The most recommended books about the German occupation of Europe

Huener has produced a definitive study of the Catholic Church in western Poland under German occupation. Identified by the Germans as the Reichsgau (district) Wartheland or Warthegau, it encompassed 45,000 square kilometers (roughly the size of Vermont and New Hampshire) with a “population of more than 4.9 million, including approximately 4.2 million Poles, 400,000 Jews, and 325,000 Germans.” Of this demographic, 3.8 million were Catholic and ninety percent were ethnic Poles. The German Reich incorporated the territory even though its borders remained guarded and not easily crossed. It included 1,023 parishes, served by 1,829 diocesan priests, 277 male religious, and 2,666 women religious.

Before World War II ended, the German occupiers would close more than ninety-seven percent of the churches, dissolve all Catholic organizations, deport, or imprison most women religious, and arrest more than 1,500 priests, of whom 815 they murdered directly or indirectly. In eighteen succinct and exceptionally well-written… show more.

Sarah’s Key keeps us hoping in spite of ourselves—and despite the terrible odds facing a Jewish family in Paris, 1942. When the police come knocking one night, ten-year-old Sarah has no idea that her family is being rounded up for transport to an internment camp. She locks her little brother in a closet to save him, certain she’ll return the next day. That fateful choice will echo from WWII into the present, where the apartment’s new occupant uncovers long-ago choices and secrets in her own family. For me, though, the real question isn’t whether Sarah can rescue her brother. It’s about the many ways we justify our own ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and the hope that we can learn from history’s lessons.

Oakley is a master at writing historical fiction. This novel takes place in Norway during the Nazi occupation.

Based on her thorough study of documents and extensive interviews with relevant individuals in Norway, she has created characters who are patriots (jøssing), characters who go over to the German side and are as cruel as if not crueler than the Nazis, and characters who try to appear neutral so as not to put themselves or their families in harm’s way.

The protagonist is the leader of a vast resistance network in Norway with strong ties to the British military. The fear is palpable. The reader is in constant dread that the jøssings will be caught, tortured, and killed. 

This book was recommended to me because it was set in Italy–specifically in Milan, where I spent some time years ago. It was interesting to learn about the region during the time of WWII and the tribulations that befallen the city and certain groups of people. In this story, the characters participate in a discreet fight against the force of fascism that took over their city.

Of course, I appreciated this fascinating story of this young man’s role. But what really remained with me was learning how the people worked together in the shadows to fight against evil.

Historian Wendy Lower focuses on a single photograph taken in October 1941 that shows a group of soldiers shooting a woman who clutches the hand of a little boy just before they fall into a mass grave in Miropol, Ukraine.

This is a gripping and impeccably researched account of the killers, the victims, and the photographer who took the haunting image. Lower combs through public records and archives, and relies on interviews with local residents to reconstruct mass atrocities. Lower’s descriptions of her dogged determination to reconstruct the scene of the crime reads like a thriller.

I love the writing of Patrick Modiano.

Here, the lost world that is encountered is within the lives and beings of the characters of the three novellas that make up this book, lives and beings that are on one level from Modiano’s own biography but which, in his spare and beautiful prose become of universal moment.

The world in the book is that of the dark years of the Nazi occupation of Paris. That which is fleeting, easily lost, mysterious, and obscure haunts the pages of the book, reminding us of how evanescent and uncertain memory is but also how much our lives are bound by it.

A more recently released historical fiction account of a young girl’s loyalty and daring decisions on a North Sea island off the coast of Norway is The Klipfish Code. Published two years before my own book, I had not read it until a reviewer compared my debut book to this suspenseful story. I read it immediately, humbled by the comparison. Twelve-year-old Marit is living with her grandpa, who she resents for not actively protesting the German occupiers of their island. She’s outspoken, angry, and eager to support the resistance, despite his cautions and concerns. I was intrigued by this transition period in German policy. They traded propaganda and persuasion for coercion, including arresting one in ten teachers across the country, sending them to labor camps to make them agree to teach Nazi lies within the classroom. The terror of this little-known action compounds Marit’s struggle to decipher a code,… show more.

Richard Prince is a detective in 1942 Britain. A government entity recruits him as a spy, and its director sends Prince to Denmark, where rumors are floating of the development of a superweapon. Prince’s endeavor requires him to dodge the Gestapo, the S.S., and other German heavies.

This story is another instance of the protagonist having to guess who he can trust, will his so-called allies betray him, and are perceived antagonists actually the enemy? Many wheels within a wheel, false faces, and false hearts. 

This account covers pretty much the same period of history as in my own protagonist’s tale, beginning with revolution in Russia and its impact on the lives of privileged Polish families.

She describes her life in the family home between the wars and then the exile to Siberia. As a woman, her experiences were different from much of what I had read before and filled with the useful details of everyday life that help to create a vivid picture of a world that was in reality in colour, but we only ever see in the sepia of old photographs.

The book also contains original letters and depositions and is supplemented with valuable historical notes on the context.

This riveting novel brings us into the lives of Russian snipers during the WW II siege of Stalingrad.

We live in a basement, learn something of extreme patience, and get a sense of how people barely remain sane in pressure-cooker situations. What struck me most were the women. One was a sniper with extreme convictions. Others were there for the pleasure of the men. But the best part of the novel was the cat-and-mouse game between opposing snipers. 

Not only did I learn something about warfare, but I couldn’t put the book down.