Historical Survival Stories

September, 1939. The six Zaks siblings watch in silent horror as the Wehrmacht marches into their quiet hometown in southern Poland. Concerned for their survival, Yisrael Zaks leads his wife Haiya and his brothers Volf and Avraham toward the Russian border. But their escape does not go unhindered; and as they are captured by the invading German forces, they can hear their father’s last commandment still echoing behind them: “Never break the family apart. And whatever you do: never, ever leave any one of your siblings behind.”

Life in lower Manhattan is normal for Molly, her dads, and younger sister. But on September 11, 2001, everything changes. Molly and her younger sister, Adeline, are at school when the first plane hits the World Trade Center. When the Twin Towers fall, the city is thrown into chaos. Papa, a pilot, is flying, Dad can't be reached, and Gran, an EMT with the New York Fire Department, is at Ground Zero. It's up to Molly to find her sister and navigate a city she no longer recognizes.

The walls around Catherine Benedict were growing ever closer. She had to find a way out. A way to be free. To have an adventure of her own. She sees from the window in her chamber, the ships coming and going in the port. Perhaps she will find her chance.

Chance—an anthropomorphized Lucky Strike—narrates its journey from leaf to factory to ration box in the pocket of Philip Martin, a Missouri farm boy. On the Channel and at Omaha, Chance observes courage in many forms: Sally’s brief blaze, Winston’s unlit benediction, Terry’s loud luck, Philip’s quiet endurance. The landing’s chaos yields a long aftermath—hedgerows, letters unsent, and a silence that follows Philip home.

A legend is born An extraordinary story of the Knights Templar. On the Iberian Peninsula the wars of the Reconquista rage across Aragon and Castile. Once again, the Moors are gaining the upper hand. Christendom is divided. Amidst the chaos is a young knight: Arnau of Vallbona. After his Lord is...

Eighteen-year-old Constance is not interested in marriage or in being a “young lady”. But for a young woman coming of age in the early 1800s, that’s just about all that’s available to her. When her parents arrange her a marriage with a man more than twice her age, she’s powerless to resist. Stance couldn’t possibly find her newfound husband less appealing, but what can she do? Here’s what: Four months into the marriage, she can slip out of their bed in the middle of the night, and she can put on his clothes.

Mister Tidwell is a scholarly Oxford professor snatched out of his bookish world and pressed into service aboard Lord Nelson’s legendary British fleet - in the position of schoolmaster. Such is the life of the land-loving, seafaring Mister Tidwell, Gunner. Thrust into service at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Tidwell soon finds himself directly in the line of fire and way out of his depth. Fate has cast him into a terrible and terrifying spot - alone on deck to face the fearsome approach of a French man-o’-war.

Snub is a young gorilla, living in the heart of what will eventually be known as Africa. She is jealous of her mother's new baby and restless in her need to explore. When a natural disaster shakes up her family, Snub finds herself as the guardian of her young sibling and lost in a reshaped world. Snub may feel orphaned, but she's not alone. There are other creatures stalking through the woods - a new form of predator, walking on two legs.

In the heart of darkening Europe, amidst the looming war, "Vienna on Fire" by Don Gabor tells the riveting story of Greta Kolbe, an eighteen-year-old Jewish woman whose life was upended when German troops annexed Austria in 1938. Her peaceful existence is replaced by a nightmare of terror as she, along with Vienna's Jewish community, faces an ordeal of intimidation. Greta's journey of resilience begins as she flees Nazi Vienna to escape arrest for her resistance activities, embarking on a dangerous trek to Holland, with a spiteful ex-suitor and the Gestapo closely trailing her.

Charlotte has spent her whole life fighting the British Empire, following in the footsteps of her parents and their group of rebels. But when her reunion with her mother laid bare horrible truths about the rebellion, Charlotte knew she had to escape. Now she is on the run, with no idea who the enemy is - or which of her compatriots is truly on her side.

