Personal Narratives

Night (Oprah's Book Club)

In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.

You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger (Bluejacket Books)

With a sharp eye and wry wit, Roger Hall recounts his experiences as an American Army officer assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. First published in 1957 to critical and popular acclaim, his book has become a cult favorite in intelligence circles. The story follows Hall's experiences from a junior officer fleeing a tedious training assignment in Louisiana to his quirky and rigorous OSS training rituals in the United States, England, and Scotland. Quick to pick up on the skills necessary for behind-the-lines intelligence work, he became an expert instructor. But he was only reluctantly given operational duties because of his reputation as an iconoclast. In his droll story-telling style, Hall describes his first parachute jump in support of the French resistance as a comedy of errors that terminated prematurely. His last assignment in the war zone came when William Colby appointed him section head of an operations group that made its way on foot through Sweden. Called one of the funniest and most perceptive works ever written about life in the OSS, the book includes a wealth of unforgettable personalities that Hall encountered over the years. 220 pages. Paperback. 6 x 9 inches.

The Hiding Place

Corrie ten Boom was a woman admired the world over for her courage, her forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's concentration camps. But she survived and was released--as a result of a clerical error--and now shares the story of how faith triumphs over evil. For thirty-five years Corrie's dramatic life story, full of timeless virtues, has prepared readers to face their own futures with faith, relying on God's love to overcome, heal, and restore. Now releasing in a thirty-fifth anniversary edition for a new generation of readers, The Hiding Place tells the riveting story of how a middle-aged Dutch watchmaker became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's death camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century.

The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (Newly Expanded Paperback Edition)

Author Simon Weisenthal recalls his demoralizing life in a concentration camp and his envy of the dead Germans who have sunflowers marking their graves. At the time he assumed his grave would be a mass one, unmarked and forgotten. Then, one day, a dying Nazi soldier asks Weisenthal for forgiveness for his crimes against the Jews. What would you do? This important book and the provocative question it poses is birthing debates, symposiums, and college courses. The Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Primo Levi, and others who have witnessed genocide and human tyranny answer Wiesenthal's ultimate question on forgiveness.

While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing.  But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place?

In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past.  Often surprising and always thought provoking, The Sunflower will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion, and human responsibility.

Easy Company Soldier: The Legendary Battles of a Sergeant from World War II's "Band of Brothers"

Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

Tom Hanks introduces the rousing story of two inseparable friends and soldiers portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

William "Wild Bill" Guarnere and Edward "Babe" Heffron were among the first paratroopers of the U.S. Army-members of an elite unit of the 101st Airborne Division called Easy Company. Arguably the bravest, most efficient, physically fit, and tight-knit group of soldiers the Army has ever produced, the unit was called upon for every high-risk operation of the war, including D-Day, Operation Market Garden in Holland, the Battle of the Bulge, and the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden.

Both fought side-by-side-until Guarnere lost his leg in the Battle of the Bulge nd was sent home. Heffron went on to liberate concentration camps and rake Hitler's Eagle's Nest hideout. United by their experience, the two reconnected at the war's end and have been the best of friends ever since. Their story is a tribute to the lasting bond forged between comrades in arms-and to all those who fought for freedom.

Survival In Auschwitz

Survival in Auschwitz is a mostly straightforward narrative, beginning with Primo Levi's deportation from Turin, Italy, to the concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland in 1943. Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in the camp. Even Levi's most graphic descriptions of the horrors he witnessed and endured there are marked by a restraint and wit that not only gives readers access to his experience, but confronts them with it in stark ethical and emotional terms: "[A]t dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundred other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him something to eat today?" --Michael Joseph Gross

In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and "Italian citizen of Jewish race," was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi's classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit. Included in this new edition is an illuminating conversation between Philip Roth and Primo Levi never before published in book form.

Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers

FOREWARD BY SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN:
“The “Band of Brothers” story rightly took America by storm. In telling of that remarkable generation of men who risked everything – everything – to defeat the evils of fascism, the tale of Easy Company’s bravery and valor has inspired its own, new generation of Americans.

