The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.
In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called Euthanasia Program.
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, many of the survivors found shelter in displaced persons (DP) camps administered by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel, including 136,000 Jewish displaced persons from Europe. Other Jewish DPs emigrated to the United States and other nations. The last DP camp closed in 1957. The crimes committed during the Holocaust devastated most European Jewish communities and eliminated hundreds of Jewish communities in occupied eastern Europe entirely.
(Taken from The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum http://www.ushmm.org. To learn about preventing genocide today visit http://www.ushmm.org/genocide.)
This feature, and those from previous years, highlight a selection of Children and Young Adult books pertaining to the Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
The name Adolf Hitler has come down through the years as synonymous with evil. Hitler rose to power from humble origins. The son of an Austrian civil servant and his ill educated wife, Hitler served with distinction during World War I. Hitler’s experiences as a German soldier in the Great War, followed by his desperate years during the post-war period, shaped Hitler’s ideology. Over time, and in a way that still remains almost unfathomable, Hitler clawed his way to supreme power in Germany. Through Hitler’s efforts, the German nation swept all of Europe into war on September 1. 1939. Then, after great conquests, Hilter’s Thousand Year Reich lay in ruins. That defeat revealed the ultimate evil that was at the core of Nazism. In this title, a part of the illustrated “A Wicked History-20th Century” series, readers are afforded a clear look into the face of Hitler’s existence. In reading this chilling story youngsters may well come away shaking their heads over the horrific impact of one man’s life. Hitler is a fine book and may serve as an invitation to interested readers to delve more deeply into the twisted but fascinating figure that Adolf Hitler was. 2010, Scholastic, $30.00. Ages 12 up. Reviewer: Greg M. Romaneck (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 9780531207574
ISBN: 0531207579
Benno and the Night of Broken Glass
Meg Wiviott
Illustrated by Josee Bisallion
This book presents a unique view of Kristallnacht and the time leading up to it. Using a cat as the eyes to the tale, the reader sees friendships change, rationing and Nazi-takeovers beginning, and a facelift occur on Rosenstrasse in Berlin, Germany, where Kristallnacht occurred. This is not a watered down view of the Night of Broken Glass but rather an alternate, impartial view, similar to what a child or innocent observer might have seen and felt. The images and attention to detail demonstrate the research that has gone into the creation of this book. Useful for introducing Kristallnacht, prejudice, and racism, the author has also presented an example of narrative through the eyes of another whom one might not normally expect to hear or see. The impartiality does not mean that the cat, or viewer, does not care, but rather the way the changes are seen might not be the way a person, particularly an adult, might see the changes occurring. 2010, Kar-Ben/Lerner, $7.95. Ages 7 to 11. Reviewer: Sara Rofofsky Marcus (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 9780822599296
ISBN: 0822599295
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
From the beginning I was struck with the book’s uniqueness. How can you not be struck when you open the cover to understand that the narrator is Death? Zusak imagines a vivid character who sees first colors and then humans, recording his thoughts about both in an extraordinary way. Death sees a sky, for example, that is “like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness.” Zusak visions a Death who is both detached and empathetic. It is Death who gently picks up a multitude of souls in Nazi Germany and carries them tenderly off. Add to this unusual narrator, the intriguing character of Liesel Meminger, the book thief. Death introduces her as a young child whose younger brother dies while en route to being deposited with their foster parents in Molching, a small town near Daschau. Rosa, Liesel’s harsh-speaking, tender-hearted “wardrobe-bodied” foster mother is complemented by her new Papa. Hans Hubermann has eyes made of kindness and silver. There are a host of fascinating minor characters including Max, a talented Jew who is hidden for a long time in the Hubermann’s basement and Rudy, the boy next door who longs for a kiss from Liesel and fancies himself a runner like Jesse Owen. While people starve on Liesel’s Himmel Street, Liesel hungers after books and begins to “steal” them from a knowing mayor’s wife. And there is one more fascinating component--the book’s structure. Death, as narrator, slips in and out of time to foretell deaths and deeds, interrupts his narrative to announce in bold, certain truths, tender conversations, or other notes. Death begins each section with a playbill of events to come and ends with a chilling last note that seems to explain the book’s last line, “I am haunted by humans.” 2006, Knopf, $16.95. Ages 13 up. Reviewer: Susie Wilde (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
