Books

This is the story of Irene Zisblatt, Auschwitz and after. Her autobiography moves from Irene's childhood in Hungary through her terrifying coming-of-age as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps and her life in America. It is a story of compassion and hope between two young girls whose bizarre fate brought them together, whose love for each other inspired their survival, and whose friendship tragically ended with liberation in the forests of Germany. The lack of bitterness with which Irene tells her experience, along with her straight-forward style, adds power to what is essentially a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. Faced with the dehumanizing ordeal of life in Auschwitz-Birkenau, she found that by believing strongly that her horrors were temporary, she could cling to the hope that she could survive and be human again. It has take Mrs. Zisblatt fifty years to recount the terror of her experience. We should be grateful for her courage to relive these events in order to write this book. Irene is grateful to this country for giving her the opportunity to begin life anew. She is not embittered or filled with hatred and it is her goal to educate children in order to rid the world of prejudice, intolerance, and indifference.

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"Eloquent, thorough, and profound, David de Jong's brilliant debut illuminates a dark chapter of the past while also shining a stark and uncanny light onto our present, and, perhaps, our near future--showing how an insidious mix of capitalism and fascism can destroy democracy and countless lives. An absolute must-read." -- Norman Ohler, New York Times bestselling author of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third ReichA groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions off the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II--and how America allowed them to get away with it.In 1946, Günther Quandt--patriarch of Germany's most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW--was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his archrival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of billionaires continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz, and still control Porsche, Volkswagen, and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight--until now.In this landmark work of investigative journalism, David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany's wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of previously untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave laborers, and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler's army as Europe burned around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how America's political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day."Meticulously researched ...compels us to confront the current-day legacy of these Nazi ties." --Wall Street Journal

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The #1 New York Times bestseller, first time in paperback! As the true horrors of the Third Reich began to be exposed immediately after World War II, the Nazi war criminals who committed genocide went on the run. A few were swiftly caught, including the notorious SS leader, Heinrich Himmler. Others, however, evaded capture through a sophisticated Nazi organization designed to hide them. Among those war criminals were Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who performed hideous medical experiments at Auschwitz; Martin Bormann, Hitler's brutal personal secretary; Klaus Barbie, the cruel "Butcher of Lyon"; and perhaps the most awful Nazi of all: Adolf Eichmann. Killing the SS is the epic saga of the espionage and daring waged by self-styled "Nazi hunters." This determined and disparate group included a French husband and wife team, an American lawyer who served in the army on D-Day, a German prosecutor who had signed an oath to the Nazi Party, Israeli Mossad agents, and a death camp survivor. Over decades, these men and women scoured the world, tracking down the SS fugitives and bringing them to justice, which often meant death. The 8th book in the Killing cycle, the world's most successful popular history series with more than 19 million copies in print, Killing the SS will educate, entertain, and stun all readers.

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* Publishers Weekly Best Books of Summer 2025 * Bookbub Best Non-Fiction Release of the Season * MSNBC/Afar Magazine 10 Best Books for the Summer Traveler * Newsday's Top Must-Read Book for Summer * Christian Science Monitor Best Book of May 2025 * Longlisted for the 2025 American Library in Paris Book AwardA riveting and stylish saga set in Paris during World War II, The Art Spy uncovers how an unlikely heroine infiltrated the Nazi leadership to save the world's most treasured masterpieces.On August 25, 1944, Rose Valland, a woman of quiet daring, found herself in a desperate position. From the windows of her beloved Jeu de Paume museum, where she had worked and ultimately spied, she could see the battle to liberate Paris thundering around her. The Jeu de Paume, co-opted by Nazi leadership, was now the Germans' final line of defense. Would the museum curator be killed before she could tell the truth--a story that would mean nothing less than saving humanity's cultural inheritance?Based on troves of previously undiscovered documents, The Art Spy chronicles the brave actions of the key Resistance spy in the heart of the Nazi's art looting headquarters in the French capital. A veritable female Monuments Man, Valland has, until now, been written out of the annals, despite bearing witness to history's largest art theft. While Hitler was amassing stolen art for his future Führermuseum, Valland, his undercover adversary, secretly worked to stop him.At every stage of World War II, Valland was front and center. She came face to face with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, passed crucial information to the Resistance network, put herself deliberately in harm's way to protect the museum and her staff, and faced death during the last hours of Liberation Day.At the same time, a young Free French soldier, Alexandre Rosenberg, was fighting his way to Paris with the Allied forces battling to liberate France. Alexandre's father was the exclusive art dealer for Picasso, Matisse, George Braque, and Fernand Léger. The Nazis had taken everything from their family--their art collection, their nationality, their gallery, and their home in Paris. Vivid and atmospheric, The Art Spy moves from the glittering days of pre-War Paris, home to geniuses of modern culture, including Picasso, Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, Le Corbusier, and Frida Kahlo, through the tension-riddled cities and resorts of Europe on the eve of war, to the harrowing years of the Nazi occupation of France when brave people such as Valland and Rosenberg risked everything to fight monstrous evil.In the spirit of Hidden Figures, with the sweeping narrative of The Rape of Europa and the depth of The Resistance Quartet, The Art Spy is an extraordinary tale of a female hero whose courage and tenacity in a time of violence and terror is an inspiration for us all.

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