Resist: One Girl's Fight Back Against the Nazis by Tom Palmer

A few years ago, I read a book called Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II by Robert Matzen, so I knew about her experiences during the war. What I didn't know when I started reading Resist, the new WWII book by Tom Palmer, was that it is a fictionalized story inspired by Audrey's life during the war. 

It's 1943, and Edda, 15, has a sheaf of illegal resistance newsletters stuffed inside her socks to be delivered to certain addresses. The delivery is her first her first resistance assignment and Edda is nervous, knowing if she were caught, it would mean death at the hands of the Nazis. Edda volunteers at the hospital, and had  asked Dr. Hendrik Visser't Hooft, a leading figure in the resistance, if she could help there, too. Years of studying ballet in England had given Edda an excellent memory, and she proved herself able to easily memorize the addresses for the newsletter delivery.

The Nazis had been occupying the Netherlands since 1940, forcing Edda's brother Alex to go into hiding to avoid being picked up by the Nazis and sent to a slave labor camp in Germany, and her Uncle Otto was one of 460 men who had been arrested and executed by the Nazis. So imagine Edda's stunned surprise when she sees her mother's name listed as a Nazi sympathiser in the newsletters she's carrying. How could Edda possible prove that her mother wasn't a collaborator?

When Dr. Visser't Hooft asked Edda if she would be interested in dancing as part of an evening of entertainment, a secret performance done after dark, to raise money to help people in hiding. she thinks this would help prove her mother's support for the resistance. But when she asks her mother's permission, Edda was told no, she could not participate, it is just too dangerous. After the Germans pick up her other brother Ian, 17, to send to Germany, Edda's mother has a change of heart and gives her permission to perform. On the way home from the performance, Edda finally asks her mother why she had been listed as someone not to be trusted and is relieved to learn that her mother feels it was a mistake to support Hitler and is now on the side of the resistance.

By 1944, the Dutch are hearing on illegal radios that the Allies are moving closer to Holland. But the Germans are getting desperate and are stealing most of the food for themselves and letting the Dutch starve. When the British finally arrive not far from Velp, everyone begins to hope the war will end for them soon. But the British are defeated, as is the hope of the Dutch. Then, one day, Edda is caught by German soldiers along with other girls her age. Afraid she would be sent to Germany like her brother Ian, Edda takes a chance and runs away, knowing how to avoid the soldiers because her resistance activity had taught her all she needed to know about the streets of Velp. 

When her mother hears what happened, Edda is sent to the cellar for her own safety with the rest of her family as the war continues above them. Early one morning, there's a knock on their front door,  and after her mother and grandfather go see who it is, they return with a box of food, apparently from the American army. Could it be that the war and the Nazi occupation in the Netherlands is finally coming to an end? And will Edda ever see her brother Ian again?

Resist is an interesting story, in part because I knew it was inspired by Audrey Hepburn's family and her resistance work. More importantly, however, Palmer shows his readers, without being too graphic, just what it was like for the Dutch people under Nazi occupation - the cruelty of the Nazi soldiers, the disregard for the lives of the Dutch people, and the extent of the starvation they were subjected to. 1944 was infamously known as the Hunger Winter. And just as importantly, the strength of the Dutch during that time. At one point, Edda, already an accomplished dancer, even gave ballet lessons to the local children. 

Palmer's portrayal of Edda is sensitive and I think true to who the real Audrey Hepburn was. He has brilliantly captured her thoughts, her fears for herself and her family, her anger at the Nazis for what they have done to her beloved country, friends and neighbors, and her need to resist the occupiers. These are the same qualities that followed Audrey Hepburn throughout her life, and lead her to do so much humanitarian work as well as acting.  

Back matter includes information about Audrey Hepburn as the inspiration for Edda, the occupation and starvation of the Netherlands, resistance activity there, a bit about Audrey Hepburn and Anne Frank, Audrey Hepburn and her work with UNICEF. and finally, Tom Palmer's research for this novel, including several biographies of Audrey Hepburn, and recommended children's books, such as Tamar by Mal Peet, among others. 

Resist is published by Barrington Stoke known for their books that are adapted for dyslexic and reluctant readers. and as a dyslexic, I can't recommend them highly enough.

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen

It's February 1942 and Meg Kenyon, 12, is living on her Grandmère's farm with her French mother in Nazi occupied France. She hasn't seen her English-born dad since he left in May 1940 after receiving a telegram from London and Meg believes he has been imprisoned by the Nazis, if he is even still alive. Before he left, he created a jar full of coded messages for her to solve - deciphering each other's coded messages was something they both enjoyed doing. Now, however, there was only one message left and Meg has been putting off solving it. 

Meg has also been selling some of the vegetables from Grandmère's farm on the black market while secretly working for the resistance. When she unscrambles a message from them that reads Follow the German, Meg knows just who that is - newly arrived Lieutenant Becker, friendly upfront, cold-blooded underneath. And unfortunately, he now knows Meg's face now, after he figures out she was following him.

But Lieutenant Becker is temporarily forgotten about when Meg gets home and finds a badly wounded British officer, Captain Henry Stewart, in the barn, who claims to know Meg's father. After much sneaking around to help Captain Stewart, it turns out that he was on a rescue mission which he can no longer carry out. That's not all Meg discovers - it seems her mother has been working as a secret radio operator for the resistance. 

It turns out that the rescue mission Captain Stewart parachuted into France to carry out involved three Germans, Albert, Liesel, and Jakob, posing as a family named Durand. Since Captain Stewart is too injured to carry out his mission, it is decided that Meg would lead the Durands to Spain and safety. Before she leaves, she is given a note from her father that Captain Stewart delivered, written in coded language. The next day Meg finds the Durands hiding in a cave where she also finds Captain Stewart's backpack full of spy paraphernalia and a warning not let anyone see what's in it. Fortunately, Meg was told that there are resistance workers along the way who are aware of the mission and can provide some assistance, but for the most part, the four are on their own. 

As if their journey weren't difficult enough, Lieutenant Becker is on Meg's trail, suspecting her of resistance work. And just as they get to the point where they should head to Spain, Meg solves her father's message and insists they go to Switzerland instead. But why? And why would he say not to trust one of the "Durands" and which one?

Rescue is an exciting book, full of mystery, intrigue, danger, and betrayal. It's the kind of book my today self thinks is at time preposterous yet I know my 11/12-year-old-self would have hung on every word and every moment of danger. But my today self also knows that codes and ciphers were very popular during WWII, so it isn't surprising that Meg and her dad have their fun with them. Would I let a 12-year-old do what Meg is asked to do? Not a chance, but during the war, kids did this and more. 

Captain Stewart was part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), as was Meg's father, and he arrived in France with his bag of spy tools, including a spy manual, which Meg refers to often. I liked that Nielsen used the rules from the book for some of her chapter headings. Since they worked in so well with what happens in the chapters they head, I suspect it was a made up book, but fun nevertheless. 

Nielsen has included a section called Secret Codes at the end of the novel for readers intrigued by them that includes all kinds of different codes they can try. I was one of those geeky kids who loved codes and secret languages growing up and still have a fascination for them.* There is also a section called The Special Operations Executive for readers unfamiliar with this organization created by Winston Churchill in 1940. 

Rescue is an exiting book that should appeal to anyone who likes historical fiction about WWII that includes plenty of adventure and danger.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+

This book was an eARC gratefully received from Edelweiss+

*I'm pretty sure my fascination with codes and coding is how I ended up in Information Technology, creating programs and teaching kids and adults about computers.  

Hunger Winter: A World War II Novel by Rob Currie

It's 1944 and the Gestapo would like nothing more than to capture Dutch resistance leader Hans Ingelse. So far, Ingelse has managed to avoid capture and continue his resistance activities. But, since his wife had died two months earlier, the Gestapo now  have his three children in their sights. In the middle of the night, on November 11th, a neighbor risks his life to let 13-year-old Dirk Ingelse know that the Gestapo has arrested his older sister Els for her resistance activity, and now, they are on their way to the Ingelse home in Oosterbeek for Dirk and his 6-year-old sister Anna.

