Survivors club: the true story of a very young prisoner of Auschwitz

Bornstein, Michael and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat. Survivors club: the true story of a very young prisoner of Auschwitz. 2017. 352p. 452 mins. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Born in Zarki, Poland after the German invasion of September 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War, Michael Bornstein has known nothing but war, and the Jewish oppression and extermination is nothing out of the ordinary for him. His father, an accountant before the war, was appointed as president of the Jewish Council by the occupiers. Through skills and luck, he managed to make life bearable for most of the Zarki Jews, and kept his family together. Michael’s father, mother, grandmother, and brother continued to live in their house until the Germans decreed that Zarki was to become Jew-free. Even then, they were able to stay behind with the clean-up crew for a few more months, as rumors of resettlements in the East turned to confirmation of death camps where Jews were being massacred and incinerated.

Eventually, the Bornstein family’s luck ran out. First transferred to a munitions factory, they were soon put on a train to Auschwitz where both Michael, his mother and his grandmother were separated from his father and brother, who perished in the Nazi gas chambers. Though only four years old, Michael’s mother managed to keep Michael hidden and safe for months. Her deportation to Austria to work in another munitions factory left Michael and his grandmother alone in the most notorious death camp. Michael was once again saved from death when he became sick enough that his grandmother, in despair of losing her last family member, smuggled him in the infirmary where he experienced a bed all to himself for the first time in his life. The next morning, the Germans were gone and the Soviets arrived. Wanting to achieve a propaganda victory over the Germans, the Soviets filmed Auschwitz’s surviving children showing their tattoos and gauntness, and Michael’s image was immortalized.

Michael and his grandmother returned to Zarki after the war, and reconnected with their family. His mother survived as well, and eventually they made it to the United States in the early 1950s where Michael became a successful academic and researcher. It wasn’t until decades later that Michael, watching a movie, realized that he was one of the children in actual footage of the war.

Working with his daughter, Michael retells his story from the fragments he remembers. Supported by archival research, Michael’s experience shows that wit, love and looking forward can keep hope alive even when it seems hopeless. Listen to a segment discussing this book and Michael’s experience here, and check out the book on Overdrive.

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer

Opdyke, Irene Gut and Jennifer Armstrong. In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer. 2008. 304p. ISBN 9780553494112. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Growing up in Poland, Irene never thought her country would be attacked. But when German tanks roll across the border on September 1, 1939, she decides to fight for her country. A nurse in training, Irene joins the tatters of the Polish Army and hides in the forest until she is captured by the Soviets, who have invaded the eastern side of Poland. Raped by the soldiers, she is sent to a Russian hospital as a prisoner. When her body heals enough, Irene resumes her work as a nurse and helps the wounded. When sexually assaulted by the hospital director, Irene manages to run away with the help of a kind doctor, and finds refuge with one of his colleagues deep in Russia.

When Irene gets wind that Polish prisoners are allowed by German authorities to return to Poland, she makes the dangerous trek back to the border and after another arrest by the Soviets manages to board a train taking her back home. She is soon reunited with her family, and everyone has survived the conflict. Because she looks and speaks German, she gets a job working in a hotel for German officers. She begins to witness atrocities against the Jews, with the local ghetto abutting the hotel. Irene decides she must help the Jews as much as she can, and she provides them with food.

Her life changes again when Germany invades Russia in 1941. At first the front moves forward quickly, and Irene finds herself returning to the site of her first imprisonment. Working for the major in charge of the ammunition plant, Irene manages to move several Jews in comfortable working positions so that they can escape the harshest work. She soon discovers that Hitler’s Final Solution is about to strike, and she saves many of her friends by having them live in the basement of the major’s house. She continues to help local Jews and partisans, but as the Russians begin pushing back and the front moves closer, Irene is forced to withdraw.

When the war ends, she manages to return home, only to be arrested by the Soviets again as being an enemy of the state for her partisan activities. Escaping one more time, she first arrives in Germany, then eventually emigrates to the United States.

Not Jewish herself, and considered not dangerous because she was a simple girl, Irene manages to not only save herself, but also many others. Her legacy of courage and dedication in the face of evil continues to inspire to this day.

