Book description
Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has there been such a book as this: The joyful but ultimately heartbreaking journal of a young Jewish woman in occupied Paris, now being published for the first time, 63 years after her death in a Nazi concentration camp.
On April 7, 1942,…
Why read it?
3 authors picked The Journal of Hélène Berr as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I can’t understand why this book isn’t better known. It is an actual diary that survived by chance. It was written by a young woman of twenty-one from a wealthy Jewish family long-established in France and not thinking of themselves as anything but French. I found it gripping and harrowing, all the more so because when the Nazis conquer France and start to impose restrictions on Jews, Hélène cannot grasp what is happening or what lies ahead. She has had a happy, secure life, but now these hideous indignities are being imposed on her.
When she is forced to wear…
From Charles' list on the Holocaust without exploiting it.
This is the diary of a 21-year-old Jewish woman living in Paris during the German Occupation. A student at the Sorbonne, we follow her as she writes a first-hand account of the ever-increasing hardships and terrors her and her family face. She writes candidly about her experiences, her thoughts and beliefs as she and her family go about their daily routines, while living in constant fear of being arrested. It is a touching, personal testimony about Paris during World War II. She was arrested on the one night her family decided to sleep in their own home. Tragically, she died…
From Ruth's list on living with the enemy.
Hélène Berr was the French Anne Frank: a university student during the German Occupation, she kept a journal of her experience, which her family kept private until 2008, when it became a publishing sensation. The journal covers the period from 1942, when Jews were forced to wear the yellow star, until her arrest in 1944. Gifted with a literary sensibility, Hélène observes the world around her as the walls began to close in, but still manages to grasp moments of love and joy amid the suffering. A precious record of day-to-day life in Occupied France, the journal also provides that…
From Maurice's list on Jews in modern France.
If you love The Journal of Hélène Berr...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like The Journal of Hélène Berr?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Journal of Hélène Berr.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,278
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like The Journal of Hélène Berr, you might also like...
The Bridge
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
And Then They Were Gone
Of the 918 Americans who died in the shocking murder-suicides of November 18, 1978, in the tiny South American country of Guyana, a third were under eighteen. More than half were in their twenties or younger.
The authors taught in a small high school in San Francisco where Reverend Jim…