Luckily, papa had already begun to teach Dirk what to do in certain situations to avoid capture. Dirk wastes no time getting Anna up and out to begin the trek to their Tante Cora's house in Doorwerth, taking what little food they had. Meanwhile, Els is being held in an interrogation center in downtown Oosterbeek, and it doesn't take long for the torture to begin. The Gestapo is sure Els will break and tell them where her papa is, but she's stronger and more determined than they realize.

Dirk and Anna safely reach Tante Cora's the next day, and feel somewhat safe there, but hungry, since all food is confiscated by the Nazis. And they must still be cautious now that they are in danger of being picked up by the Gestapo. Instead, Dirk and Anna get picked up in a Nazi razzia, a roundup of any able-bodied person to work in munition factories. There, a sergeant decides to give Anna to a friend who had recently lost his daughter, as a replacement. Hearing that, Dirk is determined to escape, but how? The factory is so well guarded. Luckily, on November 22nd, the Allies begin to bomb that part of Holland. As the guards take cover, a bomb hits, giving Dirk and Anna an opportunity to escape - right into a minefield. But, Dirk figures out the path through the field and soon they are on their way to Oma and Opa's farm in Nijmegen. But, before they get there, Anna sprains her ankle, and they need to stop at a farmhouse near Driel. There, they are met by a elderly couple, and a Nazi officer holding them at gunpoint. He claims he wants to turn himself over to the Americans in Nijmegen, but is this just another trick to catch their papa?

Meanwhile, the Gestapo still hasn't gotten Els to talk, so they decide to amp up the torture, transferring her to a Luftwaffe base in Rotterdam on November 26th, just before the Allies dropped bombs on that city.

Will the Ingelse family survive capture and be reunited with papa, if he is even still alive? Now that the Americans have liberated Nijmegen and are pushing forward, the Nazis seem to be getting more and more desperate to capture Hans Ingelse, refusing to acknowledge that the German Reich might actually be losing the war.

Hunger Winter is certainly an action-packed novel, with very appealing characters that readers can root for (well, truth be told, I found Anna very annoying).  Personally, I would have liked a little more about Els, who is my favorite character. There's also a bit of mystery surrounding what has become of the children's father, and that isn't revealed until the end, and it quite a revelation, but readers never really get to know him.

I thought Currie really captured the starvation of the Dutch people due to the lack of food during the winter of 1944-1945. Tante Cora has Dirk dig up the bulbs in the garden for soup, there is a hint about the fate of her stolen dog that might not be caught by younger readers, trading valuables with farmers for food only to have it taken by the Nazis, and of course, collaborating with the Nazis for extra rations.

It did bother me that the Nazi officer Dirk and Anna meet at the farmhouse on their way to Oma and Opa's turns out to be someone their father went to school with. That was just more coincidence than my adult sensibility could accept, but probably not for my nine-year-old self, so I don't think younger middle grade readers will have a problem with it, either.

Back matter includes a section called What Really Happened?, an interview with the author, Rob Currie, Discussion Questions for teachers, and Key World War II Dates for the Netherlands, as well as maps. I read an ARC, with included everything but the maps.

Hunger Winter is a nice work of historical fiction and not many take place in the Netherlands for this age group. If I were teaching a WWII unit, I would pair it with Hilda van Stockum's The Winged Watchman, originally published in 1962, as a nice resistance compare and contrast component.

This book is recommended for readers age 8+
This book was an EARC gratefully received from NetGalley

Catherine's War by Julia Billet, illustrated by Claire Fauvel

**Contains Spoilers**

It's 1942 and Rachel Cohen, a Jewish teen, has been enrolled in the progressive Sèvres Children's Home just outside Paris for four months. It's also been months since she heard anything from her parents and has no idea where they are or what may have happened to them. Luckily, she loves being part of Sèvres, and is convinced that the kind husband and wife who run it, Penguin and Seagull, are part of the French resistance. Thanks to Penguin, Rachel has found an interest in and has a talent for taking photographs and he has lent her a Rolleiflex camera, and has even taught her how to develop the photos she takes.

But as the Nazi stronghold in France tighteneds, and Jews are required to wear yellow stars, the heads of  Sèvres refuse to force that on their Jewish students. Instead, the students are asked to change their names to ones that are more Christian sounding and are given false identity papers. Rachel becomes Catherine Colin.

But when the Nazis begin rounding up Jews, it becomes clear that Sèvres is no longer safe for its Jewish students, even with false papers, and plans are made for the students to be spread around France for their safety. Catherine alias Rachel is sent to a convent in Riom with a younger student named Alice, but not before she is gifted the school's precious Rolleiflex camera by Seagull, who tells her to take photos of everything she sees as testimony after the war.

In Riom, Catherine is forced to eat pork, take catechism classes and communion in order to keep her cover. Taking photos proves to be the thing that helps her through. Then, in town to get her photos developed, she meets Étienne, who lets her use his darkroom. Catherine and Étienne are strongly attracted to each other, but when the convent is reported to the Nazis, it is time for Catherine and Alice to move on.

Over the course of the Nazi occupation of France, Catherine and Alice are sent to a small farm in Limoges, then an orphanage in the Pyrenees, where she and Alice go their separate ways, and finally to another small farm. But when France is finally liberated by the Allies, Catherine returns to Paris, where she hopes to find her parents. Instead she finds their apartment trashed and no information about what happened to them. But she is able to reconnect with Seagull, Penguin, and Alice. In 1945, she is finally able to become Rachel Cohen again. Rachel now finds there is a great deal of interest in the photographs she had taken all through her travels during the Nazi occupation and is offered a show in an art gallery. And finally, she and Étienne also reconnect, and yes, they eventually marry and move to the United States.

Catherine's War is based on the real life experiences of the author's mother as a Jewish teen in France during WWII. It is a powerful coming of age story that interrogates questions of identity during a time of crisis, when who one is was all that the Nazis needed to arrest and send you away, often never to be heard from again, like Rachel's parents.

This is one of the best graphic novels I've read in a while. The story's text is clear, straightforward, and succinct, thanks to the excellent translation from the French by Ivanka Hahnenberger. Text and panels harmonize completely, making Rachel's story easy to follow despite so many characters and places. In her ink and watercolor panels, artist Claire Fauvel captures the differing emotions of the characters - fear, anger, happiness, loneliness, kindness - remarkably well, so that nothing is missed and there is no ambiguity. She used a palette of subtle dark grays, blues, and browns, which touches of brighter colors throughout. These dark colors reflect the dark times in which the story takes place.

When I was in college and living in the East Village in the early 1980s, I used to have an old Minolta SRT 101, that I absolutely adored. I also had a pen and ink drawing of it with the words "It's All in the Focus" written in the lens that a friend made for me. I learned a lot about life through my camera's lens, especially when the Aids crisis hit the village so hard then. For me, there is no question as to the power of art to bear witness and convey truth. I think this idea is brought to bear in an important conversation between Rachel and Étienne. He prefers portrait and landscapes while Rachel prefers more candid, in-the-moment daily life shots. The question becomes whose camera tells the greatest truth or do they both, but in different ways? Something to think about.

Back matter includes a map of Rachel's travels between 1942 and 1945, as well as some of the real photos taken by the author's mother, Tamo Cohen. There are also four pages of questions from readers with the author's answers.

Catherine's War is a story, as Julia Billet writes, "that reminds us that even when the wolves are howling death at your door, there are women and men who are still faithful to mankind." So, while this could be classified as a Holocaust story, it is also a resistance/survivor story. Either way, it is a graphic novel not to be missed.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List, A Memoir by Rena Finder with Joshua M. Greene

Like most Americans, I first learned about Oskar Schindler and the 1,200 Jewish lives he was able to save watching Steven Spielberg's movie Schindler's List. And yes, I am sorry to say I have not yet read Thomas Keneally's 1982 book Schindler's Ark (published as Schindler's List in the US). However, you may recall a book published in 2013 called The Boy On the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson, who was a young Jewish boy working for Schindler. Now, we have this book by Rena Finder, who was a still a young girl when she was working for Oskar Schindler.