American Booksellers Book Sense Book of the Year (ABBY) Award, 2007 Winner Children's Literature United States
Cybils , 2006 Finalist Young Adult Fiction United States
Heartland Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, 2008 Nominee United States
Michael L. Printz Award, 2007 Honor Book United States
National Jewish Book Awards, 2006 Winner Children's and Young Adult Literature United States
Parents' Choice Award, 2006 Gold Fiction United States
Quill Awards, 2006 Nominee Young Adult/Teen United States
Sydney Taylor Book Awards, 2007 Winner Teen Book Award United States
Thumbs Up! Award, 2007 Honor Book United States
ISBN: 9780375831003
ISBN: 9780375931000
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
John Boyne
The book jacket deliberately gives no clues about what you will find in this story. Written with simple language from the point of view of a nine-year-old protagonist, the story is deceptively uncomplicated. Bruno and his family must move from Berlin because his father’s job demands that he move. Bruno does not know where he is going and is sad to be leaving the home he has always known. When he arrives at his new home, he is surprised to find that the house is smaller, surrounded by a fence, and next door to some kind of village where everyone wears striped pajamas. The discerning reader recognizes that the town that Bruno calls Out-With is the concentration camp, Auschwitz. This play on words making Auschwitz sound like Out-With to little Bruno seems disingenuous since Bruno’s native language would have been German. In spite of this, the reader is swept into the story seen through Bruno’s innocent eyes. Bruno makes friends with a boy in the camp, taking him food almost every day and never recognizing how badly Shmuel needs the food. The end of the story negates the simple beginning and dictates the appropriateness of this book for older readers. The simplicity of the storytelling combined with the complexity of the story itself will enable a sophisticated reader to make many connections with previous knowledge about the Holocaust. 2006, David Fickling Books, $15.95. Ages 14 up. Reviewer: Wendy M. Smith-D’Arezzo (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Borders Original Voices Award, 2006 Finalist Independent Reader/Young Adult United States
Young Reader's Choice Award, 2009 Winner Grades 7-9 Pacific Northwest
ISBN: 9780385751070
ISBN: 9780385751070
Courageous Teen Resisters: Primary Sources from the Holocaust
Ann Byers
Excerpts of firsthand accounts of those resisting the Nazis and other persecutors during the Holocaust, are intertwined into cohesive sections of this installment in the “True Stories of Teens in the Holocaust.” Separated into seven chapters, Margaret Shannon’s extensive research brings out a wide range of voices from a variety of ages and geographic areas. The content is organized into Living with Persecution, Rebel Groups in Germany, Resistance in Western Europe, Quiet Resistance, Fighting Back in the Ghettos, Resistance to the End, and Partisan Groups in the Forest. What makes this book unique is its plethora of youthful teen voices. The student researcher will appreciate the time line, glossary, suggested further readings, Internet addresses, and index. The more advanced researcher will benefit from the abundant chapter bibliographic notes. Chapter subheadings indicate how the excerpts from personal accounts are organized, with introductory and explanatory material. Readers older than the suggested 8 to 12 age level will benefit from the primary sources presented with explanations and introductions, either as a full resource or as a way to understand the lengthier resources mentioned in the chapter notes. 2010, Enslow Publishers, $31.93. Ages 8 to 12. Reviewer: Sara Rofofsky Marcus (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 9780766032699
ISBN: 0766032698
The Diary of Laura’s Twin
Kathy Kacer
