółka, Poland. She lived in a home that many generations of her father’s family had lived in. Surrounded by a loving father and siblings, Bertha’s childhood was idyllic as were her teen years. She went to school, learning bookkeeping, and played with other children, skating, sledding, and swimming.

In 1939 the Grim Reaper rode through Sokółka. Both the Soviets and the Germans occupied Bertha’s town. The Germans routed the Soviets in June 1941 and eventually made the town Judenrein (free of Jews). Almost 50% of Sokółka’s population—three thousand Jews including Bertha, her father, and three of her siblings, and their offspring—were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in January of 1943.

Assigned to a Kommando in “Canada,” Bertha survived despite contracting typhus. She remained in Auschwitz-Birkenau until January 1945 when the Germans transported her in an open cattle car to the infamous Bergen-Belsen. By April there was little food or water. Epidemics such as typhus, tuberculosis, and dysentery decimated the camp. Bertha survived in part because she wanted to live to be reunited with Moishe, her boyfriend from Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Bertha and Moishe did reunite and immigrated to the U.S. in 1949 with their daughter, Nancy. They were successful both as store owners and as real estate developers. They lived the American Dream. Bertha Borowick, despite her success, realizes that millions never had the chances that she and Moishe had. She hopes that her memoir, One of the Six, will make people more aware of the consequences of hate.

This memoir is the story of generations of the Rubenstein family. The Rubensteins had built lives for themselves in Germany going back at least to the mid-1800s. In 1871 German Jews, including the Rubenstein family, became emancipated, achieving full equality with other Germans. Equality prevailed until 1933 when Hitler came to power. Then the Rubenstein family as well as the newly engaged Gertrude Rubenstein and Josef Groch began to be plagued by the Third Reich. First, because they were Jews, they could not have their wedding where they wanted; then they could not live where they wanted. Eventually those, in retrospect, minor difficulties were overshadowed by the violence of Kristallnacht. Events propelled Josef’s escape to England in August 1939, leaving behind Gertrude with their two young children, George and Marion.

Once Josef’s leaves for England, he and Gertrude are separated for years—separated by the war, by time, as well as by continents. Considered an enemy alien, Josef is deported by the British to Australia aboard the infamous ship HMT Dunera. There he is incarcerated in detention camps. Gertrude and the children manage to depart Europe on one of the last boats leaving Genoa, Italy, arriving in the U.S.

Even after they are reunited, Gertrude and Josef endure difficulties making a life for themselves in the U.S. Yet through hard work, sacrifice, and perseverance they prevail. The family is resilient, rising from the ashes of the Holocaust to peace and prosperity in their beloved adopted country.

Readers will marvel at the hardships that the Rubensteins and Grochs surmount both in Australia and the U.S. Sacrifice and Resilience is a stirring memoir that will hearten readers, young and old.

Born in Oradea Mare, Hungary, Rose Bachmann enjoyed her childhood. She sometimes rode the trolley to visit the Eagle Palace, a shopping complex. She played with her sister, Gita, her cousins, and with the neighborhood children, Jews and non-Jews alike. Rose loved the Sabbath attending synagogue and eating her mother’s delicious cholent at the Shabbat dinner. She attended a Hebrew school where her favorite subject was geography. In the summer she visited her aunt’s farm to play with the chickens, goats, and sheep.

Her tranquil life was threatened by the German occupation in March of 1944 and the subsequent ghettoization of her family. In early June, after a few months in the ghetto enduring deplorable conditions, Rose, her mother, several aunts and uncles, and six cousins were deported on cattle trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Forcibly separated from her mother, Rose after being processed was sent to another camp, Riga-Kaiserwald, in Latvia. There she was reunited with her Aunt Rozsi. In late summer, Rose was again transported, this time to Stutthof, a death camp, where conditions were especially harsh. The prisoners were evacuated in April 1945. Many were put on overcrowded barges and, if they could not do as ordered, were executed and thrown into the Baltic Sea. Rose will never forget how red the water was from the blood. Rose survived this brutal voyage and was liberated by the British.

In 1948, Rose immigrated to the U.S., happy to live with her mother’s sister and husband. She was no longer alone. In 1950, Rose met Isidore Steinberg, and they married in 1951. The couple have a daughter Carolyn and a son Robert, grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Rose has a family! They are her joy.

