"1955 in New York City, the city of progress. But in the Perlman residence, the past is as close as the present. Rachel Perlman, a child of Berlin and an artist bearing her mother's legacy, arrives in New York as part of the wave of Jewish Displaced persons who managed to survive the brutalities of the war. But despite her efforts, Rachel is unable to live the "normal" life of an American housewife, not until she can shake the ghosts of her past and...

"Winner of the August Prize, an intricate weave of documents, substantive narrative, and emotional commentary that centers on a young Jewish refugee's friendship with the future founder of IKEA. Otto Ullman, a Jewish boy, was sent from Austria to Sweden right before the outbreak of World War II. There he became best friends with Ingvar Kamprad, who would grow up to become the founder of IKEA. Despite the huge Swedish resistance to Jews, the thirteen-year-old...

In 1936, the Nazis are little more than loud, brutish bores to fifteen-year old Stephan Neuman, the son of a wealthy and influential Jewish family and budding playwright whose playground extends from Vienna's streets to its intricate underground tunnels. Stephan's best friend and companion is the brilliant Žofie-Helene, a Christian girl whose mother edits a progressive, anti-Nazi newspaper. But the two adolescents' carefree innocence is shattered...

"A poignant and ultimately triumphant novel based on the incredible true story of children who braved the formidable danger of guarded wintry mountain passes in France to escape the Nazis. Southern France, 1942. In a remote corner of France, Jewish refugee Ella Rosenthal has finally found a safe haven. It has been three years since she and her little sister, Hanni, left their parents to flee Nazi Germany, and they have been pursued and adrift in the...

"It is 1946 when Vera Frankel and her best friend Edith Ban arrive in Naples. Refugees from Hungary, they escaped from a train headed for Auschwitz and were hidden by farmers until the end of the war while the rest of their families perished. Now, they want to start new lives abroad, and armed with a letter of recommendation from an American general, Vera finds work at the United States embassy and falls in love with Captain Anton Wight. But as Vera...

Jews wishing to escape persecution in Nazi Germany had limited choices as to where they might relocate. One city that would accept immigrants without a visa was Shanghai, where nearly 20,000 refugees eventually fled. Arriving there with nothing, most spent a hard, hungry, disease-ridden time in camps acclimating to their new environment, but the Jewish district in Shanghai eventually grew into a cosmopolitan center replete with Western-style bakeries,...

Rose Pastor arrived in New York City in 1903, a Jewish refugee from Russia who had worked in cigar factories since the age of eleven. Two years later, she captured headlines across the globe when she married James Graham Phelps Stokes, scion of one of the legendary 400 families of New York high society. Together, this unusual couple joined the burgeoning Socialist Party and, over the next dozen years, moved among the liveliest group of activists and...

"The long-awaited new work from the best-selling author of The Invisible Bridge takes us back to occupied Europe in this gripping historical novel based on the true story of Varian Fry's extraordinary attempt to save the work, and the lives, of Jewish artists fleeing the Holocaust In 1940, Varian Fry--a Harvard educated American journalist--traveled to Marseille carrying three thousand dollars and a list of imperiled artists and writers he hoped...

After finding a collection of her grandfather's letters, a journalist begins a search for the fate of the love he left behind in prewar Vienna six months after the Nazis took Austria.

"A 'fixer' in a Polish town during World War II, his betrayal of a Jewish family, and a search for justice 25 years later. Eli's Promise spans three eras--Nazi-occupied Poland, the American Zone of post-war Germany, and Chicago at the height of the Vietnam War. 1939: Eli Rosen lives with his wife Esther and their young son in the Polish town of Lublin, where his family owns a construction company. As a consequence of the Nazi occupation, Eli's company...