In preparation for her Bat Mitzvah, Laura Wyman is asked to participate in a new program. The program asks Jewish boys and girls who are preparing to celebrate their mitzvahs to research a child who lived during the Holocaust and was not able to celebrate his or her own. Laura is reluctant. She tries to get out of doing the project, citing too much school work, the fact that she already completed a project for her Bat Mitzvah, and that she has no real connection to the Holocaust. The rabbi asks her to visit an old woman before making her final decision about the project. When Laura receives a diary from the woman and begins to read, she is drawn into the story of Sara Gittler, and Laura’s outlook on life starts to change. This is a great book to go along with a unit about the Holocaust or for young people who are looking for service projects of their own for their mitzvahs. It provides a modern-day connection to the horrific events of the past. It is a quick and compelling read. 2008, Second Story Press, $14.95. Ages 8 to 15. Reviewer: Shelly Shaffer (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Canadian Jewish Book Award, 2009 Winner Canada
National Jewish Book Awards , 2008 Winner Children and Young Adult Literature United States
National Jewish Book Awards, 2008 Winner Children's and Young Adult Literature United States
ISBN: 9781897187395
ISBN: 1897187394
The Entertainer and the Dybbuk
Sid Fleischman
In postwar Europe, 1948, an American ventriloquist known as The Great Freddie is struggling to prove himself. He was an American soldier fighting there in World War II, but he has stayed on because he has no family to return to. His act is mediocre and money is tight. After returning from a gig one night, he meets a mouthy, lanky street kid hiding in his closet. He introduces himself as a ghost, a dybbuk, of a Jewish kid who was killed in the war. This boy, Avrom Amos Poliakov, also claims to have saved Freddie’s life in the war. Freddie, although caught in disbelief, cannot deny the circumstances. Avrom is looking for a body to possess in order to get revenge on the Nazi officer who killed him and his family. For quite some time, Freddie benefits from this possession. With Avrom’s help, Freddie’s act becomes authentic and is a huge hit all across Europe. Occasionally, Avrom takes complete control and shares the truth with the captive audience about how Nazi officers killed thousands of innocent Jewish children in the war. Colonel Junker-Strupp is the main culprit that Avrom is looking for. He has changed his name and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, so far escaping any punishment for his crimes. With Freddie’s help, Avrom ends up in Arizona and finds a way to make the Colonel’s life as miserable as possible as his revenge. 2007, HarperCollins Children’s Books, $16.99. Ages 9 to 14. Reviewer: Julie Hendrix (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Sydney Taylor Book Awards, 2008 Winner Older Readers United States
ISBN: 9780061344459
ISBN: 9780061344466
Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank
Eva Schloss with Evelyn Julia Kent
In this new edition that includes an interview with Eva, the author takes the reader on a tale of struggle, survival, hope, and despair. Beginning an account similar to that of Anne Frank, this narrative emerges as a story of survival and rebuilding, what happens after having been found in hiding. Eva, her older brother Heinz, along with their mother and father must leave Germany, finally settling in Holland where they live near the Franks. Heinz and Margot Frank study together and receive their call-up notices on the same day. Unbeknownst to each other or to anyone else, the families go into hiding. Their families’ survival is dependent on the kindness of others. Eva’s family is split in two for the purposes of hiding, and they are dependent on the kindness of strangers. Each family is denounced and taken to the camps. Otto Frank is the only survivor of his group, whereas Eva and her mother emerge together from hiding and are reunited with Otto, finding solace and hope with each other as they rebuilds their lives and future. The Diary of Anne Frank is well known, yet no record exists of what happened between the end of the diary and Anne’s death. This memoir helps fill that gap, providing narrative of a similar girl’s struggle to survive. This book will support any Holocaust curriculum, where children learn what happens beyond the Anne Frank’s travails. 2010 (orig. 1988), William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Ages 12 up, $14.99. Reviewer: Sara Rofofsky Marcus (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5495-6
Hiding Edith: A True Story
Kathy Kacer
