Want to know what books Mary Fulbrook recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Mary Fulbrook's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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A thrilling piece of undiscovered history, this is the true account of a young Jewish woman who survived World War II in Berlin.
In 1942, Marie Jalowicz, a twenty-year-old Jewish Berliner, made the extraordinary decision to do everything in her power to avoid the concentration camps. She removed her yellow star, took on an assumed identity, and disappeared into the city.
In the years that followed, Marie took shelter wherever it was offered, living with the strangest of bedfellows, from circus performers and committed communists to convinced Nazis. As Marie... more A thrilling piece of undiscovered history, this is the true account of a young Jewish woman who survived World War II in Berlin.
In 1942, Marie Jalowicz, a twenty-year-old Jewish Berliner, made the extraordinary decision to do everything in her power to avoid the concentration camps. She removed her yellow star, took on an assumed identity, and disappeared into the city.
In the years that followed, Marie took shelter wherever it was offered, living with the strangest of bedfellows, from circus performers and committed communists to convinced Nazis. As Marie quickly learned, however, compassion and cruelty are very often two sides of the same coin.
Fifty years later, Marie agreed to tell her story for the first time. Told in her own voice with unflinching honesty, Underground in Berlin is a book like no other, of the surreal, sometimes absurd day-to-day life in wartime Berlin. This might be just one woman's story, but it gives an unparalleled glimpse into what it truly means to be human. less 
Mary FulbrookShe survived in hiding in Berlin, living as an ‘illegal’, and her account shows her own quick-wittedness, her capacity to evade recognition, to think quickly in difficult situations, to have a get-out, to find ways of surviving, and her sheer good luck on occasion. I also think her story also highlights the widespread goodness and kindness and willingness to take risks of many people, as well as... (Source)
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The Frankfurt Auschwitz trial was the largest, most public, and most important trial of Holocaust perpetrators conducted in West German courts. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, Devin O. Pendas provides a comprehensive history of this momentous event. Situating the trial in a thorough analysis of West German criminal law, the book argues that in confronting systematic, state-sponsored genocide, the Frankfurt court ran up against the limits of law. This book provides a compelling account of the divided response to the trial among the West German public. more The Frankfurt Auschwitz trial was the largest, most public, and most important trial of Holocaust perpetrators conducted in West German courts. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, Devin O. Pendas provides a comprehensive history of this momentous event. Situating the trial in a thorough analysis of West German criminal law, the book argues that in confronting systematic, state-sponsored genocide, the Frankfurt court ran up against the limits of law. This book provides a compelling account of the divided response to the trial among the West German public. less Mary FulbrookIt doesn’t make sense to use the individual crime of murder as the basis for prosecution when what you’re dealing with is mass murder, which is part of a system of collective violence. And I think that’s one of the things that Pendas makes quite clear. It’s a good read. I think it’s an important read. What it also brings out well is the public reactions to and the wider significance of the... (Source)
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Having thought himself to be the sole survivor of the group of eighty-nine boys assigned to Aushwitz-Birkenau Men's Camp B II D in 1944, Gerhard Durlacher was stunned to discover that he was not alone. He sets off to track down his fellow survivors and find out why such a relatively large percentage of them survived. A remarkable and unique document, The Search ends in a reunion of the "Birkenua boys" in Israel in May 1990 where they finally unraveled the mystery surrounding their selection and subsequent survival. The tragic truth is crueler than any of them could have imagined. more Having thought himself to be the sole survivor of the group of eighty-nine boys assigned to Aushwitz-Birkenau Men's Camp B II D in 1944, Gerhard Durlacher was stunned to discover that he was not alone. He sets off to track down his fellow survivors and find out why such a relatively large percentage of them survived. A remarkable and unique document, The Search ends in a reunion of the "Birkenua boys" in Israel in May 1990 where they finally unraveled the mystery surrounding their selection and subsequent survival. The tragic truth is crueler than any of them could have imagined. less Mary FulbrookWhat’s interesting about this book is how Durlacher makes an attempt to reconnect with other boys who had gone through the same experience. It’s valuable not so much for what it tells us about Auschwitz as what it tells us about survivors. (Source)
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Charlotte Delbo, Rosette C. Lamont, Lawrence L. Langer | 4.70
Written by a member of the French resistance who became an important literary figure in postwar France, this moving memoir of life and death in Auschwitz and the post-war experiences of women survivors has become a key text for Holocaust studies classes. This second edition includes an updated and expanded introduction by Holocaust scholar Lawrence L. Langer. “In this finely translated trilogy, Charlotte Delbo renders with economy and nuance pictures from the hell of Auschwitz. What she recalls in prose and verse would be unbearable except for the very precision of thought and sense she... more Written by a member of the French resistance who became an important literary figure in postwar France, this moving memoir of life and death in Auschwitz and the post-war experiences of women survivors has become a key text for Holocaust studies classes. This second edition includes an updated and expanded introduction by Holocaust scholar Lawrence L. Langer. “In this finely translated trilogy, Charlotte Delbo renders with economy and nuance pictures from the hell of Auschwitz. What she recalls in prose and verse would be unbearable except for the very precision of thought and sense she brings to it. No memoir of those times is more sensitive and less sentimental.”—Geoffrey Hartman, Yale University Winner of the 1995 American Literary Translators Association Award less Mary FulbrookShe was a quite remarkable female resistance fighter in France, who was transported to Auschwitz after having to witness the murder of her husband. Of her original convoy, only 49 survived, and what I find fascinating about her account is the way she tries to convey the raw experience in little vignettes—based on her personal experience quite clearly, but in some cases trying to tell the story of... (Source)
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Viktor E. Frankl, William J. Winslade, et al. | 4.53
Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds... more Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. In the decades since its first publication in 1959, Man's Search for Meaning has become a classic, with more than twelve million copies in print around the world. A 1991 Library of Congress survey that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America. At once a memoir, a meditation, a treatise, and a history, it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.
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Tony RobbinsAnother book that I’ve read dozens of times. It taught me that if you change the meaning, you change everything. Meaning equals emotion, and emotion equals life. (Source)
Jimmy FallonI read it while spending ten days in the ICU of Bellevue hospital trying to reattach my finger from a ring avulsion accident in my kitchen. It talks about the meaning of life, and I believe you come out a better person from reading it. (Source)
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