Speed Kyle is a master-builder of the hottest, fastest planes around. Cal Bradley’s a daredevil test pilot who pushes those planes to the limit. Add in Speed’s blond bombshell daughter who fears that Cal will go too far—and you’ve got a winner. And as far as Speed and Cal are concerned, winning is everything. Speed’s company is bleeding cash, and they need money quick. They’re competing in the upcoming National Air Meet, and to the victor goes the spoils—some extremely lucrative contracts.

A story of heartbreak and survival by the stepsister of Anne Frank. Eva was arrested by the Nazis on her 15 birthday and sent to Auschwitz. Her survival depended on endless strokes of luck, her own determination and the love and protection of her mother, Fritzi, who was deported with her. When Auschwitz was liberated, Eva and Fritzi began the long journey home. They searched desperately for Eva's father and brother, from whom they had been separated. The news came some months later. Tragically, both men had been killed.

Newport Gardner's Anthem explores the remarkable life of Occramer Marycoo, an enslaved African who went on to become one of early America's most important Black leaders. In the mid-eighteenth century, Marycoo was taken from West Africa to Newport, Rhode Island, where he was forced into racial bondage and given a name that symbolized the power that his new city and new enslaver held over him: Newport Gardner. In this powerful book, Edward E. Andrews pieces together newspaper articles, church records, letters, and Gardner's own writings to tell the story of his life.

The engrossing memoir of a spirited and glamorous young fashion designer who survived World War ll, with an afterword by her daughter, Helen Epstein. In the summer of 1942, twenty-two year-old Franci Rabinek--designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws--arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and...

On August 6th, 1945 Shinji, a Japanese adolescent boy, helps his father below prepare their home for demolition from its roof top, he sees a blinding flash. An Earth-shattering blast with scorching heat sends him into complete darkness and total chaos. An atomic bomb has just exploded only three-quarters of a mile away from him, devastating all of Hiroshima in a blink.

This audiobook describes the experiences of two Jewish brothers and Holocaust survivors who fled the approaching Nazi army and eventually joined up and fought with the resistance movement and ultimately helped defeat the Nazi army.

Dieci anni dopo, in quel borgo ridotto a macerie, abitato solo dai tre ragazzi inselvatichiti da solitudine e priva-zioni, padre Julen de la Cruz fu catapultato lì senza un perché. Vent’anni prima, fu padre Cullighan, infatti, per via di quella tesi sull’imperatore Costantino, a chiedergli di fare ricerche. Padre Julen invece, partì missionario per l’Africa. Si scambiarono qualche lettera poi, una busta. Di là arrivava. Fuor del Vallo. Lo schizzo di un simbolo che conosceva bene.

A Promise at Sobibór is the story of Fiszel Bialowitz, a teenaged Polish Jew who escaped the Nazi gas chambers. Between April 1942 and October 1943, about 250,000 Jews from European countries and the Soviet Union were sent to the Nazi death camp at Sobibór in occupied Poland. Sobibór was not a transit camp or work camp: Its sole purpose was efficient mass murder. On October 14, 1943, approximately half of the 650 or so prisoners still alive at Sobibór undertook a daring and precisely planned revolt, killing SS officers and fleeing through minefields and machine-gun fire.

In 1946, after five years as a prisoner - first as a Soviet POW in Nazi concentration camps, then as a deportee in the Arctic Gulag - 29-year-old Lev Mishchenko unexpectedly received a letter from Sveta, the sweetheart he had hardly dared hope was still alive. Amazingly, over the next eight years, the lovers managed to exchange more than 1,500 messages and even to smuggle Sveta herself into the camp for secret meetings. Their recently discovered correspondence is the only known real-time record of life in Stalin's Gulag.

It should be easy to step into the position her mother left for her, since everyone thought she died the day her kingdom was destroyed. But staying hidden - remaining 'nobody' - is simpler than accepting her dark past, enduring her harrowing fate, and claiming her broken crown. This series is a detailed world full of legends and myths given flesh, and a princess chosen to save them all.