The Old Brown Suitcase

Boraks-Nemetz, Lillian. The Old Brown Suitcase. 2008. 202p. ISBN 9781553800576. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Slava leads a charmed life. She is loved at her house in Warsaw, Poland. She dances in music recitals. She has a younger sister. Her father is a prominent lawyer. But the Nazis have seized power in Germany, and war is threatening. When it finally breaks out, Slava and her parents soon find themselves in the Jewish ghetto, despite not being practicing Jews. As conditions worsen, her sister is smuggled out of the ghetto to a Christian family for safekeeping. Following Hitler’s decision to liquidate the ghetto, Slava herself is smuggled out of the ghetto and sent to the country to live with her grandmother, who married a Christian and is relatively safe. But Slava must pretend to be a niece, instead of a granddaughter.

Reunited after the war with her parents, Slava discovers that her sister did not survive. The family emigrates to Canada, and discovers that adapting to a new country is as hard, if not harder, than surviving the Nazi war machine. Not speaking the language, Slava becomes Elizabeth and enrolls in 9th grade, despite being the oldest student. She struggles with English, Math, and Science, but excels at Latin and French. Bullied for being different, and encountering anti semitism even in Canada, Slava eventually manages to catch up in her schooling. She meets a nice boy, and she discovers what her new life has to offer.

Slava’s story is told in alternating eras, her life in Canada as a teenager and her life in Poland as a child. Through it all she carries a brown suitcase, given to her by her father as a present. From her escape away from the ghetto to her arrival in Canada, Slava relies on the suitcase to carry her meager possessions until one day, she realizes she has outgrown it and no longer needs the security it provided.

Readers who like Holocaust stories will appreciate Slava’s drive to survive as a child and thrive as a teenager.

Night

Wiesel, Elie. Night. 2006. 120p. ISBN 0-374-50001-0. Available at B WIE on the library shelves.

Elie Wiesel is a teenager in Sighet, a town in Transylvania. Once part of the Austria-Hungary empire, the whole area was transferred to Romania in 1920, but reoccupied by the Hungarians in 1940. At first, the large Jewish population of the town is not worried, despite the rumors they hear from other countries under Nazi occupation. Life goes on in Sighet. Then in 1941, the Hungarians expulse Jews who are not citizens. One of them escape capture in Poland and returns to warn the Jews of Sighet of the Nazis’ plan to kill them all. They ignore him.

Then in 1944 Hungary, which had been an allied of Nazi Germany, seeks peace with the Allies. As a result the Germans invade the country. Suddenly life becomes dangerous for the Jews. Elie’s family is forced to wear the yellow star. Their assets are seized, but his father manages to bury the family fortune. Then they are expelled from Sighet and placed in cattle carts to Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp.

The Wiesels are separated by gender, and this is the last time Elie sees his mother and younger sister alive. Elie and his father do everything to look after each other, but life in the camp is horrific and filled with pain, suffering, and death. As life devolve and the front moves closer, the Germans are becoming anxious to leave. The entire camp is evacuated and forced to walk for days to another camp deeper in Germany called Buchenwald. Elie did not think life could get any worse, but it does. Despite the beatings and the suffering, however, Elie continues to fight to survive, until he witnesses the death of his father, beaten by other inmates.

As the camp is prepared once again to evacuate, the Americans arrive and free the prisoners. Elie has survived the war, but at a terrible psychological cost.

A seminal work of the Holocaust, Wiesel makes life in the concentration camp real and horrific. Several questions raised by him continue to be of actuality even more than 70 years later, and it remains one of the most read story of the Second World War. You can read more about survivors of the Nazis concentration camps in Wiesel, Wisenthal, Klardsfeld: The Holocaust Survivors.

T4

LeZotte, Ann Clare. T4. 2008. 108p. ISBN 978-0-547-34852-0. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Jews were the Nazis’ principal targets. But in their plans to establish a master race, the Nazis were also concerned with eliminating what they considered undesirable elements of German society, such as homosexuals, the mentally handicapped, and those who were blind and deaf. In October 1939, with the Second World War now in full swing and Germany’s conquest of Poland, Adolf Hitler signs a decree authorizing physicians to euthanize anyone not meeting the master race standards. Simply known as Aktion T4, over 90,000 people were killed by Nazi doctors.

