Witness World War

In this gripping memoir by the chief American interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, Richard Sonnenfeldt recounts a remarkable life. By age 22 he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.

During his service, he spent pretrial time with Hermann Göering as well as other top Nazi leaders.

Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, Last Witnesses is Alexievich’s collection of the memories of those who were children during World War II. They had sometimes been soldiers as well as witnesses, and their generation grew up with the trauma of the war deeply embedded - a trauma that would change the course of the Russian nation. Collectively, this symphony of children’s stories, filled with the everyday details of life in combat, reveals an altogether unprecedented view of the war.

The Nuremberg Interviews reveals the chilling innermost thoughts of the former Nazi officials under indictment at the famous postwar trial. The architects of one of history’s greatest atrocities speak out about their lives, their careers in the Nazi Party, and their views on the Holocaust. Their reflections are recorded in a set of interviews conducted by a US Army psychiatrist. Dr. Leon Goldensohn was entrusted with monitoring the mental health of the two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide, as well as that of many of the defense and prosecution witnesses.

Hitler’s Death - The Eyewitnesses examines the accounts of all the people who claimed to have seen Adolf Hitler dead on April 30, 1945.

Filip Müller came to Auschwitz with one of the earliest transports from Slovakia in April 1942 and began working in the gassing installations and crematoria in May. He was still alive when the gassings ceased in November 1944. He saw millions come and disappear; by sheer luck he survived. Müller is neither a historian nor a psychologist; he is a source - one of the few prisoners who saw the Jewish people die and lived to tell about it. Eyewitness Auschwitz is one of the key documents of the Holocaust.

Working in the camp’s munitions factory, Adela Rubenstein discovers the underground network fighting against the devastating cruelty all around them. Imprisoned for teaching Jewish orphans in secret for the resistance, she doesn’t hesitate to join the rebellion. Every night on the way back to her hut, she looks up at the stars, the only witness to their plan to blow up the crematoria buildings.

Vince DeLucca, a World War II veteran turned detective, gets hired to investigate the apparent suicide of a stagehand at the San Francisco Opera House. He soon discovers it was murder, and finds himself embroiled with Israeli agents on the hunt for Nazi war criminals. DeLucca unexpectedly finds romance along the way but this dangerous game he's playing puts everyone he cares about at risk.

This critically acclaimed account of the Battle for Okinawa is told through the eyes of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, the senior staff officer of the 32nd Japanese Army. It features segments on the Japanese preparation for battle, the American assault, and a summary of how the battle ended. Following the events that occurred in the life of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara, journalist Frank Gibney is able to lay out the importance of the battle and the ways in which both parties fought hard and strategically.

In Bearing Witness, John Carpenter explores how across the world, those who experienced the war tried to make sense of it both during and in its immediate aftermath. The digestion of a cataclysmic event can take generations. But in this fascinating audiobook, Carpenter brings together all those who did their best to communicate what they saw in the moment so that it could never be lost.

The first in a series of books, I Somehow Survived is an extraordinary collection of true stories giving testimony to those who survived World War II. Based on interviews with numerous veterans from across the spectrum of wartime experience, the book documents and reflects upon one of the most gruesome times in history. From anti-partisan warfare in the French mountains and atrocities in East Prussia to the experience of a Norwegian concentration camp, the accounts include rarely heard stories from a range of people caught up in the war.

At the Australian war crimes trials that followed World War II, one prosecution witness stood out: Warrant Officer Bill Sticpewich. During his three years in the infamous Sandakan POW camp, Sticpewich had seen hundreds of fellow prisoners die of starvation, sickness and overwork. Of more than 2400 Allied prisoners at Sandakan at the start of 1945, only six survived. It was Sticpewich's meticulous evidence that sent Sandakan's commandant and his murderous henchmen to the gallows. But to his fellow prisoners Sticpewich was not a war hero.

Teaching Guide for the documentary: Untold, Stories of a Word War II Liberator which is based on Deborah Levine's memoirs: The Liberator's Daughter and The Magic Marble Tree. The memoirs include letters describing scenes from World War II and eye witness stories.

In April 1945, German troops withdrawing from the Seelow Heights were encircled by the Soviet Army near the small town of Halbe, south-east of Berlin. Rather than surrender, their orders were to attempt to break out, westward, and join up with the German twelfth Army. A brutal battle ensued, with an estimated 30,000 German and 20,000 Russian soldiers killed, along with thousands of civilians.

On Christmas Eve 1914, a group of German soldiers laid down their arms, lit lanterns, and started to sing Christmas carols. The British troops in nearby trenches responded by singing songs of their own. The next day, men from both sides met in No Man's Land. They shook hands, took photos, and exchanged food and souvenirs. Some even played improvised football games, kicking around empty bully-beef cans and using helmets for goalposts. Both sides also saw the lull in fighting as a chance to bury the bodies of their comrades.

On August 9, 1945, on the tiny island of Tinian in the South Pacific, a 25-year-old American Army Air Corps major named Charles W. Sweeney climbed aboard a B-29 Superfortress in command of his first combat mission, one devised specifically to bring a long and terrible war to a necessary conclusion.... The last military officer to command an atomic mission, Maj. Gen. Charles W. Sweeney has the unique distinction of having been an integral part of both the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombing runs.

This fascinating collection of personal narratives challenges the view that all Germans knew of the crimes perpetrated by the Third Reich and were complicit. The five accounts recall the lives of individuals born in the 1920s who resisted joining the SS, were horrified by atrocities, or otherwise remained true to their principals.

About Living With The Enemy and the German Occupation of the Channel Islands During the Second World War the Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by German forces. Living with the Enemy tells the unique and true story of life in the Islands under Nazi rule. With eyewitness accounts from both Islanders and German soldiers this book gives an accurate insight into this ill-assorted community at war and portrays how it felt to be living in the shadow of a foreign power. A sample of what the United Kingdom would have experienced should it have fallen. The book ...

During the Second World War, across the frontline as well as on the Home Front, millions of people recorded their thoughts of their experiences - whether in letters, their personal diaries or those prosecuting the war giving speeches. Much as Letters of Note celebrated the great letters written through history, so Words of War allows the Imperial War Museum to showcase its incredible array of first-hand material to shine a light on how people journeyed through the 1939-45 conflict.

This audiobook includes archived recordings from interviews taken with Second World War soldiers, as well as an Introduction and Epilogue read by the author. A powerful, immersive account published for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and battle for Normandy, and tied into the...

On June 6, 1944, Werner T. Angress parachuted down from a C-47 into German-occupied France with the 82nd Airborne Division. Nine days later, he was captured behind enemy lines and, concealing his identity as a German-born Jew, became a prisoner of war. Eventually, he was freed by US forces, rejoined the fight, and participated in the liberation of a concentration camp. Although he was an American soldier, less than 10 years before he had been an enthusiastically patriotic German-Jewish boy. Rejected and threatened by the Nazi regime, the Angress family fled....