Survivor Biography

This is the story of one remarkable young woman's unimaginable journey through the rise of the Nazi regime, the Second World War, and the aftermath. Mania Lichtenstein’s dramatic story of survival is narrated by her granddaughter and her memories are interwoven with beautiful passages of poetry and personal reflection. Living Among the Dead reminds us of the beautiful communities that existed before WWII, the lives lost and those that lived on, and the importance to never forget these stories so that history does not repeat itself.

Many know the tragic story of Anne Frank, the teen whose life ended at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. But most people don’t know about Eva Schloss, Anne’s playmate and stepsister. Though Eva, like Anne, was taken to Auschwitz at the age of 15, her story did not end there. This incredible memoir recounts - without bitterness or hatred - the horrors of war, the love between mother and daughter, and the strength and determination that helped a family overcome danger and tragedy.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut fictionalised his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden in 1945. Vonnegut was imprisoned in a cellar while the firestorm raged through the city, wiping out generations of innocent lives. Victor Gregg remained aboveground throughout the firebombing. This is his true eyewitness account of that week in February 1945. Already a seasoned soldier with the Rifle Brigade, Gregg joined the 10th Parachute Regiment in 1944. He was captured at Arnhem, where he volunteered to be sent to a work camp rather a POW camp.

For seven years, Shannon Kopp battled the silent, horrific, and all-too-common disease of bulimia. Then, at 24, she got a job working at the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA, where in caring for shelter dogs, she found the inspiration to heal and the courage to forgive herself. With the help of some extraordinary homeless animals, Shannon realized that her suffering was the birthplace of something beautiful. Compassion.

Growing up in Australia’s suburbs, Paul never really felt like he fit in. But something in Paul always told him that there was a world out there that he needed to explore—he just didn’t know how to access it. The Australian military was the answer, but that service almost came to a brutal end when Paul was attacked by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor. Paul lost a hand and a leg, but he refused to accept limitations. In fact, the attack opened the door to a whole new life. One that would see Paul dedicate himself to the very animals that had tried to kill him….

In 2018, fourteen-year-old Claire Sarnowski stood with ninety-two-year-old Alter Wiener in front of the Oregon state senate to champion a cause the two friends both believed in: making Holocaust education mandatory in their state’s public school curriculum. Theirs was an unexpected friendship—she was in elementary school when they met, and he was an aging Holocaust survivor whose memoir she had read—and together they were going to change the American education system.

Between 1930 and 1932, Henry Ford sent 450 of his Detroit employees plus their families to live in Gorky, Russia, to operate a new manufacturing facility. This is the true story of one of those families—Carl and Elisabeth Werner and their young daughter Margaret—and their terrifying life in Russia under brutal dictator Joseph Stalin.

In April 2018, seasoned adventurer Ben Fogle and Olympic cycling gold medallist Victoria Pendleton, along with mountaineer Kenton Cool, took on their most exhausting challenge yet – climbing Everest for the British Red Cross to highlight the environmental challenges mountains face. It would be harrowing and exhilarating in equal measure as they walked the fine line between life and death 8,000 metres above sea level.

On March 21, 2022, The New York Times for the first time published excerpts from the diary of Nadiya Sukhorukova, who noted evidence of Russia's real crimes in Ukraine. "A neighbor said that God left Mariupol. He was afraid of everything he saw," Ms. Sukhorukova wrote in a series of Facebook posts posted after her escape late last week. "I am alive and now I will live long. And my city is dying a painful death," she added. "For twenty days I was dying with it. I was in hell.” (Megan Specia, The New York Times). Excerpts from the diary have been published in UK, USA, Germany, Ukraine, and ...

On May 8, 1945, when he was just ten years old, Gidon Lev was liberated from a Nazi concentration camp after four nightmarish years. Twenty-six family members, including Gidon’s beloved father and grandparents, were murdered in the Holocaust. Only Gidon and his mother survived. From the depths of despair, a little boy who had lost so much was determined to build a life filled with adventure and love. And that is exactly what he did.

Alexander Rosenberg was a smart and curious teenager who spoke many languages, and lived a pampered life with his parents in a tranquil Czechoslovakian town. The rise of fascism and Nazi Germany causes his protected existence to collapse, alongside the illusion of secular Jewish assimilation in 1930s Europe. Using their last reserves of wealth and influence to escape extermination, the Rosenbergs go underground to avoid the Gestapo. Eventually exposed, captured, and taken to Buchenwald, the largest concentration camp in Germany, Alexander and his father collaborate to survive one day at a time

In The Survivors, award-winning true-crime writer Steve Braunias retells twelve mysteries of human nature—unusual stories of how people choose to survive their own lives, and their decisions, desires, impulses... and failings.

She charmed America with her smart, likable, down-to-earth personality as she campaigned for her husband, then vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. She inspired millions as she valiantly fought advanced breast cancer after being diagnosed only days before the 2004 election. She touched hundreds of similarly grieving families when her own son, Wade, died tragically at age 16 in 1996.

This striking work of narrative nonfiction tells the true story of six-year-old Sachiko Yasui's survival of the Nagasaki atomic bomb on August 9, 1945 and the heartbreaking and lifelong aftermath. Having conducted extensive interviews with Sachiko Yasui, Caren Stelson shares the true story of a young girl who survived the atomic bomb and chronicles her long journey to find peace. This special book offers listeners a remarkable new perspective on the final moments of World War II and their aftermath.

For the first time, Euna Lee - the young wife, mother, and film editor detained in North Korea - tells a harrowing, but ultimately inspiring, story of survival and faith in one of the most isolated parts of the world. On March 17, 2009, Lee and her Current TV colleague Laura Ling were working on a documentary about the desperate lives of North Koreans fleeing their homeland for a chance at freedom when they were violently apprehended by North Korean soldiers.

Henny had just graduated from high school when the Germans invaded Lithuania. Her care-free life rapidly changed from a life of privilege to a living hell. Simply because she was Jewish. The horrors inflicted upon the Jews of Kovno, taken place in the old forts built during Czarist Russia, are not as well known as what happened in the German Nazi camps during World War II. Henny recounts her beautiful life in Kovno before the invasion by the Nazis when she and 35,000 other Jews were put in the ghetto. We hear about the acts of cruelty done to her family and friends.

She charmed America with her smart, likable, down-to-earth personality as she campaigned for her husband, then vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. She inspired millions as she valiantly fought advanced breast cancer. She touched hundreds of similarly grieving families when her son, Wade, died tragically at age 16 in 1996. Now she shares her experiences in Saving Graces, an incandescent memoir of Edwards' trials, tragedies, and triumphs.

At the Mind's Limits is the story of one man's incredible struggle to understand the reality of horror. In five autobiographical essays, Amery describes his survival - mental, moral, and physical - through the enormity of the Holocaust. Above all, this masterful record of introspection tells of a young Viennese intellectual's fervent vision of human nature and the betrayal of that vision.

In early 2022, life in the port city of Mariupol, Ukraine was safe and predictable for Adoriana Marik. The thirty-one-year-old tattoo artist loved walking her dog by the seaside and meeting friends at cafés and public gardens. But all that changed on February 24, 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation.”

Some people have a knack for survival, for getting out of jams. 12-year-old David Karmi found himself face to face with the ultimate test. With his homeland consumed by fear, David entered a world of human slaughter. Whole towns were vaporized. Cities obliterated in firestorms. More than 50 million people died - 12 million either gassed, shot, hanged, worked to death, or subjected to biological experiments. David survived.