Paula Becker is thirteen years old. Deaf from birth, she lives a good life with her family in a rural German town. She can communicate with her family, but has been sheltered all her life. As rumors begin to spread of disabled children dying in their placement hospitals or shelters, Paula’s parents decide to entrust her to Father Joseph, the family priest, who promises to educate Paula and keep her safe for the duration of the war.

Paula ends up moving with a widow, who taught deaf students before. She teaches Paula how to use the universal sign language to communicate ideas and desires, but her presence is discovered and Paula has to run. Relocated to a church shelter, Paula has to pretend she can hear so she can stay one step ahead of the Nazis. When the unpopular order is finally rescinded in 1941, Paula is able to return home to a world that has changed beyond recognition.

Told in free verse poetry by a deaf author, this short book is a fast read and provides another view of the Holocaust, with a victim that is neither Jewish nor foreign, but rather a German girl hated by her own government simply for being deaf. Pair this book with What World is Left for a true Holocaust experience.

What World is Left

Polak, Monique. What World is Left. 2008. 215p. ISBN 978-1-55143-847-4. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

In the First World War the Dutch were neutral, and they fully to retain the same status if Germany went to war against France and England again. Only that wasn’t the case, and Hitler’s armies invaded Holland, Belgium and France. The Dutch bravely resisted for five days but then surrendered in the face of overwhelming force. Suddenly, the Jewish population of the Netherlands was under Nazi subjugation.

For Anneke Van Raalte and her family, life doesn’t change much at first. Sure, there are food shortages, and they now have to wear the yellow star, but her father still works as an artist for the newspaper. Soon, however, strict rules are implemented. Her father loses his job, and the entire family receives orders to report to the train station to be deported to a Nazi model city for Jews, Theresienstadt.

Packed in cattle wagons, Anneke can’t believe that things will get worse. But concentration camp life is hard on her and her little brother. Working hard every day, Anneke soon loses hope of ever seeing freedom again. As more and more people are brought into the camp, trains collect even more people to take them to the East, and an uncertain fate spoken in whispers. As the tide of war turns and Germany is put on the defensive first on the Eastern Front, then in the West with the Allied landing, German leaders attempt to put a better public face on their camps. The Danish Red Cross requests a visit to Theresienstadt, and Anneke’s father is coerced into participating in the sprucing up of the camp with new paints and “public works” that will make life appear better than it is.

While this bold faced lie the Nazis purport to present to the world bothers Anneke, her father’s participation in this propaganda effort bothers her more. What is more important? Keeping one’s family alive at all costs, even if it means helping the enemy conceal the true conditions of the camp, or stand up for what is right, even if it may cost you your life? Anneke has a life or death choice to make if she hopes to survive the war.

Partially based on the life of the author’s mother in Theresienstadt during the Second World War, Anneke’s story is one of survival and its costs. For another story of Dutch citizens caught in the webs of the Second World War, take a look at The Girl with the Blue Coat. Monique Polak also wrote a great contemporary story about a girl who loves boxing, Straight Punch.

Girl in the Blue Coat

Hesse, Monica. Girl in the Blue Coat. 2016. 309p. 583 mins. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

In the Second World War, no act is too small to help resist the Germans. The year is 1943, and the Nazis have conquered most of Europe. Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands have been occupied since 1940. Like many teenagers, Hanneke’s life has been in turmoil, and she had to grow up fast. Her boyfriend was in the Dutch navy and he was among the many who died in the five days the Dutch resisted. Working with an undertaker, Hanneke’s real job is to run contraband operations and hook up rich folks with the products they simply cannot go without even under occupation. This illegal work could lead to her arrest, but as the prototypical Aryan, she may do a stint in jail. Hanneke refuses to get involved in the war, believing that her small act of undermining the rationing system is her way of fighting back against the invaders.