Rose Steinberg’s memoir, The Reddening of the Sea, is both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Rose is resilient. To endure three concentration camps as a teenager and yet to become a warm and loving woman is remarkable. Her memoir is a tribute to her strength and courage.

Born Serena Berkovitz in 1928 in Sevluš, Czechoslovakia, Sara, the youngest of seven, lived happily with her parents, Regina and Meyer, and her siblings. Her father made orthopedic shoes. In March of 1939, the Hungarians occupied Sevluš, closing the schools to Jews, so Sara’s mother home-schooled her. In 1944, after the German occupation, Sara and her family were forced into the Sevluš Ghetto. From May 1944 until May 1945, Sara was incarcerated in two concentration camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland and Zittau in Germany. She was liberated in May 1945 by the Soviets. After liberation, Sara returned to her home in Sevluš but soon realized that “we didn’t live there anymore.”

Brihah, the organization that helped Jewish Holocaust survivors escape post–World War II Europe, transported Sara to Pöcking DP camp in Germany and then to Genoa, Italy, where she met Joseph Katz, a survivor of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, whom she married. In December 1947, the group left Italy for Eretz Yisrael.  Sara and Joseph settled in Haifa in 1948, immigrating to the U.S. in 1961 with their two children, Rivka and David. Sara has been happy in the U.S., enjoying the peace and beauty of her beloved adopted country.

Readers of The Circus That Was Auschwitz will be inspired by Sara’s determination and her endurance. But most of all Sara’s memoir will motivate those who have suffered great loss. She remained resilient despite the injuries and losses she experienced.

A mesmerizing first-person story of a young Jewish boy pushed into hiding over a period of nearly 2 1/2 years during WWII with total strangers who did not know who he was, while his parents hid in an attic elsewhere, not knowing where their son was or whether he was alive. This all in the heart of Amsterdam during the brutal occupation by the Nazis. Their family, long established, leading honest, law-abiding, normal and comfortable lives were suddenly forced to (in their own words) "disappear," to "become illegal," and to "live like rats" to avoid capture and deportation to killing camps. Yet they survived, facing constant fear of death, house-to-house searches, betrayal, disease and hunger, until liberated by the Allies. They then left their home, their country and their friends to start anew, in the U.S., seeking freedom from oppression. They quickly grew roots, becoming active and involved in their chosen community, and were able to succeed with zeal and good fortune. This chronicle includes not only Leo Ullman's own personal story, but stories of other family members and their often miraculous survival. The book contains numerous unique photos, copies of documents and correspondence in support of the stories, as well as valuable historical and factual context of those terrible times.

“As a young man, I did not speak of my past; however, as I have become older, I am haunted by memories.” —Don Berkman

This is the remarkable story of a Margate resident's childhood. Donald (Chipkin) Berkman, and his mother, Sara, Holocaust survivors, escaped from the ghetto to the forests of Lithuania, living in root cellars and barns but continually moving around to outwit the Nazis. They survived for over two years on potatoes, bread, and, at times, grass. Immigrating to the U.S., Don and his family had a difficult life coping with language and poverty. Yet he prevailed, marrying, and building a prosperous business and a good life for himself and his family.

Two Voices: A Mother and Son, Holocaust Survivors adds to the literature about child Holocaust survivors and their resilience, despite the traumas suffered during the hell of the Holocaust.

Following the German annexation of Alsace and Lorraine in 1940, Berlin forcibly integrated the French citizens of Alsace and Lorraine into the German army. From 1942, they were made German citizens, and 100,000 Alsatians and 30,000 Mosellans (north Lorraine) were enrolled by force into the German Wehrmacht, especially to fight on the Eastern front against Stalin's army. These men were called the ����������é-�Դdzܲ� (literally, in spite of ourselves), or in English as the "unwilling" or the "against our will."

Georges Raymond Beck, an Alsatian, was one of these ����������é-�Դdzܲ�. In the spring of 1942, he received a notice to report for the Reichsarbeitsdienst, Reich Labor Service, compulsory pre-military service. In July 1942, he was inducted into the German army and ordered to report for basic training.