As rightly it should. America has relied throughout its history on the courage and honor of extraordinary citizens who, though they may come from the most ordinary of situations, stand up when duty calls them to act. The “Band of Brothers,” that company of citizen- soldiers who helped our country wage and win World War II, represented that timeless virtue, the unselfish determination to serve a cause greater than our self-interest. In choosing this course, no matter its cost, an entire generation of men and women helped save the world from the evils of Nazism. We today, and all who follow, are in their debt.

Men and women, no matter how meager their origins or difficult their circumstances, possess within them the potential to alter the course of history. Buck Compton knew this, and this understanding shaped his life and destiny. He knew that there is no greatness without courage, no faith in country without devotion to fellows, no commitment to duty without service to others. Through his life and his words, we can find much to admire in men like him.

Second Lieutenant Compton commanded the second platoon of Easy Company in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the famed 101st Airborne Division about which so many tales are told. In an episode familiar to any viewer of the “Band of Brothers” series, in 1944 Buck Compton and others assaulted a German battery operating four 105 mm howitzers directed at Utah Beach, disabling the guns and routing the enemy. Buck was awarded the Silver Star for that action. Later, after being wounded in an operation aimed at seizing bridges in the Netherlands, Buck returned to his unit in time for the month-long siege that would in time become known as the Battle of the Bulge.

In the course of my military service, I have learned what itÂ’s like to fight on foreign soil. When bullets begin flying and fighting grows thick, the ability of any individual to make correct decisions is sorely tested. Indecisiveness can be costly; poor judgment deadly. As this memoir so ably details, Buck ComptonÂ’s performance in battle demonstrates that firmness and strategic thinking can save lives. In critical moments on the World War II battlefront, Buck Compton was there: fighting, persevering, and never relenting.

Yet BuckÂ’s story doesnÂ’t end there. He returned from war to a life of public service, measuring success not only by victories on the battlefield but also through his conduct during seasons of peace. Turning down an offer to play minor league baseball, he focused on a career in law, became a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and, ultimately, an Associate Justice on the California Appeals Court. In reaching a level of success in civilian life commensurate with his victories in battle, Buck Compton showed us the many ways in which Americans fight for justice.

This memoir does his story the service it deserves. This book is the next best thing to having this courageous, thoughtful, and exceedingly modest hero relate in person the adventures and exploits of Easy Company, the prosecution of Sirhan Sirhan, and other tales from the life of an extraordinary American called to duty in an extraordinary time. In understanding the life of honor and service Buck Compton has bestowed upon his country, we glimpse anew the greatness that is America.
—US Senator John McCain
Phoenix, Arizona
January, 2008

The true story of an American hero—in his own words.

As part of the elite 101st Airborne paratroopers, Lt. Lynn “Buck” Compton fought in critical battles of World War II as a member of Easy Company, immortalized as the Band of Brothers.

Here, Buck Compton tells his own story for the first time. From his years as a two-sport UCLA star who played baseball with Jackie Robinson and football in the 1943 Rose Bowl, through his legendary post- World War II legal career as a prosecutor, in which he helped convict Sirhan Sirhan for the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, Buck Compton truly embodies the American Dream: college sports star, esteemed combat veteran, detective, attorney, judge.

This is the true story of a real-life hero who traveled to a faraway place and put his life on the line for the cause of freedom—and an insightful memoir about courage, leadership, camaraderie, compassion, and the opportunities for success that can only happen in America.

The Hiding Place

Corrie Ten Boom stood naked with her older sister  Betsie, watching a concentration camp matron  beating a prisoner."Oh, the poor woman,"  Corrie cried."Yes. May God forgive her,"  Betsie replied. And, once again, Corrie realized that  it was for the souls of the brutal Nazi guards  that her sister prayed.

Here is a book aglow  with the glory of God and the courage of a quiet  Christian spinster whose life was transformed by  it. A story of Christ's message and the courageous  woman who listened and lived to pass it along --  with joy and triumph!

