Books Roundup
Each season brings a slew of Holocaust-related books, but the spring 2006 line seems to be a particularly rich crop, including tales of personal heroism in the face of extreme danger; historical documents on Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, and even a book of poems that envisions Franz Kafka had he lived to raise a family.
Another European literary giant figures prominently in Steven F. Sage’s Ibsen and Hitler: The Playwright, the Plagiarist, and the Plot for the Third Reich (Carroll & Graf, 384 pages, $28). Sage argues that Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a primary influence on Hitler, and that three of Ibsen’s plays in particular, “An Enemy of the People,” “The Master Builder” and “Emperor and Galilean,” actually presaged or foreshadowed the Third Reich and served as a model for Hitler in implementing key political, diplomatic and even military actions during the war.
On a somewhat more uplifting note, Mark Klempner’s The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers and Their Stories of Courage (Pilgrim Press, 235 pages, $24) tells the stories of Dutch resisters, who placed their own lives in danger and rescued friends and neighbors from the Nazis. Klempner, a folklorist and oral historian, interviews 10 such Holocaust rescuers and uses their personal narratives as a means to find inspiration for his own life, applying the lessons learned from the resistors to find meaning in today’s world.
In children’s books, Rachel Hausfater and Olivier Latyk’s The Little Boy Star: An Allegory of the Holocaust (IBooks/Milk & Cookies Press, 32 pages, $16.95) highlights the darkness of the era in a simple allegory of a child given a Star of David to wear. At first the child is proud to wear the star, but then he begins to disappear. Amy Littlesugar and William Low’s Willy and Max: A Holocaust Story (Philomel, 40 pages, $15.99) uses the account of a stolen painting to show the friendship between two boys in Belgium and the difficulties they face as the Nazi soldiers close in.
* * *| * *
Other new and noteworthy books about the Holocaust:
The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust
By Jeffrey Herf
Belknap Press (Harvard University), 432 pages, $29.95.
Hitler’s Shadow War: The Holocaust and World War II
By Donald M. McKale
Taylor Trade Publishing, 588 pages, $18.95.
Roosevelt and the Holocaust
By Robert Beir
Barricade Books, 320 pages, $26.95.
Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust
By Robert N. Rosen,
Alan M. Dershowitz (Introduction)
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 324 pages, $32.
June 1941: Hitler and Stalin
By John Lukacs
Yale University Press, 192 pages, $25.
Using and Abusing the Holocaust
By Lawrence L. Langer
Indiana University Press, 216 pages, $29.95.
Holocaust Memoir Digest, Vol. 2: A Digest of Published Survivor
Memoirs With Study Guide and Maps
By Esther Goldberg (Editor), Sir Martin Gilbert (Editor)
Vallentine Mitchell, 140 pages, $16.95.
The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich: A Son’s Memoir
By Howard Riech
Public Affairs Press, 272 pages, $22.95.
A High and Hidden Place
By Michele Claire Lucas
HarperSanFrancisco, 304 pages, $13.95
Franz Kafka’s Daughter Meets the Evil Nazi Empire!!!: The Heroism of Roaches Holocaust-Tainted Poems
By Elliot Richman
Leaping Dog Press, 80 pages, $10.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Fast Forward Jewish Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky reportedly to retire after 26 years in office
-
Culture In Germany, a Jewish family is reunited with a treasured family object — but also a sense of exile
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.