By October 1942, Georges and fellow ����������é-�Դdzܲ� were on a military train, traveling through Germany, Poland, and finally into the U.S.S.R. His convoy traversed unending Russian forests and along the way was strafed by the Soviet Air Force. During the Soviet counter offensive in 1943, George and a friend decided to escape. He said, "We had no allegiance to the German Nazi doctrine whatsoever. We had no interest in helping the German war effort and had no qualms about escaping, if and when the time was right." The rest of Georges' memoir describes his dangerous journey back to France and his subsequent marriage and immigration to the United States, where he prospers.

Of the 1.6 million Jewish children who lived in Europe before WWII, only 100,000 survived the Holocaust. Most were hidden children. Dahme was one of those hidden children, hidden from the Nazis by righteous gentiles in the Netherlands. In July of 1942, six-year-old Maud and her four-year-old sister, Rita, were taken to the Spronk farm in Oldebroek and later to a fishing village, Elburg, where they were hidden with the Westerinks for the rest of the war. In 2014, in The Netherlands, Jo (Frederica von Gulik-Westerink) and her parents, Jacob and Henriette Westerink, were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Museum. The Spronks were honored at a ceremony in November at the Hague.

Chocolate, The Taste of Freedom chronicles not only the wartime adventures of Dahme but also her post-war experiences-reunion with parents, immigration, U.S. schools, marriage, and Holocaust education advocate.

Elizabeth Blum Goldstein, one of eight children, was born in Kisar, Hungary, in 1926. Her parents had a general store, orchards of fruit trees, and fields of wheat. In 1944 Elizabeth's peaceful family life was destroyed when the Nazis invaded Hungary. The family was sent for several weeks to the ghetto in Mátészalka, Hungary, and then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau where Elizabeth was separated from everyone but her sister Iboyla. Eventually Elizabeth and Iboyla were in six concentration camps—Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland; Płaszów, Poland; Hundsfeld, Germany; Gross-Rosen, Germany; Mauthausen, Austria; and Bergen-Belsen, Germany, where Elizabeth was liberated in 1945. Because Elizabeth was emaciated and ill, she was sent to a Swedish hospital to recover. In 1948, Mrs. Goldstein immigrated to the United States. Elizabeth has two children, Susan and Kenny, and three grandchildren, Shana, Bryana, and Adam.

Elizabeth Blum Goldstein was interviewed by her granddaughter, Shana Fogarty, over a number of weeks. With the help of Dr. Maryann McLoughlin of the Center, Shana completed the book, which was originally published in 2006; the revised edition, in 2015.

Shana Fogarty Shah, Elizabeth Goldstein's granddaughter, graduated from The Richard ������ College of New Jersey [now ������] with a major in Speech Pathology/Audiology and a minor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. She earned a master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Towson University in Maryland. Between academics, working, and spending time with friends and family, Shana completed this interview of her grandmother and the subsequent manuscript. She currently works as a speech-language pathologist and enjoys spending time with her husband and children. Shana wrote this book so that readers of Elizabeth Blum Goldstein's Holocaust experiences would be inspired by her grandmother's courage and resilience and in addition would become more aware of the dangers of genocide.

The youngest of seven children, Sylvia (Sara Gross) grew up in Rawa-Ruska, in southeast Poland. A good student she looked forward to further studies. In 1941, however, the Germans occupied Rawa-Ruska and measures against Jews were promulgated. There would be no further education for Sylvia, then 15 years old.

In summer of 1942, after escaping from a roundup of Jews who were being deported to Belzec Death Camp, Sylvia and her sisters, as non-Jews, volunteered for work in Germany. Little did the sisters know then what would be the fate of the rest of the family.

Sylvia's memoir describes her work at an AEG electric factory in Berlin and, later, on a farm in the village of Bentwisch am Wittenberge. All the while she was terrified of being betrayed as Jewish and deported to a concentration camp.

The Black Unfolding: A Holocaust Memoir also looks beyond WWII and the Holocaust, describing Sylvia's life after liberation in 1945: her marriage to David Liebel, their immigration to the United States, and the family's eventual move to Vineland when the forsythia was in bloom; the grass, a luscious green; and lilacs scented the air. Unfortunately, even in pastoral Vineland tragedy struck the family.