| Amsterdam Publishers | |
| Founder: | Liesbeth Heenk |
| Founded: | 2012 |
| Country: | The Netherlands |
| Headquarters: | Amsterdam |
| Topics: | Holocaust memoirs |
Amsterdam Publishers is the largest publisher of Holocaust memoirs in Europe. It was founded in 2012 by Liesbeth Heenk.[1] Since 2019 it focuses on Holocaust-related literature.
Amsterdam Publishers started publishing ebooks on art in 2012.[2] One of their earliest releases was an ebook on Rembrandt etchings, and accompanied an exhibition on Rembrandt at the Teylers museum in Haarlem in 2013. It was the first time a digital publication accompanied an exhibition.[3] In 2015, the imprint started running self-publishing workshops, which was later accompanied by an instructional handbook published in Dutch.[4]
Amsterdam Publishers added their first non-art titles in 2014. Manny Steinberg’s Outcry – Holocaust Memoirs was an early commercial success.[5] [6] Since 2019, the publisher has focused exclusively on Holocaust Memoirs. The founder, Liesbeth Heenk, has stated that the mission of the imprint is to fight anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.[7] Heenk's stable of writers includes a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors as well as second and third-generation members of survivors’ families.[8]
Amsterdam Publishers is one of the few international publishing houses based in the Netherlands. Its authors are international (mainly from the US), and books are (being) published in English, Albanian, Czech, Dutch, Hebrew, Sinhalese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.[9]
On the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of the publishing house, the Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York hosted an Amsterdam Publishers authors event on 12 September 2022.[10] [11] In November 2022, a 7-day booktour in Albania and Kosovo took place to promote Dr Anna Kohen's Flower of Vlora in the Albanian language, Lulja e Vlorës.
Liesbeth Heenk on her motivation to publish stories of the Holocaust:
My motivation is connected to a sense of injustice. It most likely started with my mother telling me and my siblings at the dinner table how she, as a young girl, used to carry pamphlets in her bike for the Dutch resistance. One doesn’t realize the significance of these things until much later. On a deeper level, I feel a strong need to do something meaningful, to change the world as much as an individual is capable of changing the world.
In 2024 the publishing house will release its 100th Holocaust book.
Holocaust Library
Amsterdam Publishers specialises in memoirs by Holocaust survivors, Second Generation survivors and Third Generation survivors.[12] These include memoirs by Manny Steinberg, Joseph Schupack, Janina Altman, Hank Brodt, Nanette Blitz Konig, Natalie Hess, Walter Leopold, Professor Paul Davidovits, Salo Muller, Robert Krell, Leon Kleiner, Halina Kleiner, Sara Lustigman Omelinksi, Jan Yohay Remetz, Roman Halter, Elmar Rivosh and Leokadia Schmidt.[13] [14] Their memoirs are part of the series Holocaust Survivor Memoirs WWII. Many of these survivors can be found on this List of Holocaust survivors.
Memoirs by second and third generation survivors include Adena Bernstein Astrowsky, Evelyn Joseph Grossman, Fred Feldman, Ronny Hein, Zvi Wiesenfeld, Laura Beth Bakst, Nechama Birnbaum, Martin Bodek, Barbara Gilford, Anna Kohen, Ira Wesley Kitmacher, Max Friedman, Mark Prelas, Robert Wolf, Tammy Bottner, Ron Vincent, Ettie Zilber, Professor Hymie Anisman and Emanuel Rosen.[15] [16] These publications can all be found in the series Holocaust Survivor True Stories. The series Jewish Children in the Holocaust contains the stories written by children who have been hidden in Holland and Belgium during the Second World War, with books by Dr Robert Krell, Joseph Gosler, Salo Muller and Agnes Schipper. In 2021, the publishing house added a series of New Jewish Fiction which includes novels by Professor Omer Bartov, Annette Libeskind Berkovits, Ruth Rotkowitz, and Casey Hayes. A new series Holocaust Books for Young Adults has been added in 2022, featuring Running for Shelter, written by Suzette Sheft (2006) who started writing the true story of her grandmother at age 13.[17] [18] One of its most recent series is Holocaust Heritage which focuses on intergenerational trauma of 2G and 3G survivors.
