100 books like Auschwitz and After

By Charlotte Delbo, Rosette C. Lamont (translator),

Here are 100 books that Auschwitz and After fans have personally recommended if you like Auschwitz and After. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Book cover of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Karen Fang Author Of Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong

From my list on creatives who transformed American history.

Why am I passionate about this?

In 2016, I started thinking about art’s power to unite diverse people. The recent presidential election coincided with a sharp spike in anti-immigrant rhetoric, but artists, musicians, creatives, and performers were fierce defenders of the value of cultural difference. In my own life, I’ve always found inspiration and solace from creative practice. For years now, I’ve been part of an eclectic friend group I first met in painting class. The joy art brings to my life also made me wonder who gets credit and what even constitutes “art.” Is an expensive oil painting really worth more than a comic book, if someone loves the comic book just as much?

Karen's book list on creatives who transformed American history

Karen Fang Why did Karen love this book?

A work of science writing might be a surprising addition to this list of storytellers, artists, and designers, but surely the life of the African American woman, mother, and cancer sufferer whose cell tissue became one of the most widely used biological lab media in contemporary medical research epitomizes creation and creativity.

Lacks’s history is a terrible story of racial anonymity and exploitation, which Skloot tells with extraordinary sensitivity. Always being sure to keep Lacks and her descendants at the forefront, Skloot both details the atrocities that sometimes underlie civilization’s progress and restores Lacks’s long overdue credit for making possible some of the most important medical advances of the twentieth century.

This book achieves the highest level of nuanced, deeply human storytelling. To me, it is one of the finest works of nonfiction ever. 

By Rebecca Skloot,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With an introduction by author of The Tidal Zone, Sarah Moss

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells - taken without her knowledge - became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools in medicine. Yet Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until more than twenty years after her death, with devastating consequences . . .

Rebecca Skloot's fascinating account is the story of the life, and afterlife, of one woman who changed the medical world for ever. Balancing the beauty and drama…


Book cover of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

Evie Yoder Miller Author Of Shadows

From my list on the intertwinings of war, conscience, and religion.

Why am I passionate about this?

The main reason I care about the relationship of war, conscience, and religion is because I believe strongly in the separation of church and state. A country’s methods of pursuing its best interests, include the use of power and warfare. Religions, however, make central: love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. People need to develop a conscience about what principle matters most. In the Civil War, the old tenet, an “eye for an eye,” was used to justify killing others for reasons of advantage or revenge. But I want to be involved instead in creating peace and justice for all.

Evie's book list on the intertwinings of war, conscience, and religion

Evie Yoder Miller Why did Evie love this book?

Death is everywhere in war: on the battlefield, in a disease-ridden hospital, or in childbirth on the home front. Drew Gilpin Faust’s non-fiction book, This Republic of Suffering, brings eye-popping numeric data to the prevalence of death in war. But she never stops at the surface level of how many deaths, or how many unidentified soldiers or improper burials occur during the Civil War. I was caught up entirely as Faust’s words, riveting and respectful of all the pain and loss, showed how death became an ennobling transformation for many people, either in the cause of racial standing or of Union/secessionist preservation.

By Drew Gilpin Faust,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked This Republic of Suffering as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation.

More than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief…


Book cover of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

Lyla Bashan Author Of Global: An Extraordinary Guide for Ordinary Heroes

From my list on becoming a global citizen and ordinary hero.

Why am I passionate about this?

In 6th grade I did a report about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which manifested in a career spanning more than 20 years where I’ve worked for NGOs, the State Department, and the United States Agency for International Development to help make the world a better place. I’ve lived in Guatemala, Tajikistan, Armenia, and Jordan, and travelled throughout Sub-Saharan Africa working on conflict prevention, democracy, governance, and human rights. I’m a firm believer that, no matter your profession, everyone can help make the world a better place – and that’s why I wrote my book and why I read the books on my list – to help make this a reality. 

Lyla's book list on becoming a global citizen and ordinary hero

Lyla Bashan Why did Lyla love this book?