The title of this outstanding fictionalized true story has a double meaning: six-year-old Edith Schalb flees her home in Vienna in 1938 and eventually is hidden with other Jewish children in a safe house, a forest, and a boarding school. With great difficulty, and in conflict with her mother’s advice to “remember who you are,” she also hides her identity, posing as a Catholic named Edith Servant. Edith’s story reveals the little-known history of the village of Moissac in Vichy, France, where residents knew all about the Scouts-sponsored home for fugitive Jewish children and never once gave away their secret. All the children who remained in the safe house survived the Holocaust. The book very effectively combines the history of the war and hidden children with the specific experiences of this individual child--her separation from her parents, her fears of Nazi raids and transports to concentration camps, her nightmares and close calls, scrounging for food, pretending as a survival technique, the loss of her father, the sad reality of her mother’s starving existence, and, in spite it all, her determination to be happy. At the same time, readers will be inspired by the heroic actions of the safe house founders and the kind Christian family who take Edith into their home as a visiting “niece” in 1944. Black-and-white photos add an important dimension to the story. The cover photo of Edith and her doll, Sophie, beside what could be the linens and fine china of a Shabbat table in her comfortable former life, is heartbreaking. Grade level: 5-8. Category: Holocaust Fiction. 2006, Second Story Press, 151 pp., $13.95. Reviewer: Susan Berson (Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter, February/March 2007 (Vol. 26, No. 3)).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Book of the Year Award for Children, 2007 Shortlist Canada
Hackmatack Children's Choice Book Award, 2008 Winner English Non Fiction Atlantic Canada
Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction, 2006 Honour Book Canada
Silver Birch Award, 2007 Winner Non Fiction Ontario
ISBN: 1897187068
ISBN: 9781897187067
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Yes, the Hitler youth is mentioned in most young adult nonfiction on the subject, but to see through this lens creates a completely different book! Bartoletti is quickly becoming a nonfiction writer who tops lists with her engaging writing, viewpoint, obvious dedication to research and knowledge of how important pictures are to the telling for this audience. Her book is filled with chilling quotes, anecdotal stories derived from research and interviews, and stories about how Hitler’s young were manipulated and used as a primary source of his power and vision for the future. There are many facts revealed that may be new to readers. For example, the required year of service after graduation, the Landjahr, required youth do everything from clearing forests to shoveling “gravel through sieves for seven full hours” and by 1938 “the Reich Labor Service has turned so many acres of forests and swamps into useful land that it made up for nearly all the territory Germany had lost in the Treaty of Versailles.” The author threads through the pages the stories of young heroes who stood up against Hitler, such as Sophie and Hans Scholl who wrote and distributed pamphlets until they were executed. 2005, Scholastic, $19.95. Ages 11 up. Reviewer: Susie Wilde (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Carolyn W. Field Award, 2006 Winner United States
John Newbery Medal, 2006 Honor Book United States
Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, 2005 Honor United States
Parents' Choice Award, 2005 Gold Non-Fiction United States
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal, 2006 Honor Book United States
Top of the List: Editors' Choice, 2005 Winner Youth Nonfiction United States
ISBN: 0439353793
ISBN: 9780439353793
Is it Night or Day?
Fern Schumer Chapman
In 1938 Edith Westerfeld is twelve years old when her family puts her on a ship in Bremen,Germany that carries her to the Deutchland, an oceanliner that transports her to New York City. From there, all alone, she is put on a train to Chicago, Illinois where she lives with her father’s brother, his wife, and their teenage8 daughter. Edith is treated more like a servant than part of their family, but she strives to learn English, do all of the work demanded by her aunt, do well in school, and save money to send her parents in the hope that they will be able to join her. From having to start with first grade at school, to the anti-Semitic attitudes that abound even in America, Edith struggles in this new country but finds solace in walks to the shores of Lake Michigan, in baseball’s Hank Greenberg, and in the public library where she escapes into books. Shattered by a letter informing her of the deaths of her parents, she realizes she must carry on with life despite her losses. Author Chapman tells readers in an introductory note that this historical fiction work is based on an American rescue operation named “the One Thousand Children,” which her own mother was a part of, in order to give voice to another group of Holocaust victims. Edith’s story is compelling and interesting, shedding light on a young immigrant’s fears, confusion, and loss. This is a superb addition to any Holocaust or American History collection. Students will be moved by Edith’s story. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2010, Farrar Straus Giroux/Macmillan, 192p., $16.99. Ages 11 to 15. Reviewer: Mary Ann Darby (VOYA, June 2010 (Vol. 33, No. 2)).
