World War II

FACING THE LION is the autobiographical account of a young girl's faith and courage. In the years immediately preceding World War II, Simone Arnold is a young girl who delights in life – her doting parents, her loving aunts and uncles, and her grandparents at their mountain farm in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. As Simone grows into her preteen years, her parents turn from the Catholic Church and become devout Jehovah's Witnesses. Simone, too, embraces the faith. The Nazi party (the "Lion") takes over Alsace-Lorraine, and Simone's schools become Nazi propaganda machines.

In Marshall's Great Captain, author Kathy Wilson details Andrews's extraordinary life and career. The first biography dedicated to the namesake of Joint Base Andrews, this book sheds a light on Andrews's crucial role in orchestrating US involvement in WWII, as well as the professional relationship between Andrews and Marshall. Wilson raises Andrews's legacy to its legitimate place within the annals of both air power and WWII history and posits that there is a high probability that Andrews was Marshall's first choice for the office of Supreme Allied Commander.

When Howard Mansfield grew up, World War II was omnipresent and hidden. This was also true of his father’s time in the Air Force. Like most of his generation, it was a rule not to talk about what he’d experienced in war. “You’re not getting any war stories from me,” he’d say. Cleaning up the old family house the year before his father's death, Mansfield was surprised to find a short diary of the bombing missions he had flown. Some of the missions were harrowing. Mansfield began to fill in the details, and to be surprised again, this time by a history he thought he knew.

In Every Last Jew, Mark Koperweis beautifully retells his father Henry’s amazing story of survival that takes you on an unimaginable journey that is up-close, personal, and in full living horror. Gain insights as to why the Nazis, and Hitler in particular, hated the Jews, making them the enemy of society, and labeling them Untermenschen—subhuman.

Written from the "other side" and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.

Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just 17, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of the First World War, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as 'a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet'. In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war. We then follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme to his pioneering defence of London against deadly nighttime raids.

Former Polish teenage piano prodigy Mosha Gebert is teaching when the Nazis come for her. They kill her student, but she is taken to Majdanek concentration camp. There, Commandant Josef Hanke spots her and recognises her as the pianist he fell in love with years earlier. Hanke demands that Mosha play ‘Ode to Joy’ for him, but she refuses. She will never play in such a horrific place – or for such an evil monster. So begins a battle of wills and repeated torture.

After chronicling the personal stories of the Band of Brothers in We Who Are Alive and Remain, author Marcus Brotherton presents a collection of remembrances from the families of the soldiers of Easy Company-and how their wartime experiences shaped their lives off the battlefield.

Not many people peer over the abyss, but Elke Babicki's family did. Her German grandfather objected to Hitler and as a result, ended up in a concentration camp while her mother’s family became destitute. Elke's father, Alex, who was born into a well-educated and wealthy Jewish family in Poland, spent five years in concentration camps before making his escape just before the end of the war.

Bowed but unbroken, Miller survived because of his faith and lifelong devotion to his beloved wife of sixty-five years, a relationship that shines brightly in this distinctly American journey. With uncommon wisdom, intelligence, and humility, this member of the Greatest Generation spins a gripping tale through peace and war, work and family, love and redemption across ten tumultuous decades.

It fell to the Russians to enter Berlin first, and as Hitler took his own life in his bunker, the war in Europe finally came to an end. Winston Churchill led the people of Britain in the VE Day celebrations, but the fighting continued in the Pacific. Sadly, President Roosevelt died in April, just weeks before VE Day, and the task of finishing the task in hand passed to the new American President, Harry S. Truman.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, legendary WW II general and US president: Life and work in a short biography! Everything you need to know, brief and concise. Infotainment, education and entertainment at its best!

Called "A significant Holocaust memoir," Edith's Story is often compared to Anne Frank's diary. In occupied Holland, Edith, from a lively, loving Jewish family in The Hague, went into hiding the same month as Anne Frank. Both Edith and Anne kept diaries, which are remarkably similar in their pre-war teen preoccupations with boys, school and parties. But Edith's world gradually darkens. When Nazi laws forbid her from attending school, riding her bike or even going to the beach, she wears the yellow star as a badge of honor, prompting people in the street to tell her to keep her chin up.

Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a ship, a decorated warrior for his feats of bravery and rescue, was trusted by the admirals of the Royal Navy, had a succession of aeronautical inventions, and designed the first modern aircraft carrier. He was perhaps the most famous early twentieth-century naval aviator. Despite all of this, and due mostly to class politics, Rutland was not promoted in the new Royal Air Force in the wake of WWI.

Who ever heard of an Irish Jew? Set during World War II and the Holocaust era, Emerald Ark, Memories of a Jewish Irish Youth, a memoir, shares the story of an adventurous and uncommon life — the life of Theo Garb. Born in Manchester, England, in 1929, Theo grew up an Orthodox Jew in Dublin, Ireland. His parents, Wolf, a larger-than-life figure, and Rachel, have their hands full with Theo and elder brother, Abe, as they mature into adulthood and stray from Orthodox observance.