Rena, who maiden name was Ferber, had lived a pretty happy and comfortable life in Krakow, Poland with her parents Moses and Rosa Ferber. But all that changes in 1939 when the Nazis march into and occupy Poland and World War II begins. First, friends and neighbors begin to turn their backs on their former Jewish friends, and Krakow's Jews are faced with more overt acts of anti-Semitism, even as more and more restrictive laws are imposed by the Nazis. Jews are not longer allowed to go to school, the park, the movies, they are subject to a curfew, and forced to wear a blue and white armband with a Star of David on it signifying that they are Jewish. And soon enough, arrests and deportations of Jews to concentration camps begin.

In 1940, Rena and her parents are issued permits allowing them to remain in Krakow while her father works, but they are forced to leave their lovely apartment and move into the Krakow ghetto - 320 apartments for 3,000 people. Then, on December 31, 1942, Rena's father is arrested despite having a work permit. Sadly, Rena will never see her father again.

Not long after her father's arrest, liquidation of the Krakow ghetto begins and the ghetto's Jews are forced to march to Plaszów Concentration Camp, a march that includes Rena and her mother Rosa. There, they both end up working in Oskar Schindler's factory, a factory that had originally been located near the Krakow ghetto, where he could use cheap Jewish labor. But now that his labor was in Plaszów, they would have to walk 2 1/2 miles each way to get to and from work. Schindler convinces Plaszów's Commandant, Andrew Goeth, to allow him to build a subcamp for the factory's Jewish workers. Amazingly, Goeth agrees to allow this.

Rena's story is told in a very matter of fact way in the first person, but also in a very intimate voice that makes you feel that she is speaking directly to you, the reader. I've given you most of the historical background, but her story is naturally much more personal, recounting what life was life for Europe's Jews under the Nazis, including the fate of some of her family and friends. She also talks in harrowing detail what it was like when she and the other people working for Schindler were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. Luckily, Schindler was able to reclaim them thanks to his list of workers and take them to his new factory in Czechoslovakia. And unlike many real life Holocaust stories, Rena also talks about what her life was like after the war, meeting her husband and moving to America.

My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List is a very accessible, age appropriate book, perfect for introducing young readers, and especially reluctant readers, to the Holocaust. Rena breaks down the different events on her personal life and how she was impacted by the things done to Jews under the Nazis. The pages of photographs of the Ferber/Finder families at the back of the book makes her story that much more real. Rena's "Closing Thoughts" bring the past into the present with her plea for today's youth to stand up for those people who are being targeted now, reminding us that genocide begins when people begin turn their backs on what is happening to others.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was purchased for my personal library.

Making Bombs For Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

After the Nazis shoot their mother and the Jews she had been hiding, Lida, 8, and her younger sister Larissa, 5, are kidnapped from their grandmother's home in the Ukraine and sent by cattle car to Germany, along with all the other Ukrainian children the Nazis took.

Days later, arriving at a slave labor camp in Germany on March 14th, 1943, Lida's 9th birthday, she and Larissa are forcibly separated from one another, and from this point the story follows only Lida's life in the labor camp.

Told to lie about her age, Lida tells the Nazis she is 13 instead of 9, avoiding what seems to be certain death for the young children.  Because they are Ukrainian and not Jews, the children are treated a fraction better. They are put into barracks with a small useless heater, given two thin blankets for sleeping and fed two meals a day consisting of watery coffee and soup, plus a small triangle of bread made mostly from sawdust. The children are also given Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday off.  The rest of the time, they work, and soon enough, the Nazis weed out the good workers from the ones unable to meet their needs. The weak workers are sent to the 'hospital' never to be seen again. Luckily for Lida, she lands a job in the laundry for a woman named Inge, where the work is hard, but it is at least warm, since she was barefoot, having  lost her shoes pretty early on.

When Inge discovers that Lida can do embroidery, she has her remove the name and initials from clothing sent to her by her soldier husband, and embroider them with hers.  Lida does such a great job, the woman can't help but brag to the head of the camp. Lida is immediately transferred to work in a factory, where the small hands of children are ideal for making bombs. By now, the Germans are losing the war and getting desperate, while the Allies are bombing the area constantly. Lida's one goal is to stay alive so she can find her sister Larissa.

Eventually, the war ends, the Americans arrive and Lida is told that if she returns to her home in the Ukraine she will be arrested as a traitor because of the work she did for the Nazis. She finds herself living in displaced persons camps looking for her sister, and accompanied by a boy named Luka. The story ends in 1951on a much needed hopeful note for Lida.

I have to admit, I didn't know that much about the Nazi treatment of Russian and Ukrainian people sent to Germany to be used as slave labor, although I have always know there were slave labor camps, though my own work never really focused on the Eastern Europe. In that respect, Making Bombs for Hitler was a real eye-opener for me.

And it was a difficult story to read. Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch pulled no punches in her descriptions of the deplorable conditions and treatment the Nazis doled out to their enemies. The story is told in the first person by Lida, although given her vivid descriptions, her detailed observations and her rather mature language, I felt as though she were recounted her life between 1943 and 1951. That, however, does not take anything away from the immediacy of Lida's life in the labor camp, if anything it makes it all the more poignant.

Lida is a brave, determined character who feelings of guilt about losing her sister as they arrived at the camp really propels everything she does. She never loses her sense of humanity, and proves herself to be a compassionate, caring friend to the other girls. At one point she gives her cross, a family heirloom, to a Jewish girl named Zenia so that the Nazis will not suspect the truth.

Making Bombs for Hitler is actually a sequel to a book called Stolen Child, which I haven't read yet and hope it doesn't matter that I read them out of sequence. I am curious to continue the story of Lida and Larissa.

The Nazis were so cruel and violent in reality and I feel I should warn sensitive readers that their are some graphic descriptions in Making Bombs for Hitler. But it is also a book that should be read, especially, as I said above, I haven't found another book like it. I know there are a number of books that take place in Russia, including Siberia, but none focus of the Nazi treatment of stolen children the way this novel does, making this an important book for young readers to read.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Scholastic Press

I read the 2012 edition of the novel, but a new edition will be available February 28, 2017

Hitler in Paris: How a Photograph Shocked a World at War by Don Nardo

Even before he seized power and became the chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler had done two things that most people seeking political office rarely did at that time - first was that he used a private plane with his own pilot to campaign quickly all over Germany.  The plane was so much faster than a train or car, and much less tiring.  The second thing he did was to have a personal photographer to record his every move.  That photographer was Heinrich Hoffmann.

You probably know, if only from reading The Extra by Kathryn Lasky, that Leni Riefenstahl made several propaganda films, but her most famous film of all was Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) documenting the 1934 Nuremberg Rally and showcasing Hitler.  She was a talented and innovative filmmaker, and a good friend of Hitler's (despite later denials of not knowing anything about was was happening in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries), but for still photography, it was Heinrich Hoffmann that Hitler wanted.

Hoffman was a very talented photographer, who loved to take pictures of people in moments when their guard was down, and recording their spontaneous actions/reactions.  But he was also gifted at the posed photograph and the iconic June 1940 photograph he took of Hitler standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, flanked on one side by Albert Speer and on the other by Arno Breker, is the one that Don Nardo has chosen to focus on in his book Hitler in Paris.  It is this photograph that best represents Hitler's dominance in Europe.  Standing at the Eiffel Tower, in a now defeated France, and with conquered countries to the North, South and East of France, Hitler's sights are now to the West and Britain.  One can only imagine how people must have felt when they saw this photo.  But what brought Hitler and Hoffmann to this point?

Nardo gives the reader a parallel history of each man early life - both middle class, but with very different family circumstances.  Events in Hitler's early life, a cruel father with whom he often fought, held feed his anger and hate at those more fortunate, and was later spurred on and fueled by Germany's defeat in World War I, for which he desperately wanted to seek revenge.

Hoffmann, by contrast, was taken under his father's wing and taught the art of photography.  Nardo describes Hoffmann as a very likable man, who claimed (like Riefenstahl) that he was not political, his relationship with Hitler was strictly personal and he had no knowledge of what was happening around him.  Eva Braun worked in his photography studio and it was Hoffmann who introduced her to Hitler (you may recall that from reading Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman).