ISBN: 9780374177447
ISBN: 0374177449
Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass: Igniting the Nazi War Against Jews
Stephanie Fitzgerald
On November 9, 1938, the sound of shattering glass spread through the night air as hundreds of Jewish shops, homes, and places of worship were vandalized by Germans. Thousands of German Jews were brutalized during what would be called Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. Staged by the Nazis, Kristallnacht was a very public exhibition of the virulent hatred the regime of Adolf Hitler had for the Jews. As a consequence of these events, the pathway toward what was to become the Holocaust sped up and literally millions of people’s lives were affected. In Kristallnacht, Stephanie Fitzgerald presents the events that led up to, entailed, and resulted from this terrible night. In telling this story, Fitzgerald traces the historical events that led to the rise of Hitler, the Nazi Party’s beliefs about race, and the horrific aftereffects of Kristallnacht. The events handled in this illustrated addition to the “Snapshots in History” series are ably chronicled and presented in a cohesive manner. Inserts are strategically placed throughout the text to give voice to people who actually experienced these events. In the end, this approach works well and leaves the reader with a deeper understanding of an occurrence that typified the terrible racial policies of the Nazis. 2008, Compass Point Books, $33.26. Ages 11 to 13. Reviewer: Greg M. Romaneck (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Sydney Taylor Book Awards, 2009 Notable Book Older Readers United States
ISBN: 9780756534899
ISBN: 0756534895
The Mozart Question
Michael Morpurgo
In this story within a story within a story, a young woman journalist learns the answer to the question that a world-famous violinist has hitherto refused to answer: why he never performs any works by Mozart. Violinist Paolo Levi’s story of his childhood fascination with the violin hidden in his parent’s apartment in Venice and his chance friendship with a street musician who begins to give him violin lessons culminates in the retelling of his father’s story of survival through the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. It was this that poisoned the father’s own love of the violin, especially of the music of Mozart, forever. Morpurgo’s many-layered tale is both barbaric and beautiful: grounded in the hideous historical realities of how music was prostituted and perverted in Nazi concentration camps, it is also a parable of transformation and redemption. Foreman’s somber, dark-toned paintings of the Nazi camps and sunlight- and moonlight-drenched paintings of Levi’s childhood in Venice are as eloquent as the story they illustrate. Together, Morpurgo and Foreman have created a remarkable book. 2008, Candlewick, $16.99. Ages 8 up. Reviewer: Claudia Mills, Ph.D. (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Cybils, 2008 Nominee Fiction Picture Books United States
Sydney Taylor Book Awards, 2009 Notable Book Older Readers United States
ISBN: 9780763635527
ISBN: 0763635529
Once
Morris Gleitzman
After three years and eight months in an orphanage in the mountains, Felix finds a whole carrot in his soup--an extreme rarity. Believing the carrot is a message from his parents, he embarks on a journey through Nazi-occupied Poland to his former home. Unfortunately Felix has not been educated about the Nazi sentiment toward people of Jewish descent, and when he sees the Nazis burning books, he assumes their hatred is directed at booksellers. When he finally arrives in his hometown, he learns that everything has changed and a new family is living in his house. A courageous man named Barney appears to rescue Felix and brings him to a cellar to hide with other children. Barney is willing to sacrifice his safety, yet he cannot save the children from the trains that will carry them to the camps. It is not until the middle of the book that Felix begins to realize the Nazis do not hate Jewish books but Jewish people. Felix’s naïveté will likely remind readers of the narrator of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by Boyne (David Fickling Books/Random House, 2006/VOYA December 2006); despite the similarities, the first-person narrative is distinct, and Felix’s journey will be a uniquely moving one for readers. The son of booksellers, Felix reveals his joy for storytelling in the way he crafts a beautiful narrative despite the gruesomeness of his surroundings. Even in the end, he maintains that he has been lucky for all the moments of delight he has felt, if only once. VOYA CODES: 4Q 3P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2010, Henry Holt, 176p., $16.99. Ages 11 to 15. Reviewer: Amy Wyckoff (VOYA, April 2010 (Vol. 33, No. 1)).
ISBN: 9780805090260
ISBN: 0805090266
The Other Half of Life: A Novel Based on the True Story of the MS St. Louis
Jim Ablon Whitney