As an ordinary hero, it is important to understand where humanity has succeeded and where we have failed.

This book is definitely about the latter. The book is a good read, but it is also really hard to read because it is about how we have failed to prevent atrocities. It’s so important because understanding where humanity has failed is the only way we will be able to prevent these sorts of atrocities in the future.

It is well written, which makes the difficult topic more accessible. 

By Samantha Power,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked A Problem from Hell as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the Armenian Genocide to the ethnic cleansings of Kosovo and Darfur, modern history is haunted by acts of brutal violence. Yet American leaders who vow never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, " A Problem from Hell" draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policymakers, thousands of once classified documents, and accounts of reporting from the killing fields to show how decent Americans inside and outside government looked away from mass murder. Combining spellbinding history and seasoned political analysis, " A Problem from Hell" allows readers to…


Book cover of Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout

Misha Maynerick Blaise Author Of This Phenomenal Life: The Amazing Ways We Are Connected with Our Universe

From my list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm very interested in neuroscience, and it turns out that when you are in a state of wonder, you activate parts of the brain that correlate with creativity, gratitude, hope, and connection with oneself and others. In a way, wonder is an antidote to the doom-and-gloom ideologies that surround us. I'm very drawn to art and ideas that help me connect with my sense of wonder and remind me that I'm connected with a vast and mysterious universe! 

Misha's book list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life

Misha Maynerick Blaise Why did Misha love this book?

I was blown away by this book; each page is a composition of ethereal cyanotype images, photos, X-rays, newspaper clippings, history, and science. Curie's discoveries had great benefits as well as terrible consequences for humanity.

This book made me think about the paradoxes of life and how we reckon with the powerful forces unleashed by science and technology in our rapidly changing world. 

By Lauren Redniss,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Radioactive as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A National Book Award finalist, the mesmerizing, landmark illustrated biography Radioactive is finally available in a stunning paperback edition. Through words and her own gorgeously crafted illustrations, artist and journalist Lauren Redniss tells the story of Marie Curie, nee Marya Sklodowska, and her working and romantic relationship with Pierre Curie, including their discovery of two new scientific elements with startling properties-as well as the tragic car accident that killed Pierre, Marie's two Nobel Prizes, and her scandalous affair with a married scientist. And Radioactive looks beyond the contours of Marie's life, surveying the changes wrought by the Curies' discoveries-nuclear weapons,…


Book cover of A History of the Grandparents I Never Had

Ari Joskowicz Author Of Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust

From my list on uncovering hidden and marginalized histories.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a scholar of European history who spent the last twenty years studying how minorities relate to each other and how their efforts to communicate their silenced histories are entwined. I remain fascinated by the many ways we think we know—and so frequently fail—to grasp the suffering and ambitions of others. All of this makes me ultimately a historian of the hidden stories of marginalized people and of the struggle to document and understand them.

Ari's book list on uncovering hidden and marginalized histories

Ari Joskowicz Why did Ari love this book?

Jablonka, a French historian, tells a story that is both personal and profound.

He traces the history of his grandparents, who fled to France in 1938 as communists and Jews. Jablonka reconstructs their attempts to evade arrest and deportation up to their eventual death at the hands of the Nazis in the most meticulous detail.

In his capable hands, the challenge of writing histories with limited documentation becomes a source of ingenuity. I learned from A History of the Grandparents I Never Had that there are ways to think about your family’s past in ways that are not merely sentimental but also surprising and illuminating. (It even made me briefly consider calling my own recent book The Stories My Grandparents Never Told). 

By Ivan Jablonka, Jane Kuntz (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A History of the Grandparents I Never Had as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ivan Jablonka's grandparents' lives ended long before his began: although Mates and Idesa Jablonka were his family, they were perfect strangers. When he set out to uncover their story, Jablonka had little to work with. Neither of them was the least bit famous, and they left little behind except their two orphaned children, a handful of letters, and a passport. Persecuted as communists in Poland, as refugees in France, and then as Jews under the Vichy regime, Mates and Idesa lived their short lives underground. They were overcome by the tragedies of the twentieth century: Stalinism, the mounting dangers in…


Book cover of The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944

Susan Rubin Suleiman Author Of Crises of Memory and the Second World War

From my list on collective memory of WWII and the Holocaust.