Taken on the same trip to Paris by
Hoffmann

This is a short, 64 page book that is filled with information and photographs, all taken by Hoffmann.
 Nardo has done a pretty good job at presenting these two men with objectivity and allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions about them and the circumstances depicted in the book.

Nardo also used lots of primary and secondary sources to write Hitler in Paris, giving the book a real sense of time an place, as well bringing these two controversial figures to life.  Additionally, he has included a useful timeline, a glossary, a list of additional resources, source notes and a selected bibliography.  There are also copious photographs of Hoffmann's, which are all now in the public domain.

Hitler in Paris: How a Photograph Shocked a Word at War will probably have great appeal to history buffs interested in the 20th century, WWII, and/or Nazi Germany.  But it will also appeal to serious serious budding photographers and even to those who are more experienced as a study in how one emblematic photograph can convey so much.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

Ashes by Kathryn Lasky

Life is pretty comfortable for Gabriella Schramm, 13, called Gaby by friends and family.  Living in 1932 Berlin, her upper middle class family is better off than most Germans at the time.  Her father is a renowned scientist, teaching astronomy at the University, and is friends with Albert Einstein.  Her mother, an former pianist who gives lessons at home now, hob nobs with Baba, a well-respected Jewish society columnist for the only newspaper in Berlin that isn't pro-Nazi.  Gaby's older sister, Ulla, is scheduled to begin studying at a conservatory in Vienna next year.  And Gaby, who loves to read anything she can get her hands on, including Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain and my personal favorites Rainer Maria Remarque and Erich Kästner, is looking forward to reading Heinrich Heine's poetry in Gymnasium after summer vacation.

But things are beginning to change, both within Gaby's family and all over Germany.  First, Ulla insists on remaining in Berlin for the summer instead of going to the family's lakeside vacation home, claiming she has a bookkeeping job at the cabaret where her boyfriend Karl, an engineering student, works.  But when Karl and Ulla come to visit, Gaby begins to suspect that Karl is a Nazi supporter.  She had already suspected the same thing of the family housekeeper, Hertha and the man who maintains their Berlin apartment building.  In fact, Gaby has noticed a significant increase in the number of Brown Shirts (SA) and Black Shirts (SS) all over Berlin despite the ban on them.

Back in school after vacation, Gaby and her best friend Rosa are overjoyed to begin studying literature with the very beautiful, kind, well-dressed Frau Hofstadt, who is picked up everyday by a mysterious limousine.  But, at home, the talk is more and more about the political situation, which in 1932 is all over the place, though everyone is relieved when the Nazis loose seats in the Reichstag (Parliament), hoping that that will be an end to Hitler and his Nazi party.

But that's not what happens at all and through all kinds of twists and turns, Hitler is named Chancellor by President Hindenburg at the end of January 1933.  And with amazing speed, Gaby watches her previously safe, happy world fall completely to pieces.

The period 1919-1933 was such a complicated time in German history and politics.  The Nazis referred to it as the Kampfzeit, the time of struggle to gain acceptance and power for their radical policies.  Lasky covers only 1932-1933 in Ashes and kudos to her for successfully tackling it in a novel for young readers.  There is lots of talk about events that actually happened, and Lasky provides enough information to understand it without overwhelming or boring the reader.

Ashes is a well-written novel, and although it is a little slow in places, given the time and place of the action, it is indeed a worthwhile read.   I particularly loved that each chapter begins with a quote from a book Gaby loves and which foreshadows what happens in that chapter.  And since Gaby witnesses the Nazi book burning on May 10, 1933, it is all the more poignant a reminder of some of what was lost in that tragic event.

The novel is told from Gaby's point of view, which gives us her very subjective, but very astute observation, not only of what is happening around her, but how she thinks and feels about it all,  A fine example of that is when she witnesses her former math teacher, Herr Berg, being removed from her school by the Nazis for being Jewish, and disappears.  The reader feels her shock, disgust, sadness and  despair all at the same time.

Some of the scenes may feel a little cliche and I am not the first person to realize that Karl resembles Lisle's Hitler Youth boyfriend from The Sound of Music, and that there is a scene similar to one in Cabaret, in which everyone in an outdoor Biergarten joins a Hitler Youth in singing a Nazi song.  But, these scenes also make a necessary point (and people have traditionally joined in singing in Biergartens in Germany, it wasn't just a Nazi thing to show support).

Ashes is a nice contribution to the body of Holocaust and World War II literature and on its own, a very interesting book about a very complex time made accessible by good research and skillful writing.

This book is recommended for readers age 11+
This book was purchased for my personal library

The Only Thing to Fear by Caroline Tung Richmond

Have you ever imagined what the world would be like if the Axis powers, Germany, Japan and Italy, had won World War II.  Well,  author Caroline Tung Richmond has done just that in her debut novel The Only Thing to Fear.  

It's been 80 years since the Allied Forces lost the war and surrendered after being defeated by Hitler's genetically-engineered super soldiers.  The United States has been divided into three territories, the Western American Territory ruled by Japan, the Italian Dakotas, and the Eastern American Territories ruled by the Nazis.

For Zara St. James, 16, living in the Shenandoah Valley in the Eastern American Territory, life has been hard.   She has lived with her Kleinbauer (peasant) Uncle Red since her mother was killed by the Nazis in a Resistance mission when Zara was 8.  Since then, Uncle Red has wanted nothing more to do with Resistance matters, but Zara can't wait to join Revolutionary Alliance, and with good reason.
English on her mother's side, Japanese on her father's, Zara is considered a Mischling by the Germans and there has never been a place for mixed-race children in Nazi society. But Zara is also hiding a secret, one that would mean instant death - she is an Anomaly, able control the air around her.  Anomalies are the result of genetic testing by the Nazis in their concentration camps in the 1930s and, as super soldiers, they helped them win the war.  But only full-blooded Aryans can be Anomalies, everyone else is put to death instantly.

Into all this comes Bastian Eckhartt, son of the formidable Colonel Eckhart, commanding officer of Fort Goering.  Bastian attends the elite military academy where Zara is assigned cleaning duties and lately she has noticed he has been looking her way more and more frequently.  But what could the son of a powerful Nazi leader possibly want with a Kleinbauer who garners no respect whatsoever?  The answer may just surprise you.

I was really looking forward to reading The Only Thing to Fear when I first heard of it.  There aren't many alternative histories for teen readers about the allied Forces losing the war to the Axis powers and what that would have meant for the future.  Unfortunately, this doesn't come across as an alternative history so much as it really just another dystopian novel.   What seems to be missing is a strong sense of ideology - on both the Nazi and the peasant side.  The Resistance was there to overthrow the cruel Nazis, but there is not sense of how or why they will make the world better if or when they succeed.

Richmond's world building was pretty spot on, though not terribly in-depth.  I really like the idea of generically engineered Anomalies, which added an interesting touch.

Zara is quite headstrong and can be a bit whinny and annoyingly brave in that she takes chances without thinking through the consequences.  Zara has a lot to learn, and a lot of growing up to do, even by the end of the novel (or maybe it is going to be a series and she can mature at a later date).

One of the things that always amazes me in books about people fighting for their lives is that there is always time for romance.  Yes, Bastian is originally interested in Zara for reasons that have nothing to do with romance, yet even as things take a dangerous turn, they both find they are attracted to each other.

The Only Thing to Fear is definitely a flawed novel, but still it is one worth reading.  As I said, it is Richmond's debut novel, and though you might find it a bit predictable, it is still a satisfying read.

The Only Thing to Fear will be available in bookstores on September 30, 2014.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was an E-ARC obtained from NetGalley

Sophisticated readers might also want to take a look at Philip K. Dick's 1962 Hugo Award winning alternate history novel The Man in the High Castle.

This is book 11 of my 2014 Historical Reading Challenge hosted by Historical Fiction

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

Ever since the 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch in which her father sacrificed his life to save Adolf Hitler from the bullet meant to kill him, Gretchen Müller and her family have enjoyed a special place in Hitler's world.  But now, in 1931, Gretchen, 17, has had the seeds of doubt about her father's sacrifice planted in her mind by none other than a Jewish reporter for the Munich Post, Daniel Cohen.  Handsome and not much older that Gretchen, Daniel claims that Herr Müller's death was intentional and not only that, but was done by a fellow Nazi Party member.