On a regular basis, foreign translations are being published, among others in German, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish. None of these appear in the list below.
Amsterdam Publishers has also published the memoirs of Omar Ndizeye and of Hyppolite Ntigurirwa, which detail their experiences of the Rwandan genocide.[19] This topic has since been abandoned, in order to fully concentrate on Holocaust stories and Jewish literature.
| The War Never Ended | Simon Hammelburg | May 2014 | discontinued | |
| Outcry: Holocaust Memoirs | Manny Steinberg | September 2014 | 9789082103137 | |
| The Mission of Abbé Glasberg | Lucien Lazare | March 2016 | 1522840958 | |
| The Dead Years: Holocaust Memoirs | Joseph Schupack | February 2017 | 9789493056343 | |
| Hank Brodt Holocaust Memoirs: A Candle and a Promise | Deborah Donnelly | April 2017 | 9789492371218 | |
| Among the Reeds: The true story of how a family survived the Holocaust | Tammy Bottner | June 2017 | 9789492371287 | |
| See You Tonight and Promise to Be a Good Boy!: War memories | Salo Muller | November 2017 | 9789492371553 | |
| A Quiet Genocide | Glenn Bryant | August 2018 | 9789492371829 | |
| A Holocaust Memoir of Love & Resilience: Mama's Survival from Lithuania to America | Ettie Zilber | January 2019 | 9789493056022 | |
| Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor & Classmate of Anne Frank | Nanette Blitz Konig | January 2019 | 9789492371614 | |
| Rescued from the Ashes: The Diary of Leokadia Schmidt, Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto | Leokadia Schmidt | January 2019 | 9789493056060 | |
| Mendelevski's Box | Roger Swindells | February 2019 | 9789493056107 | |
| The Knife-Edge Path | Patrick T. Leahy | December 2019 | 9789493056329 | |
| Remembering Ravensbrück: From Holocaust to Healing | Natalie Hess | January 2020 | 9789493056237 | |
| My Lvov: Account of the Holocaust in Lvov by a twelve-year-old girl | Janina Hescheles | January 2020 | 9789493056367 | |
| Living Among the Dead: My Grandmother's Holocaust Survival Story of Love and Strength | Adena Bernstein Astrowsky | March 2020 | 9789493056374 | |
| Searching for Home: The Impact of WWII on a Hidden Child | Joseph Gosler | May 2020 | 9789493056343 | |
| Wolf: A Story of Hate | Zeev Scheinwald | May 2020 | 9789493056435 | |
| Save my Children: An Astonishing Tale of Survival and its Unlikely Hero | Leon Kleiner | May 2020 | 9493056511 | |
| Heart Songs: A Holocaust Memoir | Barbara Gilford | August 2020 | 9493056538 | |
| Shoes of the Shoah: The Tomorrow of Yesterday | Dorothy Pierce | August 2020 | 9493056775 | |
| Defiant German, Defiant Jew: A Holocaust Memoir from inside the Third Reich | Walter Leopold | August 2020 | 9493056554 | |
| Hidden in Berlin: A Holocaust Memoir | Evelyn Joseph Grossman | December 2020 | 9493056791 | |
| The Man Across the River: The incredible story of one man's will to survive the Holocaust | Zvi Wiesenfeld | January 2021 | 9493231062 | |
| Separated Together: The Incredible True WWII Story of Soulmates Stranded an Ocean Apart | Kenneth P. Price | January 2021 | 978949321085 | |
| The Story Keeper: Weaving the Threads of Time and Memory. A Memoir | Fred Feldman | January 2021 | 9493231038 | |
| If Anyone Calls, Tell Them I Died: A Memoir | Emanuel (Manu) Rosen | March 2021 | 9493231135 | |
| The House on Thrömerstrasse: A Story of Rebirth and Renewal in the Wake of the Holocaust | Ron Vincent | March 2021 | 97894993231306 | |
| Dancing with my Father: His hidden past. Her quest for truth. How Nazi Vienna shaped a family’s identity | Jo Sorochinsky | April 2021 | 9789493231191 | |
| Krisia’s Silence. The Girl who was not on Schindler’s List | Ronny Hein | April 2021 | 9789493231382 | |
