Disclaimer: Some of these books are not totally focused on the holocaust, like the ones about the explosion of Chernobyl and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I put them on this list, however, because they are effected by and take place during the time of the Holocaust, giving them more context and historical value. That said, let’s dive in!

Let’s start with my absolute favorite, The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman. It’s actually one of those that’s more about the explosion of Chernobyl, but it’s also about the holocaust. It’s told in three ways-from the viewpoint of a Jewish girl named Valentina and a Ukrainian girl named Oksana in 1986 and a Jewish girl named Rifka in 1941. I’m not gonna lie-it’s a long book. But it’s definitely worth it. Just go ahead and read it and you’ll understand.

My next two favorites are The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen. The War That Saved My Life is about a girl named Ada whose mother hides her in a tiny room her whole life because Ada has a twisted foot. When some children of the village are relocated because of WW2, Ada has a chance to escape. Resistance is about a Jewish girl whose siblings go missing during the Holocaust and she joins the Jewish resistance, fighting against the Nazis. This book is one of the best I’ve read in this category for its plot twists.

The next ones I love about the Holocaust are Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan, Don’t Tell the Nazis by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, and The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. Echo is another one written from three different points of view. It’s very good because all the stories are connected in a way that you don’t expect. It’s like a modern fairytale. Don’t Tell the Nazis is one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. A lot of characters that you care about die, and it’s a little heartbreaking. But it is about one of the saddest events in human history, so it makes sense. I highly reccomend the graphic novel version of Between Shades of Gray. It’s an amazing book and an even more amazing graphic novel because it really highlights what the holocaust was really like in a relatable way. It’s actually not directly about the Holocaust, it’s more about Stalin’s mass deportation of Lithuanians. However, since it’s during the same time and definitely affected by and related to the Holocaust, I included it anyway. Finally, The Devil’s Arithmetic is an amazing book. I read it when I was 10 and it haunted my thoughts for weeks. It shows how the trauma of the Holocaust is still in the DNA of our modern society, and how our society can never truly recover-like how the main character Hannah lived a completely normal life and yet had never heard her aunt Eva’s true story of living through such a horrendous event.

The Holocaust is a really heavy topic to read about. but it’s really important that we don’t shy away from it and we remember what happened so that we will never let anything like it happen again. It also is really at its core about the best and the worst of human nature and how one person can make huge ripples in history. Please read at least one of these books and think about it and how it applies to our society today and why it happened in the first place.

Keep reading good books and asking hard questions!