When she delivers goods to Mrs. Janssen, one of her elderly client who recently lost her husband after he was shot in killed hiding Jews in his factory, she discovers that another Jew was being hidden in their house, behind a false cupboard. Asked to find the missing girl with the blue coat, Hanneke at first refuses, but finds the mysterious disappearance strange, and agrees to investigate. Soon, what was a simple way to make money becomes an obsession. How did the girl escape the house without being noticed? Where has she gone? Hanneke is about to be dragged into the war despite her best efforts, and the web of lies and duplicity she discovers will change her life forever.

For another take on Dutch Jews taken to concentration camps during the Second World War, take a look at Monique Polak's What World is Left.

Never Fall Down

McCormick, Patricia. Never Fall Down. 2012. 216p. ISBN 9780061730931. Available at FIC MCC on the library shelves.

Arn Chorn-Pond is a young orphan boy who lives with his aunt and his many siblings in Cambodia. The war in Vietnam has recently wrapped up, and the United States has abandoned the area. Despite hard living conditions and the lack of money, Arn leads a good life in his small village, and hopes to one day meet the Cambodian princess.

When the Khmer Rouge come to his village, however, life changes for the worse. Arn doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to be an unwilling victim in the largest genocide since the Holocaust. The Khmer Rouge hope to rebuild an equal society without class, educational, or cultural distinctions, based on a robust peasant lifestyle. Everyone, from intellectuals and members of the former regime to bystanders who look the wrong way become victims, assassinated by a cold-blooded killing machine. Even the Khmer Rouge feed on each other, with leaders appearing and disappearing as quickly. Their broken and bankrupt ideology eventually causes over two million victims in a country of roughly 8 million people.

Arn and his family are escorted out of the village based on Khmer Rouge rumors that it will be bombed by the Americans. In three days, the Khmer Rouge say, we will be returning. But no one returns. People are forced to work on the land. At night, the enemies of the Khmer are massacred. Arn’s aunt tells him a piece of advice that saves his life: “Bend like the grass.”

Separated from his family, assigned to work in a camp where the conditions are terrible, Arn knows he has to lose himself in order to survive. The Khmer Rouge play tricks. They offer things, but if you accept them you are a negative influence and you are eliminated. But when a soldier asks the children at the camp if anyone plays music, Arn, who has never played music, volunteers. This decision saves his life.

Set in one of the worse time periods in history, Arn’s story of survival and courage under the most withering conditions is a testament that humanity can be beat down, but never killed. Fans of Holocaust fictions will appreciate this book and the positive message it ultimately carries.

The Book Thief

Zusak, Marcus. The Book Thief. 2005. 552p. ISBN 978-0-375-83100-3. Available on the library shelves at FIC ZUS as well as both an eBook and audiobook on Overdrive.

Entrusted to foster care, Liesel Meminger witnesses her brother die on the train taking both of them to a new family. This death marks her with nightmares about his vacant stare as he laid dead. More horrific, but less personal, is what the Nazis are about to inflict on Germany.

At 10 years old, Liesel cannot read, but her new foster father, Hans Hubermann, begins teaching her that words are powerful. Her foster mother is never hesitant with swears, call Liesel all sorts of name, but she means well. Having already stolen a book to replace her dead brother, Liesel becomes a book thief, stealing one book at a time and savoring all of its letters before moving on to the next one.

Her best friend, Rudy Steiner, wants to kiss her, but she stands up to him. She is not interested. The Hubermann family is poor and not very educated. But Hans and Rose love Liesel in their own way. Molching is a small town of no military interest save that it is on the road to Dachau. The beginning of the Second World War does not change life much for the Hubermanns, aside from jobs that slowly disappear as privations begin hitting everyone. But when Max Vanderburg, the Jewish son of the man who saved Hans from certain death during the First World War shows up on their doorstep, seeking refuge, their very lives become endangered. Harboring a Jew could mean their death.

Liesel becomes attached to Max, however, who lives in the basement, and as the tides of defeat encircle Germany, her small world becomes even more difficult. With bombs falling from the skies, Jews being walked through town, and Death hovering nearby and harvesting souls, the book thief will need more than courage to survive this ordeal.

Courage & Defiance: Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survivors in World War II Denmark

Hopkinson, Deborah. Courage & Defiance: Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survivors in World War II Denmark. 2015. 324p. ISBN 978-0-545-59220-8. Available at 940.53 HOP on the library shelves.

