32 results for "Autobiography"

My friend Anne Frank: the inspiring and heartbreaking true story of best friends torn apart and reunited against all odds

Pick-Goslar, Hannah,Kraft, Dina
"In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever. As the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam progressed, Anne and the Frank family seemingly vanished, leaving behind unmade beds and dishes in the sink--but no trace of Anne's precious diary. Torn from her dear friend without warning, Hannah spent the next two years tormented by questions about Anne's fate, wondering if she had, by some miracle, managed to escape danger. In this long-awaited memoir, Hannah shares the story of her childhood during the Holocaust, from the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Amsterdam to the gradual disappearance of classmates and, eventually, the Frank family, to Hannah and her family's imprisonment in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. As Hannah chronicles the experiences of her own life during and after the war, she provides a searing look at what countless children endured at the hands of the Nazi regime, as well as an intimate, never-before-seen portrait of the most recognizable victim of the Holocaust. Culminating in an astonishing fateful reunion, My Friend Anne Frank is the profoundly moving story of childhood and friendship during one of the darkest periods in the world's history"--Dust jacket flap.
Little, Brown Spark 2023 313 pages

My name is Anne, she said, Anne Frank

Maarsen, Jacqueline van
A touching and intimate autobiography, this account recalls the author's remarkable childhood friendship with Anne Frank while attending a special school for Jewish children in Amsterdam during the late 1930s. With the story of her initial meeting and bonding with Anne Frank, Jacqueline van Maarsen's memoir recollects her family's near escape from the Netherlands only months after the Frank family went into hiding-or moved to Switzerland, as van Maarsen was lead to believe-and provides a revealing look into life under Nazi occupation. Written by a one-time friend who only discovered the truth about Anne's fate after the war ended, this memoir is a moving, firsthand recollection of a youthful friendship in the foreboding days of World War II.
Arcadia 2008-03-28 176 pages

All rivers run to the sea: memoirs

Wiesel, Elie
In this first volume of his two-volume autobiography, Wiesel takes us from his childhood memories of a traditional and loving Jewish family in the Romanian village of Sighet through the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald and the years of spiritual struggle, to his emergence as a witness for the Holocaust's martyrs and survivors and for the State of Israel, and as a spokesman for humanity. With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.
A.A. Knopf 1995 432 pages

Eat my Schwartz: our story of NFL football, food, family, and faith

Schwartz, Geoff,Schwartz, Mitch
"Geoff and Mitchell Schwartz are the NFL's most improbable pair of offensive linemen. They started their football careers late, not playing a down of organized football until they joined their low-key high school program. Despite all that, they wound up at top-tier college program and became the first Jewish brothers in the league since 1923. In Eat My Schwartz, Geoff and Mitch talk about the things that have made them the extraordinary people that they are: their close-knit and supportive family, their Jewish faith and traditions, their love of the game and drive for excellence and, last but not least, the food they love to eat, whether at home or on the road. Theirs is an inspiring story not just for every football fan but for everybody wanting to figure out what it takes for dreams to come true--and how to stay well-fed throughout the process"--
St. Martin's Press 2016-09-06 270 pages

Shanda: a memoir of shame and secrecy

Pogrebin, Letty Cottin
"In her deeply engaging, astonishingly candid memoir, author and activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin exposes the fiercely-guarded lies and intricate cover-ups woven by dozens of members of her extended family. Beginning with her own long-suppressed secret, the story spirals through the hidden lives of her parents and relatives--revealing the truth about their origins, personal traumas, marital misery, abandoned children, religious transgressions, sexual identity, radical politics, and supposedly embarrassing illnesses. While unmasking their charades and disguises, Pogrebin also showcases her family's remarkable talent for reinvention in a narrative that is, by turns, touching, searing, and surprisingly universal." --
Post Hill Press 2022 429 pages

How I stopped being a Jew

Sand, Shlomo
"Shlomo Sand was born in 1946, in a displaced person's camp in Austria, to a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father; the family later migrated to Palestine. As a young man, Sand came to question his Jewish identity, even that of a "secular Jew." With this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal recollection, he articulates the problems at the center of modern Jewish identity. How I Stopped Being a Jew discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the "chosen people" myth and its "holocaust industry." Sand criticizes the fact that, in the current context, what "Jewish" means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility of a secular, non-exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of Zionism"--
Verso 2014-10-07 102 pages

Hitler, Stalin and I: an oral history

Kovály, Heda,Třeštíková, Helena
The oral history of a renowned Czech writer, whose optimism and faith in people survived grueling experiences under authoritarian regimes. Heda Margolius Kovály (1919-2010) was a renowned Czech writer and translator born to Jewish parents. Her bestselling memoir, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her crime novel Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street --based on her own experiences living under Stalinist oppression--was named an NPR Best Book in 2015. In the tradition of Studs Terkel, Hitler, Stalin and I is based on interviews between Kovály and award-winning filmmaker Helena Trestíková. In it, Kovály recounts her family history in Czechoslovakia, starving in the deprivations of Lodz Ghetto, how she miraculously left Auschwitz, fled from a death march, failed to find sanctuary amongst former friends in Prague as a concentration camp escapee, and participated in the liberation of Prague. Later under Communist rule, she suffered extreme social isolation as a pariah after her first husband Rudolf Margolius was unjustly accused in the infamous Slánsky Trial and executed for treason. Remarkably, Kovály, exiled in the United States after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, only had love for her country and continued to believe in its people. She returned to Prague in 1996. Heda had an enormous talent for expressing herself. She spoke with precision and was descriptive and witty in places. I admired her attitude and composure, even after she had such extremely difficult experiences. Nazism and Communism afflicted Heda's life directly with maximum intensity. Nevertheless, she remained an optimist. Helena Trestíková has made over fifty documentary films. Hitler, Stalin and I has garnered several awards in the Czech Republic and Japan.
DoppelHouse Press 2018 160 pages

