Joanna, on the Holocaust, I would most recommend the following book:
Ruth Klüger - Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered
(English translation of "Weiter leben. Eine Jugend.")
Also, andie already mentioned the one volume edition of Hilberg's Destruction of the European Jews.
A friend of mine also gave me the following as a gift recently:
A Writer At War: Vasily Grossman With the Red Army 1941-1945
And while I realize he is not really beloved by American leftists because of his Zionism, Daniel J. Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners has played a a good role in public debate in Germany. At least as far as demolishing the German cult of victimhood which sees the population as merely passive objects of a personal dictatorship. Ignore the dishonest polemics which portray this book as promoting a "collective guilt" thesis.
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