European History

A promise to stay together. An unbreakable bond. A fierce will to survive. From international bestselling author Heather Morris comes the breath-taking conclusion to The Tattooist of Auschwitz trilogy.

After the Nazis took my parents I was scared. After they killed my best friend I was angry. After I joined the partisans and helped defeat the Nazis I was hopeful. Soon, I said, we'll be safe. I was wrong. Soon continues the incredibly moving story of Felix, a Jewish boy still st...ruggling to survive in the wake of the liberation of Poland after the end of World War Two.
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The extraordinarily moving memoir by Australian Slovakian Holocaust survivor Magda Hellinger, who saved an untold number of lives at Auschwitz through everyday acts of courage, kindness and ingenuity. In March 1942, twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and ne...arly a thousand other young Slovakian women were deported to Poland on the second transportation of Jewish people sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The women were told they'd be working at a shoe factory. At Auschwitz the SS soon discovered that by putting Jewish prisoners in charge of the day-to-day running of the accommodation blocks, camp administration and workforces, they could both reduce the number of guards required and deflect the distrust of the prisoner population away from themselves. Magda was one such prisoner selected for leadership and over three years served in many prisoner leader roles, from room leader, to block leader - at one time in charge of the notorious Experimental Block 10 where reproductive experiments were performed on hundreds of women - and eventually camp leader, responsible for 30,000 women. She found herself constantly walking a dangerously fine line: using every possible opportunity to save lives while avoiding suspicion by the SS, and risking torture or execution. Through her bold intelligence, sheer audacity, inner strength and shrewd survival instincts, she was able to rise above the horror and cruelty of the camps and build pivotal relationships with the women under her watch, and even some of Auschwitz's most notorious Nazi senior officers including the Commandant, Josef Kramer. Based on Magda's personal account and completed by her daughter Maya's extensive research, including testimonies from fellow Auschwitz survivors, this awe-inspiring tale offers us incredible insight into human nature, the power of resilience, and the goodness that can shine through even in the most horrific of conditions.
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Combined here are Maus I: A Survivor's Tale and Maus II - the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe. By addressing the Holocaust through cartoons the author captures the everyday reality of fear and the sensation of survival.

The incredibly moving and powerful memoir by an Auschwitz survivor who made headlines round the world in 2020