Why am I passionate about this?

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Susan Rubin Suleiman emigrated to the U.S. as a child with her parents. She has had a distinguished career as a professor of French and comparative literature at Harvard, publishing more than a dozen books and over 100 scholarly articles. Her acclaimed memoir about returning to Budapest, Budapest Diary: In Search of the Motherbook, appeared in 1996; in 2023, she published Daughter of History: Traces of an Immigrant Girlhood, a memoir of immigration which was a finalist for a 2024 National Jewish Book Award. She has been awarded many honors, including the Radcliffe Medal for Distinguished Achievement in 1990 and France’s highest honor, the Légion d’Honneur, in 2018. 

Susan's book list on collective memory of WWII and the Holocaust

Susan Rubin Suleiman Why did Susan love this book?

First published in the 1980s, this is a classic in memory studies, tracing the evolution of public memory in France regarding the Vichy regime over a forty-year period. Rousso shows how the first narrative about “everyone resisted,” promoted by Charles de Gaulle, was gradually replaced by a more realistic version of the past, including recognition of Vichy’s collaboration with the Nazis in rounding up Jews and members of the Resistance.

By Henry Rousso, Arthur Goldhammer (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From the Liberation purges to the Barbie trial, France has struggled with the memory of the Vichy experience: a memory of defeat, occupation, and repression. In this provocative study, Henry Rousso examines how this proud nation-a nation where reality and myth commingle to confound understanding-has dealt with les annees noires. Specifically, he studies what the French have chosen to remember-and to conceal.


Book cover of Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There

Celia Clement Author Of Three Sisters: A True Holocaust Story of Love, Luck, and Survival

From my list on rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.

Why am I passionate about this?

Both my parents were born in Leipzig, Germany and were survivors of the Holocaust. I grew up in Upstate New York with stories my mother recounted about her family’s dramatic escape and the many harrowing moments they endured. I was fortunate enough to interview her before her death and to acquire the memoirs of her two sisters.  I've always wanted to publish their astonishing story, and I'm thrilled that my readership spans many countries. This book highlights the many individual, family, and village rescuers that saved the lives of my mother’s family. I have stayed connected to the descendants of many of these rescuers and am forever grateful for the risks these heroic people took to save the lives of the Kroch family.

Celia's book list on rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust

Celia Clement Why did Celia love this book?

This is the beautifully written, spellbinding retelling of a remarkable moment in history where true humanity triumphed. A small protestant town in Southern France, in full view of the Vichy government managed to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death. Phillip Hallie has masterfully captured the personalities of the major rescuers and provides a detailed account of the events that led to this most unusual story of rescue. Photographs help to capture the excitement of this incredible, riveting story.

By Philip P. Hallie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

During the most terrible years of World War II, when inhumanity and political insanity held most of the world in their grip and the Nazi domination of Europe seemed irrevocable and unchallenged, a miraculous event took place in a small Protestant town in southern France called Le Chambon. There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death.


Book cover of House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family

Ruth Badley Author Of Where are the grown-ups?

From my list on troubled families and the secrets they keep.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist with a background in performing arts and have spent much of my work life as a storyteller, fascinated by the process of knocking a narrative into shape, either for print or stage performance. My mother’s death prompted me to use those same skills to tell my own stories and the process has been the most satisfying of my professional life. As a memoirist of two books, my dreams have come true. My work has been shortlisted for awards, featured in national newspapers, special interest magazines, and by the BBC. I regularly speak to family history societies, book clubs, writer’s groups, and at literature festivals.   

Ruth's book list on troubled families and the secrets they keep

Ruth Badley Why did Ruth love this book?