The Greatest Generation

Veteran reporter and NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw went to France to make a documentary marking the 40th anniversary of D-day in 1984. Although he was thoroughly briefed on the historical background of the invasion, he was totally unprepared for how it would affect him emotionally. Flooded with childhood memories of World War II, Brokaw began asking veterans at the ceremony to revisit their past and talk about what happened, triggering a chain reaction of war-torn confessions and Brokaw's compulsion to capture their experiences in what he terms "the permanence a book would represent."

After almost 15 years and hundreds of letters and interviews, Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation, a representative cross-section of the stories he came across. However, this collection is more than a mere chronicle of a tumultuous time, it's history made personal by a cast of everyday people transformed by extraordinary circumstances: the first women to break the homemaker mold, minorities suffering countless indignities to boldly fight for their country, infantrymen who went on to become some of the most distinguished leaders in the world, small-town kids who became corporate magnates. From the reminiscences of George Bush and Julia Child to the astonishing heroism and moving love stories of everyday people, The Greatest Generation salutes those whose sacrifices changed the course of American history. --Rebekah Warren

"In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come to understand what this generation of Americans meant to history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced."
        
In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.

"At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific. They answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world. They came home to joyous and short-lived celebrations and immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted. They married in record numbers and gave birth to another distinctive generation, the Baby Boomers. A grateful nation made it possible for more of them to attend college than any society had ever educated, anywhere. They gave the world new science, literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in the long curve of history. As they now reach the twilight of their adventurous and productive lives, they remain, for the most part, exceptionally modest. They have so many stories to tell, stories that in many cases they have never told before, because in a deep sense they didn't think that what they were doing was that special, because everyone else was doing it too.

"This book, I hope, will in some small way pay tribute to those men and women who have given us the lives we have today--an American family portrait album of the greatest generation."
                
In this book you'll meet people like Charles Van Gorder, who set up during D-Day a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of the fighting, and then came home to create a clinic and hospital in his hometown. You'll hear George Bush talk about how, as a Navy Air Corps combat pilot, one of his assignments was to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, to be sure no sensitive military information would be compromised. And so, Bush says, "I learned about life." You'll meet Trudy Elion, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, one of the many women in this book who found fulfilling careers in the changed society as a result of the war. You'll meet Martha Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs. And you'll meet the members of the Romeo Club (Retired Old Men Eating Out), friends for life.
        
Through these and other stories in The Greatest Generation, you'll relive with ordinary men and women, military heroes, famous people of great achievement, and community leaders how these extraordinary times forged the values and provided the training that made a people and a nation great.


From the Hardcover edition.

"In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with theAmerican veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come to understand what this generation of Americans meantto history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced."

In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values -- duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generationpersevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.

"At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and thelessons of the workaday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodiedlandscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific. They answered the call to save theworld from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the handsof fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front.They won the war; they saved the world. They came home to joyous and short-lived celebrations and immediatelybegan the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted. They married in record numbers and gave birth to another distinctive generation, the Baby Boomers. A grateful nation made it possible for more of them to attend college than any society had ever educated, anywhere. They gave the world new science, literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in the long curve of history. As they now reach the twilight of their adventurous and productive lives, they remain, for the most part, exceptionally modest. They have so many stories to tell, stories that in many cases they have never told before, because in a deep sense they didn't think that what they were doing was that special, because everyone else was doing it too.

"This book, I hope, will in some small way pay tribute to those men and women who have given us the lives we have today -- an American family portrait album of the greatest generation."

-- Tom Brokaw

In this book you'll meet people like Charles Van Gorder, who set up during D-Day a MASH-like medical facility inthe middle of the fighting, and then came home to create a clinic and hospital in his hometown. You'll hear GeorgeBush talk about how, as a Navy Air Corps combat pilot, one of his assignments was to read the mail of the enlistedmen under him, to be sure no sensitive military information would be compromised. And so, Bush says, "I learnedabout life." You'll meet Trudy Elion, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, one of the many women in this book whofound fulfilling careers in the changed society as a result of the war. You'll meet Martha Putney, one of the first blackwomen to serve in the newly formed WACs. And you'll meet the members of the Romeo Club (Retired Old Men Eating Out), frie