Survivor Biography

Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances. Setting a precedent as first lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo - breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality.

A young Jewish mother. A Nazi occupation bent on genocide. A heart-breaking decision that will tear a young family apart. Among the Reeds is a deeply personal family memoir that is part biography, part psychological observation of the extraordinary wartime lives of a persecuted people. If you like true stories of courage, heart-stopping near misses, and tear-jerking choices, then you’ll love Tammy Bottner’s compelling account.

How do you survive when everything you hold dear has been ripped away? This is the question Radha Manickam asks himself during the three years and nine months he spends under the merciless rule of the Khmer Rouge. When Khmer Rouge forces take the city of Phnom Penh in 1975, Radha is a new Christian, passionate about living out his faith. Over the next years of his life, 1.7 million of his fellow Cambodians--including most of his own family--will perish due to starvation, disease, and unthinkable violence.

This is the story of Prof. Shaul Harel, formerly Charlie Hilsberg, who lost his shadow in 1942 at only five years old, when he was separated from his family and surroundings and saved from the furnaces of Auschwitz by the Belgian resistance. This book reveals his story, from his time as a “hidden child” in France and Belgium during the Holocaust, through his experiences in orphanages, his immigration to Israel, the serious injury he sustained in his military service, and more.

Keith Morris is a true punk icon. No one else embodies the sound of Southern Californian hardcore. Short and sporting waist-length dreadlocks, Morris is known the world over for his take-no-prisoners approach on the stage and his integrity off of it. Over the course of his 40-year career, he's battled diabetes, drug and alcohol addiction, and the record industry. My Damage is more than a book about the highs and lows of a punk rock legend, however.

The sound of snapping twigs closed in on the five teenagers enjoying an evening around a glowing campfire at Gitchie Manitou State Park. The night of music and laughter had taken a dark turn. Evil loomed just beyond the tree line, and before the night was over, one of the Midwest's most horrific mass murders had left its bloodstains spewed across the campsite. One managed to survive and would come to be known as the "Gitchie Girl".

The stories of Sinti and Roma suffering in Nazi Germany are all too often lost or untold. In this haunting account, Otto shares his story with a remarkable simplicity. Deeply moving, A Gypsy in Auschwitz is the incredible story of how a young Sinti boy miraculously survived the unimaginable darkness of the Holocaust.

This is the memoir written by Bella Kuligowska Zucker, the only person in her family to survive the Holocaust. In September 1939, Bella was a carefree teenager living in Poland when the German army struck. She was rounded up with her friends and family and sent to a series of grim Jewish ghettos. After loved ones were separated and lost through the war years, Bella survived by changing her identity. After finding the birth certificate of a Catholic girl five years her senior, she became Sabina Mazurek. Then she went into the eye of the storm, Germany.

Wondering if science could explain how he survived his 40-year avalanche of drugs and alcohol, Ozzy Osbourne became one of a handful of people in the world to have his entire DNA mapped in 2010. It was a highly complex, $65,000 process, but the results were conclusive: Ozzy is a genetic anomaly. The "Full Ozzy Genome" contained variants that scientists had never before encountered and the findings were presented at the prestigious TEDMED Conference in San Diego - making headlines around the world.

Ruth Gruener was a hidden child during the Holocaust. At the end of the war, she and her parents were overjoyed to be free. But their struggles as displaced people had just begun. In war-ravaged Europe, they waited for paperwork for a chance to come to America. Once they arrived in Brooklyn, they began to build a new life but spoke little English. Ruth started at a new school and tried to make friends - but continued to fight nightmares and flashbacks of her time during World War II.

Fritz Kleinmann was fourteen when the Nazis took over Vienna. Kurt, his little brother, was eight. Under Hitler’s brutal regime, their Austrian-Jewish family of six was cruelly torn apart. Taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, Fritz and his Papa, Gustav, underwent hard labor and starvation. Meanwhile, Kurt made the difficult voyage, all alone, to America, to escape the war.

Set against a backdrop of East End London, Georgia experienced a childhood few of us could imagine. Though brought up in a loving family, she watched her family break apart through deceit and her mother descend into heroin addiction. Escaping into what she felt was a loving sanctuary, Georgia ended up trapped in a violent relationship with a man who would beat and abuse her. After having her three children by him, she knew she had to escape to finally find safety. Now Georgia is sharing her story of survival to help others and prove there is hope even after trauma and heartache.

Twenty-four hours: that's how long fourteen-year-old Elvira Gonzalez is given to come up with the $40,000 she needs to save her kidnapped mother from a drug cartel. It's 2006 and Elvira's hometown of Laredo, Texas, has become engulfed by the Mexican Drug War. Elvira's life is unraveling around her—setting her on a harrowing path that leads her to being locked up in one of South Texas's worst juvenile detention centers. After Elvira's released from juvie, she's resolved to never go back. That's when her unexpected salvation arrives in the form of 33-inch-high plastic hurdles.

A unique survivor memoir. Essays that range from heartwarming to brutal. Individual trigger warnings (TW) allow listeners to practice self-care. Washington State native Mary Knight, MSW, experienced various forms of child sex trafficking, sometimes in her own home. Her parents were her pimps. Knight's current life is filled with safety, love, joy, and children. Happily married, she is a child advocate, a foster parent, and a grandmother.

Seeing every challenge as an opportunity for growth, Dr. Ichak Adizes moved beyond a childhood marked by imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp and immigration to an unfamiliar country to discover the benefits of opening his heart. Rejecting isolation and fear, he became a renowned thought leader who advises companies and governments worldwide on structuring thriving organizations around a culture of trust and respect. Dr. Adizes’s personal story is more than a string of external events that propelled him through adversity after adversity to become the compassionate person he is today.

Based on the true story of her mother, Mona Golabek describes the inspirational story of Lisa Jura's escape from Nazi-controlled Austria to England on the famed Kindertransport. Jewish musical prodigy Lisa Jura has a wonderful life in Vienna. But when the Nazis start closing in on the city, life changes irreversibly. Although he has three daughters, Lisa's father is only able to secure one berth on the Kindertransport. The family decides to send Lisa to London so that she may pursue her dreams of a career as a concert pianist.

Mendel (Manny) Steinberg spent his teens in Nazi extermination camps in Germany and Poland, miraculously surviving while millions perished. This is his story. Born in 1925 in the Jewish ghetto in Radom, Poland, Manny soon realized that people of Jewish faith were increasingly being regarded as outsiders. In September 1939 the Nazis invaded, and the nightmare started. The city's Jewish population had no chance of escaping and was faced with starvation, torture, sexual abuse and ultimately deportation.

It is sometimes difficult to remember that in war there are innocents on all sides who suffer. German citizens who had no connection to the atrocities committed by their countrymen nonetheless endured great hardships because of them.

At age 19, pilot Dale Black miraculously survived an airplane crash that killed the other two pilots on board. Hovering between life and death for three days, he had a breathtaking experience of heaven. Against all odds and with insurmountable injuries, Capt. Black recovered from his injuries and returned to fly airplanes as a professional pilot. For 40 years he kept the story to himself at the urging of his grandfather to "live" his experience rather than talk about it.

When he first met the man who called himself David Koresh, David Thibodeau was a drummer in a local a rock band. Though he had never been religious in the slightest, Thibodeau gradually became a follower and moved to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. He remained there until April 19, 1993, when the compound was stormed and burned to the ground after a 51-day standoff with government authorities. In this compelling account - now with an updated epilogue that revisits remaining survivors - Thibodeau explores why so many people came to believe that Koresh was divinely inspired.