I have recently gotten into books about the Holocaust. I’ve read The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, The Book Thief, The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, and am currently reading Cilka’s Journey. I would love more books like these! Fiction or non fiction are fine! I also got recommended a book a while ago that was called Johnathan’s Story or something like that. It definitely had a J name in the title. I would also appreciate help finding that! 🙂
by AquaPuppy_
11 Comments
The kindly ones by Jonathan littell
Night by Elie Wiesel is one of the gold standards in this grim sub genre. Maus by Art Spiegelman is also good if you’re willing to try out graphic novels.
One note though, be careful when reading Holocaust literature. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was infamously denounced for its historical inaccuracies. Not all of these books were written responsibly
The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal
In Memory’s Kitchen by Michael Berenbaum & Cara de Silva
Survivor Cafe by Elizabeth Rosner
Maus by Art Spielgman
All non-fiction:
Frankl, “Man’s Search For Meaning”
Wachsmann, “KL”
Browning, “Ordinary Men”
Levi, “Survival in Auschwitz”
LeZotte, “T4”
Snyder, “Bloodlands” (also about Stalin, not only the Holocaust)
Stangneth, “Eichmann Before Jerusalem” (combine it with Arendt, “Eichmann in Jerusalem”)
Remote sympathy by Catherine chidgey.
I would gently recommend searching out more books by Jewish authors, and/or from Jewish perspectives. I notice that several of these, while good books, are not really the best in terms of portrayals and/or centering the actual victims of the Holocaust.
All But My Life by Gerda Klein
If This Is A Man by Primo Levi. Definitely non fiction.
[If This Is A Man](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275630.If_This_Is_a_Man?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=3r44BJW66w&rank=2) by Primo Levi. It’s non-fiction, a Jewish-Italian man’s memoir from his time spent in Auschwitz. Truly harrowing. He went on to live until 1987, when he commited suicide, but I don’t think he ever recovered. Elie Wiesel famously said [“Primo Levi died at Auschwitz forty years later”](https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/here-there-is-no-why/).
Leon Uris wrote two books, one set in the Warsaw ghetto at the onset of the Holocaust – “Mild 18”, the other , “QBVII”was a post Holocaust novel about the trial of a prominent British physician sues an author he believes slandered him by accusing him of being an infamous Nazi doctor.