Washoe County Library System

"In the fall of 1961, a KGB agent defected to West Germany. The slim 30-year-old man in police custody had papers in the name of an East German, Josef Lehmann, but claimed that his real name was Bogdan Stashinsky, and he was a citizen of the Soviet Union. On the orders of his KGB bosses, he had traveled on numerous occasions to Munich, where he singlehandedly tracked down and killed two enemies of the communist regime. He used a new, specially designed...

Portrays the experiences of a nine-year-old Jewish girl and her family as they are forced to leave Hitler's Germany to seek refuge in neighboring countries. "Now a major motion picture, and based on the author’s gripping real-life story, this international bestseller is perfect for Holocaust Remembrance Month. Anna is not sure who Hitler is, but she sees his face on posters all over Berlin. Then one morning, Anna and her brother awake to find...

"A thrilling Cold War narrative exploring two harrowing attempts to rescue East Germans by tunneling beneath the Berlin Wall, the U.S. television networks who financed and filmed them, and the Kennedy administration's unprecedented attempt to suppress both films. In the summer of 1962, one year after East German Communists built the Berlin Wall, a group of daring young West Germans came up with a plan. They would risk prison, Stasi torture, even death...

Tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China in the early days of World War II and focuses on the efforts of a small group of unarmed Westerners who established a Safety Zone where over 200,000 Chinese found refuge. Told through deeply moving interviews with Chinese survivors, archival footage, and chilling testimonies of Japanese soldiers, interwoven with staged readings of the Westerners' letters and diaries.

"Escape to Miami is an oral history of the experience of detainees from Guantanamo during the 1994-1996 Cuban Rafter Crisis. Through life history interviews, the book offers the gripping stories of twelve rafters while also providing a study of group-level trauma and coping. Though important as an oral history, the examination of camp culture makes the project an innovative contribution to the field of anthropology as Campisi argues that coping with...

Celebrating the power of human connection, while encouraging empathy and acts of generosity, this story follows two refugee brothers as they journey to a sheltering beach where they are welcomed by fellow survivors.

"A child and her family take in refugees during the Korean War in this poignant picture book about courage and what it really means to care for your neighbors. Every day, more and more people fleeing war in the north show up at Kyung Tak and her family's house on the southeastern shore of Korea. With nowhere else to go, the Taks' home is these migrants' last chance of refuge "before falling into the sea," and the household quickly becomes crowded,...

"An Inspiring True Story about One Family's Escape from Behind the Berlin Wall! Peter was born on the east side of Germany, the side that wasn't free. He watches news programs rather than cartoons, and wears scratchy uniforms instead of blue jeans. His family endures long lines and early curfews. But Peter knows it won't always be this way. Peter and his family have a secret. Late at night in their attic, they are piecing together a hot air balloon—and...

"On April 24, 1975 the last flight out of Saigon, Vietnam carried over 400 people to the United States, six days before Saigon’s surrender to the North Vietnamese Army. Kristen Giang was a little girl, on that flight with family, and here in this story she shares all the emotions of the decision to flee from the perspective of someone eight years old; Playing a game of space-explorers to protect herself and her sister’s eyes from tear...