Why am I passionate about this?

I became interested in the Holocaust and the Second World War during my senior year of high school. I took a literature class entitled “Man’s Inhumanity to Man,” which focused a great deal on the literature that emerged from the Holocaust. At the end of the year, I had the great honor to meet author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel who had actually read my essay (my teacher knew him, and gave it to him to read) and encouraged me to keep writing. I am fascinated by stories of survival and the quiet heroism that characterized women like Ida and Louise Cook.


I wrote

Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan that Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich

By Isabel Vincent,

Book cover of Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan that Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich

What is my book about?

Overture of Hope is the story of sisters Ida and Louise Cook, office clerks who used their fanatical love of…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed

Isabel Vincent Why did I love this book?

Historian Wendy Lower focuses on a single photograph taken in October 1941 that shows a group of soldiers shooting a woman who clutches the hand of a little boy just before they fall into a mass grave in Miropol, Ukraine.

This is a gripping and impeccably researched account of the killers, the victims, and the photographer who took the haunting image. Lower combs through public records and archives, and relies on interviews with local residents to reconstruct mass atrocities. Lower’s descriptions of her dogged determination to reconstruct the scene of the crime reads like a thriller.

By Wendy Lower,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Ravine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner, 2022 National Jewish Book Award

Shortlist, 2022 Wingate Literary Prize

A single photograph—an exceptionally rare “action shot” documenting the horrific final moment of the murder of a family—drives a riveting process of discovery for a gifted Holocaust scholar


In 2009, the acclaimed author of Hitler’s Furies was shown a photograph just brought to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The documentation of the Holocaust is vast, but there are virtually no images of a Jewish family at the actual moment of murder, in this case by German officials and Ukrainian collaborators. A Ukrainian shooter’s rifle is inches from a…


Book cover of The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive

Isabel Vincent Why did I love this book?

Phiippe Sands is a professor of international law at University College London, who has worked to shed light on human rights violations in Chile, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, among other places. He is also a brilliant storyteller.

In The Ratline he examines the life and mysterious death of Otto von Wächter, a high-ranking member of the SS who held governorships in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Wanted by the Allies after the war, Von Wächter escapes to the Austrian Alps where he lives as a fugitive for three years before heading to Rome, aided by Vatican bishop Alois Hudal.

A few months into his Italian sojourn, Von Wächter suddenly takes ill and dies. His son Horst von Wächter believes his father was murdered. Sands sets off to find the truth in this gripping page-turner.

By Philippe Sands,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Ratline as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A tale of Nazi lives, mass murder, love, Cold War espionage, a mysterious death in the Vatican, and the Nazi escape route to Perón's Argentina,"the Ratline"—from the author of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning East West Street.

"Hypnotic, shocking, and unputdownable." —John le Carré, internationally renowned bestselling author

Baron Otto von Wächter, Austrian lawyer, husband, father, high Nazi official, senior SS officer, former governor of Galicia during the war, creator and overseer of the Krakow ghetto, indicted after as a war criminal for the mass murder of more than 100,000 Poles, hunted by the Soviets, the Americans, the British, by Simon…


Book cover of A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis

Isabel Vincent Why did I love this book?

This is an extraordinary story of a brave German woman whose diplomat father and Italian aristocrat husband decide to resist the Nazis.

When German troops enter Italy, Fey von Hassell finds herself trapped with her young children in a 12th-century villa in northern Italy while her husband joins the anti-fascist underground in Rome and her father decides to join the group that plots to kill Adolf Hitler. Nazi stormtroopers take over the villa and later arrest Fey.

Using archival materials and family letters, Caroline Bailey reconstructs Fey’s harrowing journey—moved from prison to prison and concentration camp to concentration camp. Her two young boys are taken away from her, and sent to a Nazi orphanage. Fey’s single-minded mission to find her children reads like a good thriller.

By Catherine Bailey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Castle in Wartime as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"I was gripped by A Castle in Wartime--it contained more tension, more plot in fact--than any thriller."--Kate Atkinson, author of Big Sky and Case Histories

An enthralling story of one family's extraordinary courage and resistance amidst the horrors of war from the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Rooms.

As war swept across Europe in 1940, the idyllic life of Fey von Hassell seemed a world away from the conflict. The daughter of Ulrich von Hassell, Hitler's Ambassador to Italy, her marriage to Italian aristocrat Detalmo Pirzio-Biroli brought with it a castle and an estate in the north…


Book cover of Goering's Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World

Isabel Vincent Why did I love this book?

Hermann Goering’s art dealer was a Nazi stormtrooper with a PhD in art history and an athletic build. And Bruno Lohse always made sure the champagne was on ice whenever Hermann Goering arrived at Paris’ Jeu de Paume museum in order to examine the latest in stolen masterpieces.

Although Lohse was arrested after the war for his ties to the Nazi party and spent several years in prison in Germany and France, he was never convicted for his role in stealing art, and went on to make a good living as an art dealer in Munich after the war. Jonathan Petropoulos, a history professor at Claremont McKenna College and expert on the Holocaust, interviewed Lohse several times for this fascinating book.

By Jonathan Petropoulos,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Goering's Man in Paris as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A charged biography of a notorious Nazi art plunderer and his career in the postwar art world

"[Petropoulos] brings Lohse into sharper focus, as a personality and axis point from which to explore a network of art dealers, collectors and museum curators connected to Nazi looting. . . . What emerges from Petropoulos's research is a portrait of a charismatic and nefarious figure who tainted everyone he touched."-Nina Siegal, New York Times

"Readers of art history and WWII biographies will appreciate this engrossing deep dive into one of the world's most prolific art looters."-Publishers Weekly

Bruno Lohse (1911-2007) was one…


Book cover of The Baton and the Jackboot

Isabel Vincent Why did I love this book?

Berta Geissmar was the Jewish secretary and confidante to legendary German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler beginning in 1921.

In her memoir, published in 1944, Geissmar describes how the Nazi hierarchy interfered in the world of classical music, purging orchestras of Jewish musicians and banning works by Jewish composers. Although Furtwangler at first refused to do the bidding of the Nazis, he was eventually sidelined. And Geissmar soon became a Nazi target.

They blamed her for the bad publicity that the regime was getting in the classical music world, and seized her passport. Geissmar was eventually allowed to leave the country, and, ended up in London as the secretary of another legendary conductor—Sir Thomas Beecham.

By Berta Geissmar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Baton and the Jackboot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

History


Explore my book 😀

Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan that Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich

By Isabel Vincent,

Book cover of Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan that Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich

What is my book about?

Overture of Hope is the story of sisters Ida and Louise Cook, office clerks who used their fanatical love of opera to help bring Jewish musicians and scholars out of Nazi-controlled Germany and Austria before the beginning of the Second World War. Working with Austrian musician Clemens Krauss, Hitler’s favorite conductor, the sisters traveled to Austria and Germany on the weekends in the years before the Second World War under the pretext of attending opera performances. They interviewed their refugees, and smuggled out their assets, mainly jewelry, by plastering everything on their Marks & Spencer dresses when they crossed the border. Their quiet relief effort saved dozens of Jews from the Nazis.

Book cover of The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed
Book cover of The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive
Book cover of A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis

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No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

Book cover of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

Rona Simmons Author Of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”

Rona's book list on World War II featuring the average Joe

What is my book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.

The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.

No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

What is this book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Germany, the Holocaust, and war criminals?

Germany 491 books
The Holocaust 414 books
War Criminals 14 books