A beautifully written and meticulously researched family memoir that made me question what I would have done to survive the turbulence and brutality of the Nazi era. Themes of antisemitism and identity continue to haunt four siblings - Jehuda, Jacob, Sender, and Sala - as they leave Poland behind to establish new lives as Alex, Jacques, Henri, and Sara in Paris.

An irresistible and complex personal story that I would happily reread because I devoured this page turner too quickly! At the heart of it all is Sara, the author’s mysterious, glamorous, melancholy grandmother and a shoebox of her treasured possessions. The author, a skilled journalist, adds power to the narrative with examples of populist divisive politics and the rise of nationalism in current times.

By Hadley Freeman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked House of Glass as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Sunday Times bestseller

'An utterly engrossing book' Nigella Lawson

'Remarkable and gripping' Edmund de Waal

'A near-perfect study of Jewish identity in the 20th century ... I don't hesitate to call it a masterpiece' Telegraph

After her grandmother died, Hadley Freeman travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she'd never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America - defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end - yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. Sala's experience of surviving one of the most tumultuous periods…


Book cover of Suite Française

David Snell Author Of Sing to Silent Stones: Part One

From my list on wartime books about families torn apart by the conflict in WW1 and WW2.

Why am I passionate about this?

My reading is almost entirely influenced by my own family’s extraordinary history. My mother and father-in-law were both illegitimate. Both suffered for the fact and my father-in-law was 11 years old when he first found out and was reunited with his mother, albeit on a second-class basis compared to his half siblings. My mother trained bomb aimers. My father flew Lancaster bombers and was just 19 years old in the skies above wartime Berlin. My own books combine history, my personal experiences, and my family’s past to weave wartime stories exploring the strains that those conflicts imposed on friendships.

David's book list on wartime books about families torn apart by the conflict in WW1 and WW2

David Snell Why did David love this book?

An abiding theme within my own book is that love and friendship can supplant racial and cultural differences, and this book, set in a village in France during the 2nd World War, highlights a growing and reluctant friendship between an occupier and the occupied.

The hatred that invasion induces causes any fraternisation to be labelled ‘collaboration.’ Sometimes it is. Sometimes, it is just people caught out of context seeking comfort and normality.

It is easy for those whose countries have never been occupied to scoff at the behaviour of those who had to live in the atmosphere and the reality of a hostile invasion. Let’s hope we never have to find out firsthand.

By Irene Nemirovsky,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked Suite Française as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, "Suite Francaise" would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, "Suite Francaise" falls…


Book cover of A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France

Susan Tate Ankeny Author Of The Girl and the Bombardier: A True Story of Resistance and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied France

From my list on women during WW2.

Why am I passionate about this?

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. 

Susan's book list on women during WW2

Susan Tate Ankeny Why did Susan love this book?

This fascinating book follows 230 women, some more in-depth than others, who were imprisoned outside Paris for crimes of resistance activities. I began reading it as research and became captivated by the stories, especially the devotion the women developed for one another. I felt a deep connection to each of the prisoners as I climbed into their shoes, cheering for them to survive while fearing they would not. (The Appendix lists the 49 who survived if you want to know in advance. I didn’t.) It’s difficult to grasp what they endured over an unimaginable period of time. Just the sheer depth of their hunger is something I’ve never come close to experiencing. Moorehead keeps the tone intimate and compassionate. Yes, their suffering could be hard to read, but at the same time, I found inspiration as if they spoke to me from the past of the power of mutual dependency-…

By Caroline Moorehead,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A moving and extraordinary book about courage and survival, friendship and endurance - a portrait of ordinary women who faced the horror of the holocaust together.

On an icy morning in Paris in January 1943, a group of 230 French women resisters were rounded up from the Gestapo detention camps and sent on a train to Auschwitz - the only train, in the four years of German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp. Of the group, only 49 survivors would return to France.

Here is the story of these women - told for the first…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in France, political prisoners, and the Holocaust?

France 924 books
The Holocaust 411 books