And it looks like Daniel Cohen may be right - the powder burns and bullet hole on the back of her father's shirt certainly seem to support the idea that Herr Müller was shot in the back.  But who and why would someone do such a thing to a man who was always so loyal to Hitler?

That's the mystery that Gretchen needs to solve and the only one who can help her is Daniel Cohen. Now Gretchen must overcome her ingrained aversion to Jews.  She had always believed Hitler when he said that Jews were subhuman, but Daniel seems to be anything but.

Solving the mystery of her father's death won't be easy for Gretchen.  First, there is her older brother Reinhard, a psychopath who has found an outlet for his sadistic behavior as one of Hitler's Brownshirts.   Reinhard loves nothing more than going out "Jew hunting" and delights in torturing his sister.  When Reinhard makes her pay for snooping in his room, Gretchen soon discovers that she has no one she can turn to.  Her mother is terrified of Reinhard, yet lives in a state of denial about what he is.  Then there are Gretchen's best friends, Eva Braun and Hitler's half niece Geli (Angela) Raubel,  both appearing to be as loyal to Hitler as everyone else that surrounds him and neither willing to interfere on Gretchen's behalf.  When even Uncle Dolf, as she has always called Hitler, also turns his back on her, Gretchen begins to question everything she has always believed.

As Gretchen comes to rely on and trust Daniel Cohen, and as Daniel begins to see the real young woman behind the Nazi facade that Gretchen must wear in public, they find themselves attracted more and more to each other.   But Gretchen and Daniel also discover just how ruthless Hitler's quest for power is and why solving the mystery of Herr Müller's death may become a question of life or death for  both of them.

I have been of two minds about Prisoner of Night and Fog ever since I finished it.  It is a tension filled novel, that at times had my heart pounding.  The last days of the Weimar Republic were filled with hunger, inflation, unemployment, and political violence as communists and SA clashes increased.  Anne Blankman spares not punches when it comes to describing this aspect of in the book.  Reinhard and the other Brownshirts who appear in this story are probably the most true to life characters in term of their actions and Blankman even throws in the real-life figure of Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, and every bit as zealous in going after Hitler's enemies as Reinhard.  But…

I found the plot to be weak and unfocused at times, and too often I felt like I was reading a history book instead of a novel.  It was slow going a lot, followed by what should have been nail-biting tension if only I had cared more about Gretchen.

Gretchen has everything going for her as a character.  She is a strong young woman, somewhat independent, or as much as one could be as part of Hitler's inner circle of admirers, and open to changing her ideas about things even if reluctantly at times, but somehow she just didn't cut it.

So, maybe I didn't care about her or anyone else in the book because I felt the characters didn't have much dimension.  It was like I was told admirable or deplorable things about the characters, but I just never felt them to really be there.  Even Hitler spoke more in slogans that dialogue.  It was like a cardboard cutout was substituted for the real character.  Even that fact that he also came across as lusting for Gretchen, Eva Braun and Geli Raubel didn't feel real.  Maybe because most scholars believe he was asexual.  Reinhard was a good picture of a Brownshirts, but also completely lacks depth and personality.

Blankman introduces us to something called Cell G, a kind of early Nazi death squad.  I have never heard of Cell G before, but it was apparently the subject of an exposé that appeared in the real Munich Post in April 1932.  In fact, she seems to have relied heavily on a book by Ron Rosenbaum called Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil published in 1998, especially for information about Cell G.  In her Author's Note, Blankman refers her readers to this book, and even includes a pretty good bibliography.

But the thing that really annoyed me was the term night and fog.'  On pages 175-181, it seems to be equated with the idea of Jewish extermination.  But the term has nothing to do with the fate of German Jews and I thought this too misleading to ignore.  It came into use in 1941 with the passage of the Night and Fog Decree.  Its purpose was the disappearance without a trace of any resisters or saboteurs in the occupied countries.  Blankman is, however, correct in associating the term night and fog with the poem "Der Erlkönig" by Goethe.

Deapite all this, at the end of the day, I would still recommend this book to anyone who really likes historical fiction, if for no other reason than because there are not many books written about these last days of what was called the Kampfzeit, or the Nazi time of struggle to gain power.  You do get a sense of what it was like in 1931 and Blankman includes a number of figures like Rudolf Hess and Ernst Hanfstaengl who really were part of the Hitler entourage.  Nazi headquarters really was in the Braunes Haus, where Gretchen worked for Hanfstaengle.

Braunes Haus

This book is recommended for readers age 14+
This book was received as an E-ARC

This is book 5 of my Eurpoean Reading Challenge hosted by Rose City Reader
This is book 8 of my 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry

The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier

O to be in England…now.

The Imperial War Museum is running an exhibition until October 2011 called "Once Upon A Wartime: Classic War Stories for Children." It spotlights five works altogether: War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden, The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall, The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, and Little Soldier by Bernard Ashley.

One of the books used for this exhibit is the classic story The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier. It is the story of the Balicki family, Joseph and his Swiss wife Margrit and his daughter Ruth, 13, and Bronia, 3, and son, Edek, 11. In 1940, they are living in a Warsaw suburb in Poland during the Nazi occupation of that country, where Joseph is the headmaster in a primary school.

One day while teaching, Joseph turns a picture of Hitler so it faced the wall. His action is reported to the Nazi authorities by a student. Joseph is arrested and sent to a prison camp in Zakyna. He spends two years in the prison camp, ill but determined to escape, which he finally does manage to accomplish. Joseph spends 4½ weeks walking back to Warsaw, but when he arrives he discovers that his house has been destroyed, his wife has been arrested and sent to a work camp in Germany, and his children have survived but are no where to be found.

At the ruins of his home, Joseph finds a silver letter opener in the shape of a small sword. He also meets a young boy there carrying a wood box. Eventually he befriends the boy, Jan, who shows Joseph how and where to safely jump a train to Switzerland. Before he leaves, he gives the silver sword/letter opener to Jan and asks him to tell his children, should he run into them, that their father has gone to their grandparents in Switzerland to find their mother, and to follow him there. Jan puts the sword in his wooden box for safekeeping.

When their mother was arrested, Edek had secretly shot at one of the officers with a rifle, hitting him in the arm. Scared, the children decided to run away that night, over the rooftops of the adjoining buildings and just in the nick of time. As the children are running away, their house explodes – Nazi retaliation for the rifle shot. The children hide in a wood, surviving on the kindness of peasants and on Edek’s ability to smuggle. But one day Edek is caught and arrested. They hear nothing about him for two years, continuing to survive in the woods in summer and in Warsaw in winter.

In the summer of 1944, Ruth, now 15, and Bronia, now 5, hear that the Russians are pushing westward and are not far from Warsaw. This rumor turns out to be true and by January 1945, the Nazis are gone from Warsaw, but because of the fighting to regain it, so is Warsaw. At their former home, they find a very ill Jan. They nurse him back to health and are helped to survive by a kind Russian soldier, who also traces the whereabouts of Edek in Posen. But when they arrived in Posen, they learned Edek has TB and is in isolation. At the makeshift hospital for TB patients, they are told that he has just run away. Tired and hungry, they go to a refugee camp for food and rest, but when a brawl breaks out, the hand the pulls Ruth away from the fray is that of Edek. Together, the four children begin their journey to Switzerland in earnest by first taking a train to Berlin. By now, it is May, 1945 and the war over in Europe.

Their journey to Switzerland takes Ruth, Edek, Bronia and Jan isn’t easy. Edek’s TB gets progressively worse. Then Edek and Jan are caught stealing from the American troops in Germany, and Jan must do a week of detention. The children are taken in and cared for by a kindly farmer and his wife, but when they hear that all Polish people will be sent back to Poland, they are forced to make a middle of the night escape in some old canoes the farmer owns. All through their journey, the silver sword has been an inspiration to carry on and find their parents. But in their hasty escape, the silver sword gets left behind at the farm. It was their talisman and as long as they had it, they had good luck overcoming the obstacles they faced. Now it seems that their luck has run out. The canoe trip, which should have been easy, is not without hazards: Ruth and Bronia are shot at and one of the other canoes is destroyed. Later, they face a terrible storm while crossing Lake Constance, located in both Germany and Switzerland. Will they ever be reunited with their parents without the sword?

