Books like Under a Cruel Star by Heda Margolius Kovaly

During World War II, a foster girl in Nazi Germany steals books to share with neighbors and a hidden Jewish man, proving literature’s power to nourish the soul amid darkness.

In 1941 Lithuania, fifteen‑year‑old Lina and her family are deported by the Soviets to a Siberian labor camp; through art and resilience they endure brutal conditions and strive to survive the long journey ahead.

A true diary of Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish Polish pianist who survived the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.

Schindler's List is a fictional account of German industrialist Oskar Schindler who saved 1,300 Jews from the Holocaust.

Herman Kruk’s meticulously translated diaries chronicle his journey from refugee to Vilna Ghetto survivor, documenting daily resistance and the tragic fate of Lithuania’s Jewish community during the Holocaust.

"This rediscovered gem of Czech literature, a crime novel by renowned Holocaust memoirist Heda Margolius Kovaly, depicts a chilling moment in history, redolent with the stifling atmosphere of political and personal oppression of the early days of Socialist Czechoslovakia. In 1985, Czech Holocaust memoirist, literary translator, and political exile Heda Margolius Kovaly turned her pen to fiction. Inspired by the stories of Raymond Chandler, Kovaly knit her own terrifying experiences in early 1950s Socialist Prague -- her husband's imprisonment and wrongful execution, her own persecution at his disgrace -- into a gorgeous psychological thriller-cum-detective novel. Set in and around a cinema where a murder was recently committed, Innocence follows the unfolding of the investigation while telling the stories of the women who work there as ushers, each of whom is forced to support herself in difficult circumstances. As the novel brings this group alive, it tells their various life stories that have brought them to this job, the secrets they share with one another, and the secrets they keep. When the detective trying to solve the first murder is found slain by the cinema, all of their secrets come into the light. A smart, evocative, and deeply stirring literary crime novel with international appeal"-- "In 1985, Czech Holocaust memoirist, literary translator, and political exile Heda Margolius Kovaly turned her pen to fiction. Inspired by the stories of Raymond Chandler, Kovaly knit her own terrifying experiences in early 1950s Socialist Prague--her husband's imprisonment and wrongful execution, her own persecution at his disgrace--into a gorgeous psychological thriller-cum-detective novel. Set in and around a cinema where a murder was recently committed, Innocence follows the unfolding of the investigation while telling the stories of the women who work there as ushers, each of whom is forced to support herself in difficult circumstances. As the novel brings this group alive, it tells their various life stories that have brought them to this job, the secrets they share with one another, and the secrets they keep. When the detective trying to solve the first murder is found slain by the cinema, all of their secrets come into the light"--

Elie Wiesel chronicles the harrowing realities of his childhood in Nazi concentration camps, and how witnessing the loss of family and friends transformed his faith.

Kovaly was deported to concentration camps, escaped from a death march, nearly starved in the postwar years, only to be shattered by her husband's conviction (in the infamous 1952 Slansky trial) and his execution. Resonant with lyricism, this gripping memoir is uplifting even in the midst of horror.

"Troubled Memory is the story of Anne Skorecki Levy, the Holocaust survivor who transformed the horrors of her childhood into a passionate mission to defeat the political menace of Louisiana's David Duke. Beyond chronicling one family's flight from persecution to freedom, however, it offers testament to how the experiences of survivors as new Americans spurred their willingness to bear witness.". "Lawrence Powell integrates the Skorecki's odyssey within the larger currents of European and recent American history. Perhaps the only family to survive the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto as a group, the Skoreckis evaded deportation to Treblinka, posed as Aryans, and ultimately made their way to New Orleans, where they settled and daughters Anne and Lila married and raised families. Equally inspiring is the story of how Anne Skorecki Levy came to grips with a survivor's obligation to honor the suffering of the past by confronting the evil of racist hatred in the present. Breaking decades of silence, she played a direct role in the unmasking and defeat of Neo-Nazi David Duke in Louisiana's 1991 gubernatorial race."--BOOK JACKET.