About the life-changing books…
I think there was one that had a huge impact on me and that was “Het boek der kampen”, roughly translated as “the book of concentration camps”.
It was a highly illustrated book (photos, some documents, floor plans, etc) kinda like the Taschen books), and i have read it when i was 14 (for a school project). It was full of very disturbing photos and anecdotes, and i can tell you that the book went into detail… (also that was, i think, the first time i was really exposed to the whole thing around concentration camps, i didn’t sleep well that week).
I found out later that, in our library, that book had been removed from the collection. Too controversial perhaps?