The provincials: a personal history of Jews in the South

Evans, Eli N.
In this classic portrait of Jews in the South, Eli N. Evans takes readers inside the nexus of southern and Jewish histories, from the earliest immigrants to the present day. Evoking the rhythms and heartbeat of Jewish life in the Bible belt, Evans weaves together chapters of recollections from his youth and early years in North Carolina with chapters that explore the experiences of Jews in many cities and small towns across the South. He presents the stories of communities, individuals, and events in this quintessential American landscape that reveal the deeply intertwined strands of what he calls a unique "Southern Jewish consciousness." First published in 1973 and updated in 1997, The Provincials was the first book to take readers on a journey into the soul of the Jewish South, using autobiography, storytelling, and interpretive history to create a complete portrait of Jewish contributions to the history of the region. No other book on this subject combines elements of memoir and history in such a compelling way. This new edition includes a gallery of more than two dozen family and historical photographs as well as a new introduction by the author.
The University of North Carolina Press 2005 391 pages

Gaby Brimmer: an autobiography in three voices

Brimmer, Gabriela
This English-language translation of the autobiography of Gabriela Brimmer (1947-2000) tells an amazing story in three voices. Gaby, who had cerebral palsy, communicated largely by typing with her left foot on an electric typewriter, and also by using that foot to point at letters and numbers on an "alphabet board" at the base of her wheelchair. She gained admission to Mexico City public schools, attended the prestigious National Autonomous University of Mexico, and became a key figure in launching Mexico's disability rights movement. Brimmer was raised by her parents, Austrian Jews who fled the Nazis in the late 1930s, and a devoted Mexican caregiver, Florencia Morales Sanchez. Renowned writer Elena Poniatowska structured this text by alternating Gaby's voice with those of her mother, Sari, and Florencia. Memorable not just as the memoir of an extraordinary woman, but as a unique and imaginative form of autobiographical writing, the volume opens with a foreword by Judith E. Heumann and Jorge Pineda, and features a new introduction by Lauri Umansky and afterword by Avital Bloch providing additional context about Gaby's life and writing, as well as disability, women's, and Jewish/Mexican history.
Brandeis University Press 2009 200 pages

Family record

Modiano, Patrick
"A mix of autobiography and lucid invention, this highly personal work offers a deeply affecting exploration of the meaning of identity and pedigree. With his signature blend of candor, mystery, and bewitching elusiveness, Patrick Modiano weaves together a series of interlocking stories from his family history: his parents' courtship in occupied Paris; a sinister hunting trip with his father; a chance friendship with the deposed King Farouk; a wistful affair with the daughter of a nightclub singer; and the author's life as a new parent. Filled with a coterie of dubious characters - Nazi informants, collaborationist refugees, and black-market hustlers - Modiano's riveting vignettes capture the drama that consumed Paris during World War II and its aftermath. Written in tones ranging from tender nostalgia to the blunt cruelty of youth, this is a personal and revealing book that brings the enduring significance of a complicated past to life."--Publisher.
Yale University Press 2019-09-24 146 pages

Autobiographical Jews: essays in Jewish self-fashioning

Stanislawski, Michael
A collection of lectures delivered in May 2002 under the auspices of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies at the University of Washington. Analyzes autobiographical works of seven Jews from antiquity to the 20th century. Two of these reflect despair in the midst and in the wake of World War II. Ch. 4 (pp. 103-138), "Autobiography as Farewell I: Stefan Zweig, " discusses the Austrian Jewish writer, who committed suicide in 1942, as a non-Zionist universalist even in the face of Nazism. Pp. 131-136 deal with the persecution of the Jews. Ch. 5 (pp. 139-174), "Autobiography as Farewell II: Sarah Kofman, " discusses the life and works of Kofman, who committed suicide in 1994. Focuses on her "Rue Ordoner, Rue Labat" and her Holocaust experiences as a child in Paris. Her father was killed in Auschwitz, and Kofman was looked after by a Christian woman to whom she felt closer than her mother. Deals with the conflicts in Kofman's sexual and religious identities.
University of Washington Press 2004 209 pages

Dual allegiance: an autobiography

Dunkelman, Ben
Ben Dunkelman grew up in a wealthy Jewish family in Toronto. Kicked out of several schools for being a hell-raiser, he was sent off to Europe and the Middle East in the 1930s, gaining hard experience that would serve him well in the years to come. On his return he worked for the family business, but when World War Two came he lost no time in enlisting. Dunkelman describes the war from the ordinary soldier's viewpoint, without embellishment or glorification. Yet he was a hero to his men--and to his country. After the war Dunkelman returned to Canada, but in 1948 he went to war again--this time to fight for the young nation of Israel in the struggle to establish a Jewish state. Dual Allegiance is the exciting, fast-paced story a man and the passions he was willing to fight for--and if necessary, die for.
Crown Publishers 1976 336 pages