hands on history

The animals in the clearing were content until the Terrible Things came, capturing all creatures with feathers. Little Rabbit wondered what was wrong with feathers, but his fellow animals silenced him. “Just mind your own business, Little Rabbit. We don’t want them to get mad at us.”

. As the German troops begin their campaign to "relocate" all the Jews of Denmark, Annemarie Johansen’s family takes in Annemarie’s best friend, Ellen Rosen, and conceals her as part of the family.

Through the eyes of ten-year-old Annemarie, we watch as the Danish Resistance smuggles almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark, nearly seven thousand people, across the sea to Sweden. The heroism of an entire nation reminds us that there was pride and human decency in the world even during a time of terror and
war.

This is a book about heroes. They don't have superpowers and can't be found on a stage or in a sports arena. It's about everyday people who stood up for others in a time of darkness. They're the kind of heroes whose stories will inspire readers young and old alike to see that making a difference in the world happens one person at a time.Using a chicken as a narrator brings both wit and innocence to the
twenty-five historically based short stories of World War II. Focusing on everyday heroes, each story draws the reader in with factual aspects of the battles and people of the time period mixed in with the more
personal, human side of war.

Corrie ten Boom was the first licensed female watchmaker in the Netherlands who became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's concentration camps, and one of the most remarkable ministers
of hope in the twentieth century. In World War II she and her family risked their lives to help Jews and underground workers escape from the Nazis. In 1944 their lives were forever altered when they were
betrayed, arrested, and thrown into the infamous Nazi death camps. Only Corrie among her family survived.

So wonders thirteen-year-old Elli Friedmann as she fights for her life in a Nazi concentration camp. A remarkable memoir, I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a story of cruelty and suffering, but at the same time a story of hope, faith, perseverance, and love. It wasn’t long ago that Elli led a normal life that included family, friends, school, and thoughts about boys. A life in which Elli could lie and daydream for hours that she was a beautiful and elegant celebrated poet. But these adolescent daydreams quickly darken in March 1944, when the Nazis invade Hungary. First Elli can no longer attend school, have possessions, or talk to her neighbors. Then she and her family are forced to leave their house behind to move into a crowded ghetto, where privacy becomes a luxury of the past and food becomes a scarcity. Her strong will and faith allow Elli to manage and adjust, but what she doesn’t know is that this is only the beginning. The worst is yet to come...

This acclaimed story of World War II is rich in suspense, characterization, plot and spiritual truth. Every element of occupied Holland is united in a story of courage and hope: a hidden Jewish child,
an “underdiver,” a downed RAF pilot, an imaginative, daring underground hero, and the small things of family life which surprisingly carry on in the midst of oppression. The Verhagen family, who live in the old windmill called the Winged Watchman, are a memorable set of individuals whose lives powerfully demonstrate the resilience of those who suffer but do not lose faith.

Simone Arnold is an ordinary French schoolgirl, spirited and stubborn. Then the Nazis march in, demanding complete conformity. Friends become enemies. Teachers spout Nazi propaganda. School officials recruit for the Hitler Youth. Simone's family refuses to heil Hitler as Germany's savior. They are Jehovah's Witnesses, and they reject Nazi racism and violence. The Nazi Lion makes them pay the price.

When the German army occupied Holland in 1940, Annie was only eight years old. Because she was Jewish, the occupation put her in grave danger. Most people thought the war wouldn’t last long, but Annie knew that if she wanted to stay alive, she would have to go into hiding.

Fortunately, a Gentile family, the Oostervelds, offered refuge to Annie and her older sister, Sini. For two years they hid in the cramped upstairs room of the Oostervelds’s remote farmhouse. There, Annie and Sini would struggle to hold on to hope—separated from their family and confined to one tiny room—as a frightful and seemingly endless war raged on outside their window.

Anna is not sure who Hitler is, but she sees his face on posters all over Berlin. Then one morning, Anna and her brother awake to find her father gone! Her mother explains that their father has had to leave
and soon they will secretly join him. Anna just doesn't understand. Why do their parents keep insisting that Germany is no longer safe for Jews like them? Because of Hitler, Anna must leave everything behind
as her family embarks on a journey that extends over several years and over the borders of many countries.

Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's capacity for inhumanity to man.Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.