This novel is based on a true story of the ocean liner MS St. Francis, which brings to light a little-known event of World War II. As the winds of war spread across Europe, Jews flee through any means possible from the ever-expanding Nazi regime and their subsequent persecution. German Jews, who board the MS St. Francis in Hamburg, Germany on May 13, 1939, hope this journey will be a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to freedom. The reader sees this journey though the eyes of 15-year-old Thomas Werkmann, who is traveling alone, and 14-year-old Priska Affeldt, who is traveling with her family. We experience their humiliation at being exiled from their home country of Germany, and anticipate what this new life may bring for them. The passengers are not allowed to disembark from the ship in either Cuba or the United States, and are sent back to Europe. France, Holland, Belgium, and Great Britain agree to take them. Many of these refugees, including Priska, die in concentration camps after Germany occupies all of these countries except Great Britain. The author provides excellent supplemental materials to document this historic event. Maps show the ship’s route to Cuba, the United States, and the turn around in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the United States, which took the ship back to Europe. The legacy of the fateful voyage of the MS St. Francis influenced future legislation (the 1948 Displaced Persons Act and the 1980 Refugee Act) in the United States. Also included are extensive sources (books, videos, DVDs, and a website) about historical topics that play important roles in the book. These topics are the MS St. Louis, the Holocaust, German Resistance, Ocean Liners, and Chess. 2009, Alfred A. Knopf, $16.99. Ages 12 up. Reviewer: Annie Laura Smith (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
National Jewish Book Awards, 2009 Winner Children's and Young Adult Literature United States
Sydney Taylor Book Awards, 2010 Notable Book Teen Readers United States
ISBN: 9780375852190
ISBN: 9780375952197
Someone Named Eva
Joan M. Wolf
Milada, an eleven-year-old girl growing up in Czechoslovakia during World War II, embraces life eagerly and loves her family and her best friend, Terezie. One day the Germans arrive, taking Milada away with a group of other young girls to a camp in Poland. The only common factor among the girls is their blond hair and blue eyes. At the camp, Milada and the others learn how to be good German girls. Milada’s instructor even tells her to forget her name and gives her a new German name, Eva. Milada struggles to hold onto her identity, but finds herself sometimes forgetting her true name. Milada wears a pin inside of her dress from her grandmother as a symbol of home. After some time she is sent to live with a German family. Her adopted father runs a concentration camp, but her adopted mother and sister treat her kindly. Her adopted father is stern and seems to take little interest in Milada and more interest in his youngest son. When the war ends, a Red Cross worker rescues Milada from her adopted German home and returns her to her mother, her only other family to have survived the war. Mother and daughter begin to pick up the pieces of their lives and start anew. The author’s descriptive style offers readers a lot of insight into Milada’s feelings. We are constantly aware of how Milada feels about losing her identity and how she copes with her changing life. The first-person narration from Milada’s point-of-view gives readers a young child’s perspective on the Holocaust--an important historical perspective oftentimes omitted from Holocaust lessons. The practice of converting non-Jewish girls into German citizens was used to build a strong German society. This book is a compelling display of a young girl’s desperate attempt to hold onto her identity as well as what she believes is right during one of the worst periods in world history. 2007, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Ages 9 to 12, $6.99. Reviewer: Kathryn Shoultz (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 978-0-547-23766-4
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba
Margarita Engle
This novel in verse is told primarily in two voices: that of thirteen-year old Daniel, a Jewish refugee who flees Germany on a boat to Cuba in 1939, and of Paloma, a local Cuban girl who is eager to help Daniel and other refugees. Despite their differences, Daniel and Paloma become friends, each with their own secrets, which they eventually trust one another enough to share. Daniel dares to hope he will see his parents again. His new discoveries: the Spanish language, tropical fruit, dancing, Carnival music, are juxtaposed against his longing for the life and family he was forced to leave behind. Paloma dares to dream of one day being a dancer like the mother who abandoned her. She also longs to confront her father about getting rich selling visas to refugees and working as an agent for the Cuban authorities. Just when Daniel is starting to feel safe in Cuba, a campaign is launched to arrest all Christian refugees under suspicion of being Nazi spies. Paloma and Daniel hide one such refugee, Mark, and his Jewish wife Miriam. Daniel finds solace in helping this couple, as well as in mentoring a young refugee with his same name and shared interest in music. By the end of this beautifully written story, the reader is filled with hope for a brighter future for Daniel and the others who escaped the Nazi regime. 2009, Henry Holt and Company, $16.99. Ages 9 to 12. Reviewer: Miriam Chernick (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Sydney Taylor Book Awards, 2010 Winner Teen Readers United States
ISBN: 9780805089363
ISBN: 0805089365
Under a Red Sky: Memoir of a Childhood in Communist Romania
Haya Leah Molnar