On a sunny morning in April 1940, citizens of Denmark woke up to a German invasion. Knowing full well that the small kingdom stood no chance against the mighty Nazi machine, the King and his government quickly surrendered to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Overnight, Denmark was occupied, and life changed for the worse for most people.

Some, however, refused to accept their government’s position. They decided to fight on through acts of sabotage. At first they worked by themselves, burning German cars and buildings used by the German army. But slowly, the resistance organized itself. Great Britain sent agents, money, and equipment, while on the ground locals found targets and destroyed trains, bridges, and factories.

For each act of rebellion, the Germans increased the pressure on the Danes. When the decision was reached to arrest and deport all Jewish Danes to concentration camps, the population actively participated in hiding and helping the Jews escape. Of a population of more than 7,000 Jews, only a few ended up in concentration camps. More saboteurs and resisters were arrested, however, and exiled in Germany to work in the concentration camps industries. But even here, the Danes were looked after and, thanks to effective organization and cooperation with Sweded, were better treated.

This book details the courage and defiance of those who opposed the Germans from the first hour, and recounts their struggles as they fought against the odds to eventually participate in Germany’s defeat. Fans of the Second World War will enjoy this look on a topic that is not well known.

Gypsies

Sirimarco, Elizabeth. Gypsies. 2000. 32p. ISBN 978-1-8870-6891-8. Available at 305.89 SIR on the library shelves.

One of the most persecuted ethnic group in the world, the Romani people have for centuries endured despite the best efforts of European nations to eliminate them. Originally from the northern part of India, Romanis moved from country to country, eventually traveling into Europe and migrating to North and South America.

Their distinctive culture and language has set them apart from the societies in which they live, causing fear and resentment. The Nazis escalated the harassment of Romanis by imprisoning them in concentration camps. They were the second largest group eliminated in the death camps. Known as Porraimos, their own Holocaust has not been recognized by others.

Despite low levels of education and literacy, Romanis have begun banding together to exercise their rights and protect their communities. Officially recognized by the United Nations as a distinct group, Romanis continue to thrive, even as they remain mysterious to outsiders.

Holocaust Resistance

Blohm, Craig E. Holocaust Resistance. Part of the Understanding the Holocaust series. 2016. 80p. ISBN 978-1-60152-846-9. Available at 940.53 BLO on the library shelves.

It has long been common belief that the Jews went to their execution like sheep, refusing to believe until the very end that their lives were in dangers. After all, who could possibly conceive that an entire group of people were slated for destruction? This book puts this belief to rest by presenting the lives of people who resisted the Nazis and fought back, either through passive means or by taking up arms.

Resistance took many forms, from spiritual resistance to Jewish partisans to those non-Jews who saw the madness and decided to fight on the side of truth and justice. Organized fighting in Jewish ghettos, guerrilla warfare from thick forests, and the Kindertransport from Germany to England immediately before the war are also explored.

This is a very informative book that is sure to offer a different view of the Second World War.

Nazi War Criminals

Nardo, Don. Nazi War Criminals. 2016. 80p. ISBN 978-1-60152-850-6. Available at 341.6 NAR on the library shelves.

Part of the Understanding the Holocaust series, this book discusses the heinous actions the Nazis took during their reign of terror and in occupied countries during the Second World War. Even as the Allies were closing in on Germany, many high ranking German officers began to plot their escape from the justice the victors were sure to inflict on them.

Some hid in plain sight and were captured. Others surrendered. Many fled, with the help of fascist Italian bishops, and headed to Argentina, which was governed by a fascist dictator. Groups in Europe and in the United States organized and began tracking down these war criminals.

Allies conducted twelve separate trials in Nuremberg, as well several smaller ones throughout Europe to hold as many Nazis accountable as possible. The first trial in Nuremberg dealt with the highest ranked individuals within the Nazi party and the war machine. Most were found guilty and were hanged. A few received long prison sentences.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the hunt for German war criminals continued, and many were arrested and brought to justice. As the years went by, a trickle of former Nazis was dragged in front of a judge, but now, more than 70 years after the end of the Second World War, the Nazis that remain in hiding at in their 90s and unlikely to survive to the end of the decade.

