I've written books about Jewish subjects before. A few years ago I published a biography about a Jewish Dutch actress named Jetta Goudal who invented a new life story for herself and became a Hollywoodstar. Before that I wrote a book about my Jewish great-grandfather Emanuel Brouwer who traveled to London in 1908 to compete in the Olympics. He traveled to the UK by boat with his best friend Isidore Goudeket, who was murdered in a German deathcamp. My great-grandfather did not win a medal in Londen (63rd place!), but he had a lot of fun in London, with loads of beer, whisky, and cigars. In 1943 he was sent to a camp as well.
I wrote...
The Fighter of Auschwitz: The incredible true story of Leen Sanders who boxed to help others survive
In 1943, the Dutch champion boxer, Leen Sanders, was sent to Auschwitz. His wife and children were put to death while he was sent 'to the left' with the others who were fit enough for labour. Recognised by an SS officer, he was earmarked for a 'privileged' post in the kitchens in exchange for weekly boxing matches for the entertainment of the Nazi guards.
With great risk and danger to his own life, Leen stole, concealed, and smuggled food and clothing from SS nursing units for years to alleviate the unbearable suffering of the prisoners in need. To his fellow Jews in the camp, he acted as a rescuer, leader, and role model, defending them even on their bitter death march to Dachau towards the end of the war.
This moving memoir is written in 1945, right after the evacuation of Auschwitz and the start of the Death Marches.
It is considered the only book written inside the camp. Eliazer ‘Eddy’ de Wind hid himself in the camp in January 1945 to escape the Death Marches. He wrote about the daily life in the camp while it was still fresh in his memory. The memoir was published in 1946. Nobody was interested and it bombed, but it was rediscovered in 1980 and became a semi-classic.
'The ultimate Holocaust testimony.' HEATHER MORRIS, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka's Journey Afterword by JOHN BOYNE, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas _______________
Eddy de Wind, a Dutch doctor and psychiatrist, was shipped to Auschwitz with his wife Friedel, whom he had met and married at the Westerbork labour camp in the Netherlands. At Auschwitz, they made it through the brutal selection process and were put to work. Each day, each hour became a battle for survival.
For Eddy, this meant negotiating with the volatile guards in the medical…
Also a book written by an insider. Langbein was an Austrian communist who was arrested by the Nazis in Vienna and got deported.
He became a Funktionshäftling in the camp (a prisoner who had to help the Nazis with daily tasks) and wrote this formidable book about Auschwitz right after the war. Langbein describes in great detail and with style about the daily life, including sports and music, in Auschwitz I.
Non-judgemental and seemingly without anger. That’s why this book is so impressive.
The son of the protagonist wrote this book. His father Harry Haft was born in Poland under a different name, fought against the Nazis, got deported, and became a boxer in a subcamp of Auschwitz.
He won almost all of his fights, his nickname became The Beast of Auschwitz. Harry Haft survived the war because of his boxing skills, emigrated to the US, and made a name for himself as a professional boxer. Incredible story about determination, luck, and surviving.
Alan Scott Haft provides the first-hand testimony of his father, Harry Haft, a holocaust victim with a singular story of endurance, desperation, and unrequited love. Harry Haft was a sixteen-year-old Polish Jew when he entered a concentration camp in 1944. Forced to fight other Jews in bare-knuckle bouts for the perverse entertainment of SS officers, Harry quickly learned that his own survival depended on his ability to fight and win. Haft details the inhumanity of the "sport" in which he must perform in brutal contests for the officers. Ultimately escaping the camp, Haft's experience left him an embittered and pugnacious…
Another book about a Jewish man who led a life that reads like fiction.
Louis Bannet grew up in Rotterdam with an alcoholic father and no money. He became a child prodigy at the violin, but decided in the Twenties and Thirties that he wanted to be the next Louis Armstrong. He became a star in Europe, but was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943. He was recognized by a SS-guard and he was forced to be the leader of the campband in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The trumpet saved his life and ‘The Dutch Louis Armstrong’, as he was known by that time, traveled from subcamp to subcamp. He even played in the villa of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death.
Jazz Survivor tells the story of Louis Bannet, the Dutch Louis Armstrong. Louis Bannet was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the was, but his skill as a musician saved his life: he became the 'star' of the Auschwitz Orchestra, as well as the personal bandleader for Dr Josef Mengele and the founder of the Gypsy Camp Orchestra.
The almost unbelievable memoir of a semi-professional Jewish boxer who was saved in Auschwitz by another former boxer.
Sim Kessel tried to escape in 1944, got caught, and was supposed to be hanged on the main square with six other escapees. The campband played march music, thousands of inmates had to watch. The rope broke when SS-guards tried to hang Sim Kessel and he was brought to the hangman of Auschwitz, whose job was to finish him.
His name was Bunker Jakob, inmates said he was the former trainer of the German former world champion boxing heavyweight Max Schmeling. Bunker Jakobs job was to finish Sim Kessel in Todesblock 11 (Death Block), but he saved Sim because they were both part of the fraternity of boxers.
A Jewish member of the French Resistance, Sim Kessel lived for almost three years in Nazi captivity. The bulk of his time was at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he survived torture, starvation, and even his own public execution through extraordinary luck. His remarkable and terrifying story shows in knowing and intimate detail how guards and kapos under the Nazi system degenerated into conscienceless killers, and how the desperate scramble to survive dehumanized Kessel's fellow prisoners.
Susan Tate Ankeny left a career in teaching to write the story of her father’s escape from Nazi-occupied France. In 2011, after being led on his path through France by the same Resistance fighters who guided him in 1944, she felt inspired to tell the story of these brave French patriots, especially the 17-year-old- girl who risked her own life to save her father’s. Susan is a member of the 8th Air Force Historical Society, the Air Force Escape and Evasion Society, and the Association des Sauveteurs d’Aviateurs Alliés.
The first and only full-length biography of Hazel Ying Lee, an unrecognized pioneer and unsung World War II hero who fought for a country that actively discriminated against her gender, race, and ambition.
This unique hidden figure defied countless stereotypes to become the first Asian American woman in United States history to earn a pilot's license, and the first female Asian American pilot to fly for the military.
Her achievements, passionate drive, and resistance in the face of oppression as a daughter of Chinese immigrants and a female aviator changed the course of history. Now the remarkable story of a fearless underdog finally surfaces to inspire anyone to reach toward the sky.
One of WWII’s most uniquely hidden figures, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Asian American woman to earn a pilot’s license, join the WASPs, and fly for the United States military amid widespread anti-Asian sentiment and policies.
Her singular story of patriotism, barrier breaking, and fearless sacrifice is told for the first time in full for readers of The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck, A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, The Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia, Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown and all Asian American, women’s and WWII history books.…