At the heart of this novel stands is the idea of family. The Balicki’s are is a warm, loving, supportive family, reason enough to motivate the children to find their parents. And the reason that the homeless, parentless Jan decides to stick with them. Like many people who lived through the war, the children find strength in themselves to endure, discovering that they can deal with all kinds of difficulties and hardships.

Throughout the novel, Serraillier juxtaposes the hatred and destructive nature of Nazism and the people who supported it against the kind and helpful people who rejected it, people who were willing to take a chance, even risking of arrest and death, to help the children

The Silver Sword was published in the United States under the name Escape from Warsaw, and is still available from Scholastic by that name. I prefer the original name, The Silver Sword since it has so much meaning the central characters in the story.

Although the novel was published in 1956, it remains a very exciting adventure for young readers and I highly recommend it.

The book is recommended from readers aged 12 and up.
This book was borrowed from the Juvenile Collection of the Hunter College Library.

Zoe at Playing by the Book has written an in-depth two part review with pictures of the exhibit "Once Upon A Wartime: Classic War Stories for Children." Be sure to take a look at it.


And if you are in London and get to the exhibit at the Imperial War Museum, you might want to also see the Winston Churchill’s Britain at War Experience. Not as fancy as the IWM, but a real experience. Simply take the Northern line from Elephant and Castle to London Bridge. The museum is located at 64-66 Tooley Street.
It is one among many of my favorite places in London (along with Pollock’s Toy Museum.)

This is book 10 of my British Books Challenge hosted by The Bookette

This is book 11 of my Forgotten Treasures Challenge hosted by Retroreduxs Reviews 

A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper

The brief history referred to in the title of this novel is the entries made by the main character, Sophie FitzOsborne, after she receives a diary for her 16th birthday from her brother Toby.

Montmaray is a very small fictional island in the English Channel at the mouth of the Bay of Biscay. The FitzOsbornes are the reigning royal family on the island. However, its royal residents only include, besides Sophie, her 10 year old tomboy sister Henry (short for Henrietta), her beautiful cousin Veronica, 17 and Veronica’s father King John. They live in a crumbling castle at one end of the island, and, despite being royal, they have no money. Rosemary Chester also lives with the FitzOsbornes, caring for the King, who is now quite mad most of the time. Rosemary’s son, Simon, lives in London, working for the family lawyer. Toby FitzOsborne also lives in London, where he attends boarding school. Sophie has a serious crush on Simon, though he doesn’t seem to know it.

There is also an Aunt Charlotte in London, who never makes an appearance in this novel. She has some money, and wants to present her two nieces Veronica and Sophie to London society during the social season.

On another part of the island, the village, live their subjects, three adult and one child, who play a somewhat integral part in the beginning of the story.

Most of the first half of the novel is taken up with family and island history. Sophie also chronicles all the daily events that occur on the island, the ships that come by bringing mail and supplies, as well as news of political events happening in Britain and Europe. The Nazis have been in power for almost 4 years and the Spanish Civil War is still raging, and King Edward VIII of England chooses abdication in order the marry an American. When Simon comes to visit, he and Veronica have very heated discussions about the role the island should play in Europe’s politics, and about different political systems that are in conflict with one another. The animosity these two young people feel towards each other nicely echoes the kinds of current events taking place among the various countries.

After one of the villagers dies, the remaining three subjects decide to leave the island and live in England. Not long after, a boat arrives on Montmaray and two Germans, Otto Rand and his assistant Hans Brandt, disembark,. Though they are wearing Nazi uniforms, Herr Rand informs the FitzOsbornes that he is there not on official German business, but for personal reasons. He is a medieval scholar from Berlin and has come to Montmarmay to request permission to look at the vast library in the castle in hope of discovering something about the Holy Grail. They are refused entry, but sneak in one night anyway. This rash act of theirs spells trouble for the FitzOsbornes and the island where they had always felt so safe and secure and life will never be the same. There is much more, but to go into any more detail would spoil the story.

This is a character-centered novel in which everything is filtered through Sophie’s eye as she writes in her diary. Nevertheless, the main characters are well-developed and sympatric, even if they do ultimately challenge our sense of right and wrong when you are faced with an enemy like the Nazis. Sophie’s youth and inexperience serve as good devices for Cooper to present a great deal of historical information. Some of this information is factual, some of it is not, but the difference is made very clear. Through Sophie’s entries we also see the foreshadowing of actual things to come within the fictional story of the FitzOsbornes. So much of what occurred in the 1930s led to World War II that I think pre-war books like this are an important part of understanding how and why it happened.

And of course you will hear A Brief History of Montmaray compared to I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, another wonderful book. They are definitely similar in some way, particularly the teenage diarists observing events around them. But Michelle Cooper has created her own distinct characters, distinct plotline and a distinct, extensive history for the island and its inhabitants. Still, if you like one, you will most likely like the other.

My only problem with A Brief History of Montmaray was the cover. It gives the impression that Montmaray is much smaller than it actually would be. However, the author, Michelle Cooper, has a website that includes information on her historical resources, maps of the island, how the castle is situated on the island and a floor plan of the inside of the castle and a very nice downloadable teaching guide. These are all very handy to have while reading and may be found at Michelle Cooper

This is a wonderful story; the kind that I hate to put down and can’t wait to get back to. And when I reached to end, I was comforted with the knowledge that there is a sequel, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, but unhappy to discover it will not be available in the US until April 2011. Without reservation, I would highly recommend this book to all YA readers.

A Brief History of Montmaray received the following well-deserved honors:
2008 Shortlisted for the Golden Inky Teenage Choice Award
2009 Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature
2009 Recommended Parents’ Choice Book Award
2010 Listed American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults

A paperback edition of A Brief History of Montmaray will be available in the US in March 2011.
This book is recommended for YA readers.

This is book 1 of my YA Historical Fiction Challenge hosted by YA Bliss
The book was borrowed from the Inwood Branch of the NYPL

Some Holiday Books - Chanukah

The holiday season has officially begun. And along with it is my first Holiday Readathon running from December 2nd to 5th and all I needed to do was make a pledge for charity. My pledge is 5¢ per page read to the Salvation Army and a can of food for each book read to a local food bank.
You too can sign up at Holiday Readathon

I am beginning the Readathon with books for Chanukah because last night was the first night of Chanukah and the world’s largest Menorah was lit at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan (59th Street and Fifth Avenue.) Chanukah is a joyous festival of lights, hope and miracles. And last night we did have a bit of a miracle when the horrible rain and strong winds stopped just in time for the lighting. If you would like to know more about this holiday, including how to make and play with a Dreidel and why children receive Chanukah Gelt, be sure to visit Chanukah on the Net

The Power of Light: Eight Stories for Hanukkah by Isaac Bashevis Singer, illustrated by Irene Lieblich.
There is one story for each night of Chanukah in this book. The sixth story, called “The Power of Light,” is about two young teens, David, 14 and Rebecca, 13, hiding from the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto after it was bombed and burned. They had been hiding for a long time because Rebecca was afraid to leave even though remaining there was also dangerous. But their story is one of courage and strength discovered in the glow of a miraculously found candle on the first night of Chanukah. They decide to bank on the miracle and travel through the sewers of Warsaw seeking partisans who could help them escape to Israel. Singer is a master storyteller and the stories in this book are – well – masterful.

Menorah in the Night Sky: a Miracle of Chanukah by Jacques J.M. Shore, illustrated by S. Kim Glassman.
This is a story about two young boys, Zev, age 12 and David, age 11. The boys are best friends, separated from their families in Auschwitz and working in a factory separating shoes. Homesick and sad, David did not want to remember the Chanukah celebrations he had had with his family before the war. Zev wanted to help David with a miracle of hope, but all he could do was tell David to look up in the winter sky, light their found, but forbidden candle and pretend they were lighting a Menorah. That night a bright star appeared as if it were the first candle on the Menorah. But could such a thing happen again and again for 8 nights? Well, it is the season of light and miracles.

