Hi,
I recently visited Auschwitz and would like to do some reading on the Shoah. So far I've only read Maus. I would prefer books that aren't religious, although I realized that given the topic this may be hard to avoid. Maybe I should clarify that I would be interested in books that describe prewar Jewish community life, but not books that conclude that religion is the answer to evil. I definitely don't want Christian proselytization.
Thanks for your help.
by denys1973
9 Comments
*Neighbors*
*Ordinary Men*
*Still Alive*
*Night*
Number the Stars
This isn’t a book suggestion but it is a reading suggestion. Many Holocaust survivors, including some in my own family, told their Holocaust testimonials to people who then wrote them down and put them on sites like JewishGen and Yad Vashem. Each one provides a very personal look at prewar Jewish life, the Holocaust itself, how each person survived, what they endured, and who they lost.
Whether or not they are religious depends entirely on the personality and religiosity of the person. Don’t forget that the Holocaust was about killing Jews as a genetic *ethnicity*, not as followers of a religion. Hitler couldn’t have cared less whether a Jew was religious or not. He hated us as (what he saw as) a genetic *race* (much better understood as an ethnicity), not a religion.
Here’s one example of a Holocaust testimonial in my cousin, Roza.
[https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kibart/rozamem.html](https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kibart/rozamem.html)
The great thing about Judaism is we don’t proselytize, so even the books that you will most certainly come upon that are religious, aren’t going to frame it in a way that makes you feel judged or wrong or pressured — with that said, *The Book Thief* is a masterful fiction inspired by true events.
Also, *The Eichmann Trial*
“The Postcard” by Anne Berest is a good, personal look at the time before and during WW2, and currently.
“The Last of the Just” by Andre Schwarz-Bart is a good story that places the Holocaust in perspective with centuries of oppression against Jews.
*If This Is a Man* by Primo Levi – a memoir of the (atheist) author’s incarceration in Auschwitz
Besides some great books already mentioned I would like to add a poem from Paul Celan. He experienced the Holocaust and lost his parents to the Shoa. It’s called „death fugue“ and I found it very moving.
The film *Schindler’s List* was based on a historical novel called *Schindler’s Ark*, by Thomas Keneally, who’s a great writer of historical fiction. (Though you might find his novel published under the movie title, now.) *The Book Thief,* by Markus Zusak, is marketed in the US as a YA novel, but is really intended for adults. Leon Uris’ *Mila 18* is about anti-Nazi resistance in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw. (Leon Uris is a pretty important Jewish writer in general, and you might look at his other novels.)
The only book I can think of is The Diary of Anne Frank