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AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
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• Diary of Anne Frank
Age use: 8th grade or higher

• Dry Tears by Nechama Tec. The dramatic tale of how an 11 year-old child learned to "pass" in the forbidding Christian world, Dry Tears is a moving coming-of-age story.

• I Am A Star by Inge Auerbach. Only 100 children out of 15,000 survived the concentration camp Terezín, where Inge and her parents were imprisoned from 1942 until liberation in 1945.

• I Promised I Would Tell by Sonia Weitz. Through poetry and testimony, Weitz gives life to the millions of children, men, and women who were murdered during the Holocaust.
Age use: 5th grade or higher

• Rena's Promise by Rena Kornreich Gelissen. The remarkable story of Rena’s survival, the story also shows how her relationship with her younger sister, Danka, gave her the will to persevere under unimaginable circumstances.

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BIOGRAPHIES
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• Alicia: My Story. Her name is Alicia. She was thirteen when she began saving the lives of people she did not know -- while fleeing the Nazis through war-ravaged Poland.
Age use: 8th grade or higher

• In My Hands. Irene Gut Opdyke was a Catholic Polish nursing student when WWII broke out. She soon became mired in the horrors of central Europe as, at various times, a partisan, a refugee, a housekeeper to the Nazis and, over all, as a heroine.
Age use: 8th grade or higher

• Johann Trollmann and Romani Resistance to the Nazis. Roma and Sinti were victims of fascism, but they also were soldiers, activists, and underground resistors. Since World War II, there has been a struggle to obtain greater recognition of this valuable past.
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• Memory is Our Home. Based on the diaries of Roma Talasiewicz Eibuszyc and is compiled by her daughter. Roma grew up in pre-war Warsaw and survived the war in Russia and Uzbekistan, before returning to Poland. Her family was forced to leave Poland during the 1960s. This is a riveting account of a vibrant young woman's courage and endurance.
Age use: 8th grade or higher

• Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945, at the height of the Holocaust toward the end of the Second World War.
Age use: 9th grade or higher

• The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. It is based upon the true story of Helmuth Hubener, the youngest person to be sentenced to death by the Nazis during World War II. He was arrested and killed on October 27, 1942, being sentenced to the death penalty via guillotine.
Age use: 9th grade or higher

• Parallel Journeys. Eleanor Ayer tells the true stories of Helen, a Jewish girl who grew up near Frankfurt, Germany, and Alfons, a boy born just a few miles away on a farm. Helen was shipped to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Age use: 9th grade or higher

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STORY BOOKS (often based on true events)
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• 94 Maidens by Rhonda Fink-Whitman. A young Jewish family is caught in a perilous game of cat and mouse with the Nazis in Berlin. How long can they possibly remain among the living? It's getting harder to run, more dangerous to hide. The Nazis are hot on their trail, and time is running out for both the hunters and the hunted.
Age use: 7th grade or higher

• Behind the Bedroom Wall by Laura Williams. In 1939, 10-year-old Korinna Rehme becomes a member of her local Jungmaedel, a Nazi youth group. She believes that Hitler is helping the world by dealing with what he calls the "Jewish problem". When Korinna discovers that her parents are hiding Jews in their house and helping them to escape the city, she is shocked -- and her loyalties are put to an extreme test.
Age use: 7th grade or higher

• Children of Terror by Inge Auerbach. Two very young girls — one a Catholic from Poland and the other, a Jew from Germany — are caught in a web of terror during World War II.
Age use: 7th grade or higher

• The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. The book is about Hannah Stern, a Jewish girl who lives in New Rochelle, New York and is sent back in time to experience the Holocaust.
Age use: 5th grade or higher

• I am David by Anne Holm. It tells the story of a young boy who, with the help of a prison guard, escapes from a concentration camp in an unnamed Eastern European country and journeys to Denmark. Along the way he meets many people who teach him about life outside the concentration camp.
Age use: 5th grade or higher

• Island on Bird Street tells the story of a young boy, Alex, and his struggle to survive alone in a ghetto during World War II.
Age use: 7th grade or higher

• Mila 18 by Leon Uris. Set in German-occupied Warsaw before and during WWII. In the novel, the Jews of Warsaw boldly met Wehrmacht tanks with homemade weapons and bare fists.
Age use: 10th grade or higher

• Nine Spoons by Marci Stillerman. This story features a grandma and her family celebrating Chanukah and remembering a time when they celebrated Chanukah in a concentration camp. The pictures allow children to feel safe because grandma is alive and well, surrounded by family. The text ends in the present.
Age use: All ages

• The Number on My Grandfather's Arm by David Adler. This is a story about a Jewish girl who is talking to her grandfather one day and notices the tattoo. He explains to her what happened to him and they wind up having a developmentally appropriate discussion.
Age use: 5th grade or higher

• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. This story follows the escape of a Jewish family from Copenhagen, Denmark, during World War II. The story centers on 10 year-old Annemarie Johansen, who lives with her family in Copenhagen in 1943.
Age use: 5th grade or higher

• Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust by Alexandra Zapruder
Age use: 9th grade or higher

• Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Two main parallel plots are followed through the book: the first is that of 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski, a Jewish girl born in Paris, who is arrested with her parents during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. Before they go, she locks her 4 year-old brother in a cupboard, thinking the family should be back in a few hours. The second plot follows Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris, who is asked to write an article in honor of the 60th annivary of the roundup.
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• The Terrible Things by Eve Bunting
Age use: 2nd grade or higher

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COMIC BOOKS / GRAPHIC NOVELS
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• Daughters of the Holocaust by Rhonda Fink-Whitman
Age use: All ages

• The Last Outrage by Dr. Rafael Medoff
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust by Dr. Rafael Medoff
Age use: All ages

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FILMS

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• America and the Holocaust
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• Escape from Sobibor: Real portrayal of how inmates at Sobibor camp escaped in the uprising.
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• La Vita Bella (Life is Beautiful): Story of an Italian Jewish couple and their son during the Shoah.
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• The Pianist: Holocaust memoir about pianist-composer Wladyslaw Szpilman.
Age use: 6th grade or higher

• Picking Up the Pieces: Film about child Holocaust survivors.
Age use: All ages

• Uprising: Story of the Warsaw uprising.
Age use: 6th grade or higher

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
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• Fishbowl discussion. To start, 4 students sit in the center of the room (that's the Fishbowl). The others sit around them, taking notes on the conversation. The teacher poses questions or quotes from the book to get the conversation rolling. The 4 students discuss for a period of time, but are eventually "tagged" by one of the onlookers. When tagged, the one in the circle goes to the outside and becomes an observer as the ones in the middle continue their discussion.

• Teacher Pay Teacher Resources

• Teaching Materials - U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

• Resist Curriculum: Jewish Partisan Education Foundation

• Activities - Florida Center for Instructional Technology

• Activities, Handouts, Lessons - Holocaust Center for Humanity

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ADDITIONAL LINKS
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• Books About the Lublin District (Eastern Poland) During the Holocaust

• Echoes and Reflections

• The complete introduction to the Holocaust, designed for schools

• If You Don't Have Mandatory Holocaust Education, Demand It!

• 2023 NEA Education Delegation Rejects Holocaust Education Plank

Return to Important Links