One Yellow Daffodil: a Hanukkah Story by David A. Adler, pictures by Lloyd Bloom. Morris Kaplan is a florist, an older man who lives alone. Two children pass by his store every day and buy flowers on Fridays for Shabbes. When they come in on a Tuesday and buy flowers for Chanukah, Morris tells them that he had celebrated Chanukah when he was young, but not anymore. The next day the children invite him to their home to light candles and have dinner. When he leaves later that night, he pulls out a box of the only family mementos he owns, which includes the Menorah his family used back in Poland when he was a boy. The next day, he returns to the children’s apartment with the Menorah and tells them about being taken with his family to Auschwitz and how he ultimately came to possess his family’s Menorah. Morris is the only survivor in his family, his parents, brother and two sisters all perished. He believes that he survived because just when all hope was gone, he saw a daffodil blooming in the camp, and decided that like the daffodil, he too could survive in a place that offered no other hope.

The Tie Man’s Miracle: a Chanukah Tale by Steven Schnur, illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson. Mr. Hoffman is a door to door tie salesman, who shows up on a cold, snowy night with his tattered box of ties but with no overcoat. It is the last night of Chanukah and 7 year old Seth is annoyed because he is afraid Mr. Hoffman will delay their celebration. But Seth’s parents insist that Mr. Hoffman stay and he tells them how he lost his own family, two boys, three girls and his wife, during the war. After he leaves, Seth goes into the living room to look at the candles, which have all burnt down. He wishes that the tie man be given his family back. Suddenly the room goes dark, except for nine columns of smoke from the Menorah, which braid around each other. At the same time, Seth thinks he hears voices calling “Papa, Papa.” Even though Seth looks out for tie man everyday after that, he is never seen again. Did Seth’s wish come true and was the tie man reunited with his family? It is for the reader to decide.

By the Hanukkah Light by Sheldon Oberman, illustrated by Neil Waldman.
This is a story about the way one family celebrates Chanukah every year. It begins when Rachel and her grandfather clean the Hanukkiah, or Menorah. On the first night, after the candle was lit, grandpa always tells the story of the Maccabbees exactly the way his grandfather had told it to him. Next, he tells the story of Hanukkiah that had belonged to his family but was left behind when they fled the destruction of their homes, school and temples by the Nazis. Later, while grandpa was still an American soldier, he returned to the destroyed home of his family, and found the Menorah buried in the ashes. This is a true miracle that his family celebrates every year.

Nine Spoons: a Chanukah Story by Marci Stillerman, illustrated by Pesach Gerber.
This is my favorite story. Every year, when Oma’s family celebrates Chanukah, she tells them the story of the Children’s Menorah. One winter, in the concentration where she was, her bunk-mate, Raizel, said that Chanukah was coming. Raizel was an artist and wanted to find a way to help the children in the barracks celebrate the holiday. She comes up with the idea of making a Menorah out of spoons, but spoons were prized possessions among the people in the camp. Nevertheless, in various, often surreptitious ways, nines spoons were collected; Raizel twisted the handles around a stem, with the bowls of the spoons facing upwards and attached it to a piece of wood. The spoons were filled with stolen kitchen oil and lit with stolen thread twisted into wicks. After the war, Oma had kept the Menorah and the children used it every year to remember how this miracle happened under such dangerous conditions. This was based on a true story, told to the author by the woman survivor who brought the Menorah with her after the war when she came to the US.

These books are all part of my personal library.
Total for 12/2/2010 6 Books
                           239 pages

The Grand Mosque of Paris. A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews during the Holocaust by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland DeDaix

The Grand Mosque of Paris is a little known but important story, just like the The Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square was; a book about people helping others in a time of great peril. The central theme of The Grand Mosque can be summed up in the Islamic hadith* and a Jewish proverb quoted by Ruelle and DeDaix:

“Save one life, and it is as if you’ve saved all of humanity.”

The Grand Mosque of Paris was opened in 1926 on land donated by the French government in tribute to the many Muslims of her North African colonies who fought and died for France in World War I. At the time, most of the mosque’s members were Kabyle Muslims, Berbers from Kabylia in Algeria. It is a large place with both religious and social areas, including living accommodations, so that many people can be within it’s walls at any given time. When the Nazis invaded Paris in 1940 and began their roundups of Jews for deportation, it did not take long for the rector of the mosque, Si Kaddour Bengharrit, to realize that the Muslim community could do something to help the Jews – they had both the space and the means to do this. And so the Muslims of the Grand Mosque began to rescue Jews, and within three months of the Nazi occupation of Paris, the rector and his congregation were suspected of and warned against helping anyone escape to safety.

The story is well done and well researched but the authors also write that attempts to verify much of what they found for this book were not terribly successful:

Writing about clandestine events that took place at a time of turmoil involving people who had an oral rather than a written tradition, and with many of the participants having now passed away, presents many difficulties.” (pg34)

Yet, there is enough evidence to prove that it happened and Ruell and DeDaix present the story in part by using examples of people who had been helped. One such person was Salim Halali, a Berber Jew from Algeria, studying in Paris to become a singer. Salim found refuge in the mosque and received a “Certificate of Conversion” from the rector. The rector even had a stonecutter called in to carve a false gravestone with Salim’s family name on it for authenticity. Although Salim remained at the mosque until the war was over, most of the people who received help did not stay as long. In fact, only those Jews who also looked North African were able to stay in the mosque for more than a few days, since it was easy for them to pass as Muslims. Those who did not look North African had to be guided out to safety as quickly as possible.

According to Ruell and DeDaix, the Muslims had a real advantage as far as the Nazis were concerned. Though the mosque was suspected of helping Jews, the Nazis didn’t target its members for it because they feared an uprising of Muslims in Northern Africa and the Germans were already fighting the Allies there. And on the occasions when the Nazis did show up to search the mosque, the members had various ways of delaying their entrance, giving the people inside time to hide. In addition, though the authors do not indicate whether or not they were actually sick or orphans, many of the Jewish children brought to the mosque were sent to Muslim clinics outside Paris to protect them from the Nazis. These clinics were run by a Tunisian Dr. named Ahmed Somia. There, they administered to the children as well as Allied pilots, parachutists and even spies who found themselves injured and trapped in France.

The Muslim helpers had many ways of doing what they needed to do in order to help the Jews. Ruell and DeDaix explain that as members of the French Resistance, the Kabyles could safely carry messages and instructions written in their native language which was difficult and understood only by other Kabyles. As businessmen, they were also able to sneak people into the mosque with the help of their deliverymen using a three-wheeled bicycle with a large bin in front. Once inside the mosque, the members could provide the escapees with whatever they needed until they could be secreted out through a complicated series of tunnels. These tunnels, sometimes compared to the American Underground Railroad, were the result of stones quarried underground for constructing the buildings in Paris centuries ago. The Jews would then be led through the tunnels to the River Seine and put on to barges. There, the Jews were hidden in the large barrels that were used for delivering wine to Paris.

The authors also did the illustrations for this book and they are simply lovely, providing a real sense of the story. The Grand Mosque is, in reality, a truly beautiful place and the illustrations capture much of the artistry of the North African craftsmen who built the mosque. The illustrations give the sense of an oasis of peace and calm and safety in a world gone mad.

This is a highly recommendable book, containing a lot in this interesting and touching information. I think it would be a wonderful addition to a class learning about the Holocaust. There is an excellent teacher’s guide provided by the publisher, Holiday House, for use with this book at

http://www.holidayhouse.com/docs/TheGrandMosqueEdGuideFINAL.Web.pdf

*A hadith is a saying attributed in some way to the Prophet Muhammad.

Non-Fiction Monday is hosted this week by  http://blog.wrappedinfoil.com/2010/09/nonfiction-monday-for-september-20-2010/

Once (Book #1 in the Felix and Zelda Family of Books) by Morris Gleitzman

Once I read a story about a 10 year old Jewish boy named Felix who lived in Poland in 1942 and I felt a terrible sadness as I read.

