Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy


Genre:  Historical Fiction, Fairy Tale, Young Adult
Source: I purchased a copy

 

I absolutely loved this book. This is a retelling of the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel with a Holocaust twist. A Jewish family fleeing the Nazis must make a real-life decision. They stop and drop their children off near a forest and tell them to run into the forest and hide. They are then to make their way through the forest, find a kind farmer who will take them in until they can be reunited again. From the very beginning you get the feeling that the step-mother doesn't like them. However, this book is darker than the original fairy-tale because of it's connection to the Holocaust. The children stumble upon a woman the village accuses of being a witch. The love she has for the children is obvious. There were surprises around each corner as you read. Full of tension this book takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride. Will the young active boy give them all away?  Will the young girl be able to control him?  Even that had a dark and unexpected twist to it. I found myself irritated everytime I was interrupted because I needed to find out how this would turn out.  Most of Grimm's Fairy tales didn't have a Disney type happy ending. That is probably why I enjoyed them so much. This author had all the darkness you would expect when reading a story involving the Holocaust yet was just as much about hope.  I highly recommend this book. Great for the older teens to adults due to very mature scenes.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin by Susan Goldman Rubin



Genre: Children, Biography, Holocaust
Source: I own a copy

When Ela Stein was a young child she and many other family members were shipped to Terazin. This was a Czech ghetto.  Shortly before they were shipped to Terazin her father was taken away for expressing his opinion about Hitler. That was the last that Ela saw of her father. In the ghetto her mother made a hard choice to send Ela and her sister to a barrack that was specifically for girls around her age. The living conditions were somewhat better and they received a little more food. The girls in room 28 formed a tight group. Soon someone decided they were going to present an opera. They practiced and practiced.  At one point the Nazis used their production for propaganda.  This book is a book that shows us what friendship and music can do to help people survive. It was a ray of hope in their lives.   This is a short book to read, but filled with so much information and lots of pictures to help understand.