Reading Recommendations: Holocaust Remembrance Day

Stories, essays, novels for the day

*Note: Back to Craft posts next time.*

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. In honor of the day, I thought I'd do a reading recommendation/round-up list for anyone who may be seeking out stories, novels, and essays on the subject.

Some background: I write and read about the Holocaust because my grandparents were survivors. I only knew my grandmother, who is the Nana Itta character who floats through most of my stories. I was very close with her. She died in her 90s and never stopped missing her family.

I included this photo of her in the back of my book. Nana is the feisty-looking one all the way on the left. Her brother Herman, all the way on the right, also survived. They were the only two.

What I take from her life and story has changed over time. But one principle I’m committed to these days is that I don’t analogize the Holocaust or the Nazis to today. They were literal, not metaphors. Analogy is always imprecise, and I want to be precise. That’s how I honor the legacy.

I …