Once is very poignantly narrated by Felix. He tells the reader that he had been placed in a Catholic orphanage by his parents, booksellers in Poland, and has lived there for three years. He also tells the reader that he likes to make up stories and is considered by others to be quite good at it. Felix always carries a notebook in which he writes down his stories and hides it inside his shirt for safekeeping. Once he found a whole carrot in his soup and told himself that it was a sign that his Mum and Dad were coming back to get him. But they never show up. When Nazis suddenly show up at the orphanage to burn the books in the library, Felix remembers the time they destroyed the books in his parent’s bookshop and reasons with himself that the Nazis are only after books. He decides to leave the orphanage and find his Mum and Dad, to warn them that their books are in danger.

As Felix goes along looking for his parents, he starts to tell himself stories about what he sees. For example, a few days after he begins his journey, Felix comes across an empty house, with the kitchen stove still burning and half eaten meals on the table. He tells himself a story about the people who live there and why they have left so suddenly:

In the distance I hear faint gunshots.
Of course. That explains it. They’re out hunting. They must have seen some rabbits, grabbed their guns and gone after them in a big hurry. (pg33)

The reader of course knows why the house is empty and what the gunshots are even if Felix doesn’t.

Felix is a clever boy who not only creates his own stories, he also uses the knowledge he has acquired from other stories he is familiar with. As his search for his Mum and Dad takes Felix towards an unnamed city, he sees a house on fire and the bloody owners lying outside on the ground. Not sure if they are dead or alive, he picks up a feather and holds it in front of their noses: “It is how you tell if people are dead. I read it in a book once.” (pg.55) This is also the house where he finds six year old Zelda and the place where a very scary suspicion of reality begins to occur to Felix:

A little kid. What sort of people would kill a little kid just for the sake of some books? A horrible thought grows in my throbbing head. What if us Jews aren’t being bullied just because of books? What if it’s because of something else? (pg 56)

Felix continues his journey now accompanied by the traumatized Zelda, to whom he continuously tells stories. As they continue on towards the unnamed city, they run into a large group of weary men, women and children walking along the road, all wearing armbands with Jewish stars, and being escorted by Nazi soldiers. At first, Felix thinks they are all Jewish book owners. Forced by the Nazis to join the group, another bit of reality scarily intrudes into Felix’s thoughts after asking one of the men if he is a book lover, then wishes he hadn’t:

Not just because I’ve made a suffering Jewish man feel upset at the sight of a crazy kid. Also because I’ve got a horrible suspicion I know the answer to the question.
Maybe it’s not just our books the Nazis hate.
Maybe it’s us.

When Felix and Zelda finally arrive in the city, they are taken into hiding by a dentist who is already taking care of several other children whose parents have been put on transport trains. The dentist, Barney, is a character modeled after a man who actually did take care of Jewish orphans. Janusz Korczak was a Jewish children’s doctor and well known author. When the Nazis rounded up the orphans he was caring for to transport them to Treblinka, they offer Korczak sanctuary. He refused to leave the children, choosing instead to go to his death with them. In his Afterword to Once, Gleitzman explains that Korczak became his hero after reading about him.

Once is the story Felix tells us about his life as a child in this particular time and place in the history of the Holocaust. His journey to find his Mum and Dad also turns out to be Felix’s journey from innocence to realization about the situation of Jews under the Nazis. The book is geared for readers aged 11 and up and I would highly recommend it for that age group. Younger readers, even those who have high reading levels, may still find it too disturbing.

I was told that I would want to immediately read the next two books, Then and Now, in the trilogy Gleitzman has written about Felix and that has certainly turned out to be the case. Unfortunately, they are not available in the US yet.

For another review of Once, see:
http://fourthmusketeer.blogspot.com/2010/06/book-review-once-by-morris-gleitzman.html

Penguin has published an excellent teacher’s guide for Once at:
http://www.penguin.co.nz/webfiles/PenguinGroupNZ/files/OnceTeachNotes.pdf

So much of Once centers around the idea of storytellers and storytelling. It reminded me of the poster that bore a message President Roosevelt sent to the American people about the Nazi book burnings.

For more information on this poster  see:

http://snuffy.lib.umn.edu/image/srch/bin/Dispatcher?mode=600&id=mpw00264

The Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square by Joseph Ziemian, translated by Janina David

This is a true story about a group of Jewish orphans who survived outside the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto by selling cigarettes to Germans on the Aryan side of the city. Of these children, Ziemian writes on page 25

This group of Jewish children, wandering around under the very noses of a thousand policemen, gendarmes, Gestapo men and ordinary spies, constituted an unexplained and inexplicable phenomenon, no less mysterious for being real.

After the ghetto was established in 1940, some of the older kids would sneak out by various means to obtain additional food for their hungry families to supplement the meager rations given they were. These children would beg on the Aryan side and sometimes be given food by kind women, or they would sell family possessions to get money to buy bread. It was a hard and risky life for such young people.

Ziemian was part of the underground Jewish Resistance Movement in Warsaw and possessed a false ID card that gave him freedom of movement. He tells the story of Bull, whose real name Ignacy, the leader of the cigarette sellers. Bull’s life was relatively good in the ghetto until the Germans began their roundup of Jews for the first deportation to Treblinka in the summer of 1942. Right off, his father was killed by a German gendarme for possessing a packet of saccharine. Bull was seized from the street and put on a deportation train, but managed to escape from the moving train. When he returned home, he realized that his entire family was gone. He left the ghetto, hiding among a contingent of Jewish workers, but was forced to return at nightfall. He was again seized and put on another deportation train. Again he escaped. The contingent of workers welcomed him back and gave him a false work permit. He began selling possessions from the ghetto for people in exchange for food to bring back to them. One day, Bull noticed a group of four Jewish children. They found themselves under the care of Bull and the workers, until one day the workers were rounded up and deported. Bull again managed to escape, again found work as an apprentice cobbler and continued to smuggle food into the ghetto, only this time the loaves of bread also camouflaged guns. On the first night of Passover in 1943, the Germans attempted to carry out another mass deportation. This time they were met with armed resistance (the Warsaw Uprising). Again Bull found himself captured for deportation and for a fourth time he managed to escape, but suffered a serious leg injury. When his leg was healed enough to walk and he was back on the streets of Warsaw again, he met his first four cigarette sellers, who wanted him to stay with them:

“Yes, yes. I’ll work with you,” promised Bull. His arrival at the Three Crosses Square was the start of a new life for the children. Bull had authority. In their eyes he was grownup and experienced, and he became their leader. (pg 76)

Altogether, there were about 20 cigarette sellers, about five of them girls. After Ziemian befriended them, they also received false ID papers. They were continuously helped out by kind Polish women, but were dogged by “schmalzers” (blackmailers who would denounce Jews to the German authorities unless their demands were met.) Life continued to be hard, a matter of day to day survival, sleeping and eating wherever and whatever they could. Ziemian wrote about their ability to survive

After their escape from the ghetto they led an adventurous and independent existence on the Aryan side of Warsaw. Sentenced to death, hounded and harried at every step, they found a way of surviving in the jungle of the occupation. They knew how to defend themselves and how to fight for their existence; they knew – unlike so many adults – how to help each other. (pg 10-11)

There is much more to the story of The Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square, including that of little Bolus, age 7 and the youngest member of the group. It is a book written for young adult readers, but because of some of the graphic content, I would recommend it to more mature YA readers. It is also a translation from the Polish and sometimes it reads a bit awkwardly, but that doesn’t really interfere with the overall story.

Ziemian never uses anyone’s last name, which I assumed was for privacy reasons, since all the survivors were still living at the time he wrote the book. Three of the cigarette sellers did not live to see the end of the war, and he does tell the reader their full names as an act of remembrance. Most of those who did survive moved to Israel after the war, but a few went to Canada. All were successful in their adult endeavors. But the point of this book is not what became of the children later in life, but it is about their survival under extraordinary circumstances and that is what makes it worth reading. It is also very interesting that, aside from this book, there is very little information about the cigarette sellers and their amazing story.
Below are some of the photographs Joseph Ziemian had a photographer in the Three Crosses Square take of the cigarette sellers



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