| Defying Death on the Danube. A Holocaust Survival Story | Debbie J. Callahan with Henry Stern | April 2021 | 9789493231412 | |
| In a Land of Forest and Darkness. The Holocaust Story of two Jewish Partisans | Sara Lustigman Omelinski | June 2021 | 9789493231337 | |
| Sounds from Silence. Reflections of a Child Holocaust Survivor, Psychiatrist and Teacher | Robert Krell | August 2021 | 9789493231467 | |
| A Doorway to Heroism. A decorated German-Jewish Soldier who became an American Hero | W. Jack Romberg | September 2021 | 9789493231498 | |
| The Shoemaker’s Son. The Life of a Holocaust Resister | Laura Beth Bakst | October 2021 | 9789493231641 | |
| Holocaust Memories. Annihilation and Survival in Slovakia | Paul Davidovits | October 2021 | 9789493231528 | |
| The Redhead of Auschwitz. A True Story | Nechama Birnbaum | November 2021 | 9789493231795 | |
| From Auschwitz with Love. The Inspiring Memoir of Two Sisters’ Survival, Devotion and Triumph as told by Manci Grunberger Beran & Ruth Grunberger Mermelstein | Daniel Seymour | January 2022 | 9789493231887 | |
| Remetz. Resistance Fighter and Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto | Jan Yohay Remetz | January 2022 | 9789493276024 | |
| When the Music Stopped. Willy Rosen's Holocaust | Casey J. Hayes | January 2022 | 9789493276079 | |
| Land of Many Bridges. My father’s story | Bela Ruth Samuel Tenenholtz | February 2022 | 9789493231986 | |
| Hands of Gold. One Man’s Quest To Find The Silver Lining In Misfortune | Roni Robbins | February 2022 | 9789493276109 | |
| The Corsetmaker. A Novel | Annette Libeskind Berkovits | March 2022 | 9789493231917 | |
| On Sunny Days We Sang: A Holocaust Story of Survival and Resilience | Jeannette Grunhaus de Gelman | March 2022 | 9789493276185 | |
| I Give You My Heart. A True Story of Courage and Survival | Wendy Holden | April 2022 | 9789493231719 | |
| Creating Beauty from the Abyss. The Amazing Story of Sam Herciger, Auschwitz Survivor and Artist | Lesley Richardson | April 2022 | 9789493276109 | |
| Painful Joy. A Holocaust Family Memoir | Max J. Friedman | April 2022 | 9789493231825 | |
| We Shall Not Shatter. A WWII Story of friendship, family, and hope against all odds | Elaine Stock | May 2022 | 9789493231764 | |
| Sabine’s Odyssey. A Hidden Child and her Dutch Rescuers | Agnes Schipper | May 2022 | 9789493231948 | |
| In the Time of Madmen | Mark A. Prelas | June 2022 | 9789493276154 | |
| Monsters and Miracles. Horror, Heroes and the Holocaust | Ira Wesley Kitmacher | June 2022 | 9789493276215 | |
| My March Through Hell. A Young Girl’s Terrifying Journey to Survival | Halina Kleiner with Edwin Stepp | June 2022 | 9789493276284 | |
| The Boy Behind the Door. How Salomon Kool Escaped the Nazis. Inspired by a True Story | David Tabatsky | September 2022 | 9789493276314 | |
| Our Daughters' last Hope | Elaine Stock | September 2022 | 9789493276420 | |
| There was a garden in Nuremberg. A Novel | Navina Michal Clemerson | September 2022 | 9789493231542 | |
| Flower of Vlore. Growing up Jewish in Communist Albania | Anna Kohen | September 2022 | 9789493276246 | |
| Aftermath. Coming-of-Age on Three Continents. A Memoir | Annette Libeskind Berkovits | September 2022 | 9789493276390 | |
| The Girl who counted Numbers. A Novel | Roslyn Bernstein | October 2022 | 9789493276369 | |
| Zaidy's War. Four Armies, Three Continents, Two Brothers. One Man’s Impossible Story of Endurance | Martin Bodek | October 2022 | 9789493276451 | |
| Not a Real Enemy. The True Story of a Hungarian Jewish Man's Fight for Freedom | Robert Wolf | October 2022 | 9789493276727 | |