These crimes have led to the recognition of crimes against humanity. Other crime of genocide, such those in Cambodia in the 1970s and in Rwanda in 1994 are also briefly discussed. This is a great book to understand some of the consequences of the Holocaust.

Rose Under Fire

Wein, Elizabeth. Rose Under Fire. 2013. 360p. ISBN 978-142318469-0. Available at FIC WEI on the library shelves.

In this companion volume to Code Name Verity, Rose is an American teen pilot as well as an amateur poet. Tasked with flying planes from one location to the other, she has been flying since 1943 and though the war is real, with V1 bombs falling on England from the skies. Rose is friends with Maddie, who is also a pilot and whose best friend was killed in a botched escape attempt from a Nazi convoy.

Asked to fly a damaged observation plane from Paris back to England to get it fixed, Rose is forced to land in Germany and is quickly captured by German soldiers. Turned over to the SS, she is imprisoned at Ravensbrück, the notorious death camp for women. Having arrived with a truckload of French resistance women, she herself is therefore considered French.

Life is threadbare, horrific, and violent at Ravensbrück. Rose meets the Rabbits, a group of Polish girls who were gruesomely experimented on by Nazi doctors. Taken under her wing by Lisette, a matronly French woman, Rose can only count on her friendship with these women to save her life. Sustained by her poetry and by the vain hope of surviving her captors’ viciousness, Rose loses sight of days.

As more and more women become crowded in the limited space of the concentration camp, life becomes unbearable. Is Rose strong enough to make it one more day?

Auschwitz

Croci, Pascal. Auschwitz. 2002. 88p. ISBN 0-8109-4831-1. Available at GFX CRO on the library shelves.

Kazik, Cessia and their daughters are Jews who arrive in Auschwitz. Quickly separated after getting off the train, Kazik’s only desire is to be reunited with his wife and child. An older prisoner takes him under his wing and shows him the tricks of surviving in the death camp. And when the occasion presents itself for working in the Death commandos, Kazik takes it, knowing that it is a death sentence. The commandos’ job is to dispose of the dead bodies, but they can travel from camp to camp, and Kazik hopes to find his family.

When he discovers his daughter under a mass of dead bodies in one of the gas chambers, Kazik is shocked that she is still alive. He manages to revive her, but then he must beg for her life with the local S.S. commander. The commander tells him he will see what he can do, but Kazik is never sure whether he followed through or not. He managed to escape a month later.

Cessia then picks up the story, and tells Kazik that their daughter in fact did survive the horrors, and was reunited with her mother, only to die of typhus two days before the camp was liberated.

Hauntingly beautiful, the graphic quality of this story displays in images the horror that words can never describe.

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

Blankman, Anna. Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke. Book 2 of the Prisoner of Night and Fog series. 2015. 406p. ISBN 9780062278845. Available both as an eBook on Overdrive and at FIC BLA on the library shelves.

Gretchen escaped Germany and the Nazi takeover of the country, but in the process alienated her uncle, Adolf Hitler. With Daniel Cohen, the love of her life, they settled in Oxford where he works as a social reported while she lives with a gentle English family and attends school. For Gretchen, life is great, but for Daniel, not so much. He longs for the days of hard reporting instead of socialite events.

When he gets a telegram informing him of a tragedy in his family, Daniel decides to go back to Germany, even though he is a wanted by the Nazis. He departs without telling Gretchen, leaving her a note where he professes his love. Then a newspaper article appears, linking Daniel to the murder of a prostitute.

Gretchen decides to follow him back to Germany, knowing that she will be in extreme danger. Returning to Munich, she discovers that the Nazis are cracking down on the free press, and reporters are being arrested. Has Daniel already been caught? Fortunately she finds him at the train station, heading to Berlin, and she joins him to investigate the murder so he can clear his name.

What ensues is a race against time as Hitler’s S.A. are slowly closing in on the lovers and the date of the Enabling Law debate furiously approaches. Will they be able to discover the grim truth behind Monika’s murder and the proof that would bring down the Nazi government once and for all?