Born as Eva Zimmerman in Communist-controlled Romania in the post-World War II era (1957-1961), Molnar’s retrospective account of her life from six to ten years old is a compelling read giving insight into little-known events that transpired both during and after the war. For years after the war ended, few in the West had any idea what went on behind the Iron Curtain. Eva lives with seven adult family members and they are lucky to live in a three-bedroom apartment. Until she is eight years old, she has not even been told she is Jewish because it is still dangerous to be Jewish. Gradually Eva learns from her maternal grandparents that although Romania did not send Jews to the concentration camps wholesale, mass-murders of Jews were committed by the Romanian Iron Guard. She further learns that her paternal grandparents died in Auschwitz and her father was in a Nazi labor camp and later the Russian gulags for eight years before meeting her mother. Her parents are artists now--he a photographer and film director for the state, and her mother a ballet teacher. Life is so limited and governed by fear of being turned into the Securitate that all the family can talk about is how to leave the country that has been their home for generations. When the state finally allows Jews to apply for passports, the entire family signs up--only to be fired from their jobs. For two years, they are in limbo waiting to get word that they can leave. At about the same time that Eva is old enough to become a “Young Pioneer” for the Communists, she starts secretly studying Hebrew with a rabbi. Although there are certainly child level perspectives reflected here, this account of the period, people, and events is much more polished than perhaps Zlata’s Diary, which was written contemporaneously with the events portrayed in early 1990s Sarajevo. There is a short note in the Acknowledgements about Rabbi Moses Rosen, who negotiated a deal between the state of Israel and the Communist regime to allow the emigration of nearly 400,000 Romanian Jews, Eva’s family among them. Several pages of black-and-white family photographs bring the story home in a personal way. The book would be a great supplement to studies/discussion of WWII era European history, the founding of the Jewish state, oppression in general, and the Jews in particular. 2010, Frances Foster Books/Farrar Straus Giroux, Ages 14 to 18, $17.99. Reviewer: Paula McMillen, Ph.D. (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 978-0-374-31840-6
The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family and Farewells
Debbie Levy
Jutta Salzberg's “year of goodbyes” was 1938, the year she turned twelve. That year, her Jewish family left Germany and sailed to the United States to avoid imprisonment and likely death at the hands of the Nazis. How narrowly the Salzbergs escaped extermination becomes chillingly clear in the latter pages of Debbie Levy's lovely book. Levy, Jutta Salzberg's daughter, tells her mother's story in a cycle of 26 poems inspired by the Poesiealbum (autograph book) that Jutta circulated among friends and relatives during this memorable year. Album entries are touchstones for Levy's unadorned, potent free verse, which chronicles Jutta's life as a schoolgirl in a changing Hamburg, her father's tireless effort to transport his family to safety, a final summer vacation with relatives in Poland, and the journey itself. Levy perfectly captures a twelve-year-old's world view in one of the finest poems, “Slipping Away”: “I can't imagine / being as old as / Mother and Father, / but I also can't imagine / not becoming as old as them.” Adult life seems impossibly far away, yet death seems simply impossible. Children in Jutta's Hamburg confronted death's inevitability without being hardened to it, so that the loss of a beloved parakeet could still trigger grief. A selection of photographs enriches the reader's experience of Jutta's year, and an afterword fleshes out her story, carries it to the present, and reveals the fate of many of the children and loved ones who appear in earlier pages. Some of the latter is strong stuff. Highly recommended. 2010, Hyperion, $16.99. Ages 9 to 12. Reviewer: Catherine Reef (Children's Literature).
ISBN: 9781423129011
ISBN: 1423129016
Yellow Star
Jennifer Roy
During World War II, 270,000 Jews were herded into the Lodz ghetto in Poland. By war's end only 800 of those people had survived. Among the 800 survivors were twelve children. The true story of one of one of those survivors is told in this free verse tale of a young life in peril. Sylvia Perlmutter was four-years-old when the war started. When the Germans came to Lodz, her family could hardly imagine just how horrible they would be. Soon the Perlmutter family, as well as all the Jews in Lodz and surrounding areas, were crowded into a small walled off portion of the city. There, Sylvia and her family tried to scratch out a life for themselves. Over time virtually everyone they knew was transported out of the ghetto. Those people ended up in concentration camps where almost every single one of them died. The Perlmutters were both resourceful and lucky--they survived. Years later Sylvia shared her story with her niece, Jennifer Roy, and those stories became this moving work. Told in a free verse format, Yellow Star recreates the world of the Perlmutters as seen through the eyes of a little girl. Readers will encounter the tragedies and small pleasures of daily life that existed in those dark days. In the end, Sylvia and her family emigrated to North America and established a life that continues down through the generations of their family. The story of Sylvia and her family is an inspiring one and has been ably told in this poetic book. 2006, Marshal Cavendish, $ 16.95. Ages 10 up. Reviewer: Greg M. Romaneck (Children's Literature).
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children's Literature, 2006 Honor Book Fiction and Poetry United States
Lamplighter Award, 2009 Honor Book Grades 6-8 United States
National Jewish Book Awards, 2006 Finalist Children's and Young Adult Literature United States
Sydney Taylor Book Awards, 2007 Honor Award Older Readers United States
William Allen White Children's Book Award, 2009 Winner Grades 6-8 Kansas
ISBN: 076145277X
ISBN: 9780761452775
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Last updated 08/13/10
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