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Alicia was only 13 years old when she began saving Jewish lives in war-ravaged Poland. In this nonfiction account of the Holocaust, Alicia recalls how she stood on her brother’s grave and vowed she would tell his story.

This posthumously published memoir tells of young Sara’s resistance to anti-Semitism while growing up in Romania. For a while, she was able to escape the Nazis by her blonde hair and blue eyes but eventually was caught and sent to Ravensbruck, a German concentration camp for female prisoners.

Livia Bitton-Jackson a.ka. Elli Friedmann, was only 13 years old when the Nazis invaded Hungary. She recounts her struggle to survive with her mother, first in the ghetto, then in the Plaszow Concentration Camp (the one shown in Stephen Spielberg movie, Schindler’s List), and then while working in a factory in Augsburg.

Rachek always begs her Grandmother Oma to tell the story of Oma’s two lives: the one before American and the one after. The first part recounts her marriage prior to World War I and then her family’s move from Poland to Germany to seek safety. Ironically, two of her three daughters spent time in concentration camps but all survived and were reunited in the United States. The illustrations really add to readers’ understanding of this horrible time in history.

As a youth, Kertesz spent one year in Auschwitz and so develops this novel about a 14-year-old Hungarian boy’s ability to see beauty even in a horrific concentration camp. Publisher’s Weekly called its prequel Fateless one of the best 50 books in 1992 and this one won him a Nobel Prize.

Little did Gerda know that her father’s insistence that she wear her hiking boots one hot, summer day would be her salvation from death. Gerda was able to see good even in the darkest of moments while struggling to survive in several concentration and slave labor camps. From January through April 1945, it was those boots that saved her from the cold during a brutal, 300-mile death march from a labor camp in western Germany to Czechoslovakia where she was the only one of 120 women who survived.

This ALA Best Book for Young Adults is the true, heart-wrenching, and unforgettable story of the author’s experiences at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. The reader will be shocked by the atrocities and the horror that she faced but will be moved by her courage and willpower to survive.

Drawn from the author’s own experiences, this is the moving story of a young Jewish girl, Rosemarie Brenner, and her experiences in a concentration camp during World War II.

This is the memoir of a Nazi Holocaust survivor. This grandmother speaks from her experiences in the Lodz ghetto in Poland and Auschwitz when she was a teenager. Riva Minska vividly shares how the Nazis destroyed her family, her community, and her way of life and tells how she managed to survive the death camps of World War II.

In this graphic novel, Spiegelman writes of his father’s struggle as a Jew in Poland during World War II. In comic book form, the Jews are depicted as mice, the Nazis as cats, and those who side with the Nazis are pigs. Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for this work.

This is a collection of drawings and poems that were done by children who grew up in the Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia between 1942 and 1944. The terror, the pleas for rescue, and the reflections of beliefs and values of these children who lived during World War II are vividly captured.

This short autobiographical novel is Wiesel’s rendering of his terrifying experiences as a teenager at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Nazi death camps. A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Wiesel graphically describes his witnessing the death of his father, his innocence, and his God.

Ayer presents two alternating perspectives of the Holocaust — one from Helen Waterford, a Jewish woman and her struggle to survive and one from Alfons Heck, a Hitler Youth whose ambition is to climb in rank. After meeting in the Unites States long after the war, this Aryan and Jew befriend one another and, remarkably, join forces to educate the youth of America to prevent this atrocity from ever happening again.

Although Henry Forester a.k.a. Hank is an older teenager at 19, he’s still in the teens in terms of the number of bombings he’s participated in as an American pilot during World War II. His luck runs out when he is shot down and parachutes into German-occupied territory. With the help of the French Resistance, he overcomes a number of perils and learns many lessons as he seeks safety in England.

Patty Bergen is an abused girl who befriends an escaped German prisoner of war. In spite of what her parents and others say about the Germans, Patty gets to know Anton and falls in love with his gentle spirit.

This nonfiction book is carefully researched and includes photos and source notes to add to its credibility. It is fascinating to see how Hitler managed to brainwash children into doing things totally contrary to their parents’ values.

In 1944, as World War II is  raging across Europe, fifteen-year-old Jack Raab  dreams of being a hero. Leaving New York City, his  family, and his boyhood behind, Jack uses a false  I.D. and lies his way into the U.S. Air  Force.

Mowat retells his own experiences as a young soldier during World War II. At first he was very idealistic and romanticized the war effort but after exposure to many atrocities, Farley grows and learns painfully to see war as it is.

Based on a true story, this is a teacher’s recollection of how is life was as a teenager fighting on the side of the Germans as a Hitler Youth. At 16, Erik Brandt was made to fight on the Russian front as a Nazi because of his ability to speak Russian. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that he wants out of this war, especially after he sees the cruelty done to the Jews. After a particular brutal attack on the Germans by the Russians, Erik switches his uniform with that of a dead Russian soldier and feigns amnesia. It is as Soldier X that Erik escapes with a nurse and lives to tell about his inner torment.

The Jews were not the only people persecuted under Hitler’s orders. A series of personal stories from some of the non-Jews, including gypsies, political and religious activists, the physically challenged, and other “undesirables,” who were persecuted but escaped the fate of the five million Gentiles murdered by the Nazis.