personal narratives

Presents excerpts from the Holocaust diaries of fifteen young people, ranging in age from twelve to twenty-two, each with an introductory essay that looks at the writer, and the historical context of the diary, with a study of the text and its relevance in the context of Holocaust history or literature. Includes a list of over fifty additional known diaries written by young people during the period.

Nine-year-old Piri describes the bewilderment of being a Jewish child during the 1939-1944 German occupation of her hometown in Hungary and relates the ordeal of trying to survive in the ghetto.

Collection of paintings and text illustrating the author's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, including quotations from gravestones in a memorial Holocaust cemetery in Budapest.

The story of a woman who cared for and led a large group of emotionally and physically scarred children from Poland to Israel.

Contains the true stories of seven daring escapes by prisoners of war during World War II.

Interviews with six women Holocaust survivors relate the last seven months of Anne Frank's life.

Collects ten tales of American heroes who served in World War II.

Describes the first World War through the letters of the people who fought it, including doughboys, sailors, flying aces, and nurses.

In 1939, Helga Weiss was a young Jewish schoolgirl in Prague and she and her family endured the beginning of the Nazi invasion. Her father was denied work and she could not attend regular school. As she witnessed the increasing Nazi brutality she began a diary. In 1942, Helga and her parents were sent to Terezin where she continued her diary. In 1944 the family was moved to Auschwitz. But before Helga left Terezin, her uncle, who worked in the Terezin records department, hid her diary and drawings in a brick wall. In one of the many miracles of Jewish Holocaust survivors, he was able to reclaim them for her after the war.

In March 2011, a 9.0 earthquake struck off the northeastern coast of Japan, flooding the densely populated coastal area with a massive tsunami. The powerful wall of water traveled miles inland, engulfing whole communities and towns. More than 19,000 people were left dead or missing. The tsunami also triggered a meltdown at the Fukuskima Daiichi nuclear plant and the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.