The most recommended books about Nazi concentration camps

Who picked these books? Meet our 3 experts.

3 authors created a book list connected to Nazi concentration camps, and here are their favorite Nazi concentration camps books.
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Book cover of The Dachau Concentration Camp, 1933 to 1945

Donald L. Willerton Author Of Teddy's War

From my list on what our fathers never told us about WWII.

Why am I passionate about this?

My father never talked about his experiences during the war. After he died at 67, we found his handwritten itinerary of three years and ten days in the Army Signal Corps. Plotting it on a map sparked a passion that continued for years, taking me twice to sites in Europe and through hundreds of records and books. I am amazed at all he never told us—the Queen Mary troopship, his radar unit’s landing on Omaha Beach (D+26), the Normandy Breakout, Paris after liberation, fleeing Bastogne, and so on. I grew up on WWII films but never grasped till now what my dad may have seen. 

Donald's book list on what our fathers never told us about WWII

Donald L. Willerton Why did Donald love this book?

Concentration and termination camps may have been one of the topics least talked about by those who saw them. This catalog of text and photos was created for the 2003 documentary exhibition at the Dachau Concentration Memorial Site, created by survivors of the camp and an International Committee. Dachau developed and tested the appalling procedures that became standard for the whole network of camps in Europe. I recommend the book for its concise history, chronologies, maps, biographical sketches of prisoners and officers, and hundreds of photos. They are invaluable as a case study of how the Holocaust was designed and implemented.

By Barbara Distel, Ludwig Eiber, Thomas Felsenstein , Gabriele Hammermann , Micha Neher , Christian Scholzel , Stanislav Zamecnik , Paul Bowman (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Dachau Concentration Camp, 1933 to 1945 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Catalogue for the exhibition "The Dachau Concentration Camp 1933-1945" to accompany the new design of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. Illustrated with photographs. Includes CD.


Book cover of The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness

Michele DeMarco Author Of Holding Onto Air: The Art and Science of Building a Resilient Spirit

From my list on transforming your mental and spiritual health.

Why am I passionate about this?

Officially, I’m an award-winning author and specialist in the fields of psychology, trauma, and spirituality. I’m also a professionally trained therapist, clinical ethicist, and researcher. Ultimately, I’m an ardent believer that the same life that brings us joy also (sometimes) brings us pain. More importantly, that every aspect of life has a role to play in making us who we are today and who we’ll be tomorrow. We don’t always have control over the events in life, but the script we live by is ours to write—and write it we must, as only we can. I’m also a three-time heart attack survivor.

Michele's book list on transforming your mental and spiritual health

Michele DeMarco Why did Michele love this book?

If you think you know yourself, think again. The sole (or really soul) purpose of Simon Wiesenthal’s book is to reawaken the conscience: Would you offer forgiveness to a dying young Nazi SS soldier for the brutal murder of Jews in which he participated, and that was consuming his conscience?

This question, at the heart of this book, is one Wiesenthal faced when he was in the concentration camps—to which he responded no. For decades, he wrestled with conflicting feelings about his decision, and in this poignant page-tuner, he inspires readers to consider the same. 

What particularly grabbed me was not only the eloquent writing and storytelling (the first part is a memoir) but also its coupling with the spectrum of responses from nearly 30 theologians, spiritual leaders, scholars, writers, and statesmen who offer their own feelings on the question of forgiveness (part two).

I especially appreciated that regardless of…

By Simon Wiesenthal,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A Holocaust survivor's surprising and thought-provoking study of forgiveness, justice, compassion, and human responsibility, featuring contributions from the Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Cynthia Ozick, Primo Levi, and more.

You are a prisoner in a concentration camp. A dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness. What would you do?

While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion…


Book cover of The Last Consolation Vanished: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz

Alan Martin Tansman Author Of Japanese Literature: A Very Short Introduction

From my list on moving, profound books about loss and resilience.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like many people, I have experienced my share of suffering. I have also spent a lifetime exploring the suffering of others through great works of literature and art. My attraction to Japanese literature–imbued with a Buddhist sensitivity to loss–reflects my taste for the melancholy beauty of works of art that transmute suffering into aesthetic form. The qualities I find in Japanese literature are in wonderfully long supply in writings from around the world. My list of favorite books is a small testament to that aesthetic work which has the potential to heal us.

Alan's book list on moving, profound books about loss and resilience

Alan Martin Tansman Why did Alan love this book?

Reading these messages in a bottle discovered buried under a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, I am staggered and amazed at the indomitable human capacity for resilience and creativity.

I read these harrowing literary masterworks, which report on the most hellish degradations, and I am stunned that Zalmen Gradowski, from deep within his suffering, could wrest from the horrors before him and from his own despair, a literary art that is beautiful and solacing. I am reminded of the human capacity, which we all must certainly share, to snatch shreds of beauty from the darkest of circumstances and of the human hope that somewhere beyond one’s own hell lives a sympathetic ear.

By Zalmen Gradowski, Rubye Monet (translator), Arnold I. Davidson (editor) , Philippe Mesnard (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Last Consolation Vanished as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A unique and haunting first-person Holocaust account by Zalmen Gradowski, a Sonderkommando prisoner killed in Auschwitz.

On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than four hundred prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner's powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III.

Zalmen Gradowski was in…