| Running for Shelter. A True Story | Suzette Sheft | November 2022 | 9789493276505 | |
| The Journey of a Hidden Child | Harry Pila with Robin Black | November 2022 | 9789493276543 | |
| The Glassmaker’s Son. Looking for the World my Father left behind in Nazi Germany | Peter Kupfer | November 2022 | 9789493276468 | |
| Brave Face. The Inspiring WWII Memoir of a Dutch/German Child | Caroline Crocker | November 2022 | 9789493276659 | |
| The Butterfly and the Axe | Omer Bartov | January 2023 | 9789493276697 | |
| The Apprentice of Buchenwald. The True Story of the Teenage Boy Who Sabotaged Hitler’s War Machine | Oren Schneider | January 2023 | 9789493276529 | |
| When We Had Wings. The World's First Democratic Orphanage: A Historical Novel | Tami Shem-Tov | February 2023 | 9789493276758 | |
| The Fire and the Bonfire. A Journey into Memory | Ardyn Halter | March 2023 | 9789493276833 | |
| Roman's Journey | Roman Halter | March 2023 | 9789493276864 | |
| To Live Another Day. A novel | Elizabeth Rosenberg | March 2023 | 9789493322042 | |
| The Cello Still Sings - A Generational Story of the Holocaust and of the Transformative Power of Music | Janet Horvath | March 2023 | 9789493276802 | |
| The Precious Few: An Inspirational Saga of Courage Based on True Stories | David Twain with Art Twain | April 2023 | 9789493322011 | |
| A Worthy Life | Dahlia Moore | April 2023 | 9789493322165 | |
| Good for a Single Journey | Helen Joyce | May 2023 | 9789493276611 | |
| When We Disappeared | Elaine Stock | May 2023 | 9789493276574 | |
| Jacob's Courage. A Holocaust Love Story | Charles S. Weinblatt | June 2023 | 9789493276925 | |
| The Silk Factory - Finding Threads of My Family's True Holocaust Story | Michael Hickins | June 2023 | 9789493276895 | |
| Dutch Defense | Johanna Kinney | June 2023 | 9789493322073 | |
| Beyond Borders. Escaping the Holocaust and Fighting the Nazis. 1938 - 1948 | Rudi Haymann | August 2023 | 9789493322226 | |
| Burying the Ghosts. She escaped Nazi Germany only to have her life torn apart by the woman she saved from the camps: her mother | Sonia Case | September 2023 | 9789493322103 | |
| Bipolar Refugee. A Saga of Survival and Resilience | Peter Wiesner | September 2023 | 9789493276956 | |
| American Wolf. From Nazi refugee to American Spy. A true story | Audrey Birnbaum | October 2023 | 9789493276987 | |
| The Engineers. A memoir of survival through World War II in Poland and Hungary | Henry Reiss | January 2024 | 9789493322363 | |
| In the Wake of Madness. My Family’s Escape from the Nazis | Bettie Lennett Denny | February 2024 | 9789493322349 | |
| Before the Beginning and After the End | Hymie Anisman | February 2024 | 9789493322240 | |
| I Will Give Them an Everlasting Name. Jacksonville's Stories of the Holocaust | Samuel P. Cox | May 2024 | 9789493322530 | |
| A Semblance of Justice. Based on true Holocaust experiences | Wolf Holles | May 2024 | 9789493322639 | |
| The Right to Happiness. After all they went through. Stories | Helen Schary Motro | June 2024 | 9789493322660 | |
| Hiding in Holland. A Resistance Memoir | Shulamit Reinharz | June 2024 | 9789493322707 | |
| Winter Light: The Memoir of a Child of Holocaust Survivors, by Grace Feuerverger | Grace Feuerverger | September 2024 | 9789493322608 | |
| The Sun will Shine on You again one Day. My Grandpa was a Hidden Child | Cynthia Monsour | September 2024 | ||
| Stumbling Stones | Joanna Rosenthall | October 2024 | ||
| Between Shadows and Light | Jordan Steven Sher | November 2024 | ||
| The Ghosts on the Wall | Kenneth D. Wald | November 2024 | ||
| Hidden in Plain Sight. A Journey into Memory and Place | Julie Brill | April 2025 | ||
| The Unspeakable | Nicola Hanefeld | 2025 |