Fritz and Kurt

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield (Puffin) PB RRP $16.99 ISBN978024156742

This book is the children’s version of The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz, the inspiring true story of a father and son’s fight to stay together and survive the Holocaust.

In 1938, brothers Fritz and Kurt Kleinmann’s family are Jewish, and that puts them in terrible danger as the Nazis come to Vienna. They hate anyone who is different, especially Jewish people.

Fritz, along with his father, is taken to a Nazi prison camp – a terrible place, full of fer. When his father is sent to a certain death, Fritz can’t face losing his beloved Papa. He chooses to go with him and fight for survival.

Meanwhile, Kurt must go on a frightening journey, all alone, to seek safety on the far side of the world.

In this extraordinary true story, Fritz, and Kurt face unimaginable hardships, and the two brothers wonder if they will ever return home.

For people who would like to know more about events, background, and context of the Kleinmann’s family story or about the Holocaust in general, the best starting place would be the original version of The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz, which includes full, detailed endnotes with source citations and a complete biography.

This children’s novel, written in third person past tense, would best suit readers aged 9+ years. Included in the back of the book is a section titled ‘What Happened After’, a timeline of events, and a note for parents, guardians, and teachers.

My Holocaust Story: Hanna

My Holocaust Story: Hanna by Goldie Alexander (Scholastic)

PB RRP $16.99                                                                                                        

ISBN 9781743629673

Reviewed by Hazel Edwards

Tragic but historic WW11 circumstances are a special challenge for authors and for readers, especially those books with the word Holocaust in the title. But Hanna's story has the feisty spirit of a young girl gymnast who courageously balances war-time deprivations with her Jewish family in the Warsaw ghetto and still helps others.

What gives this story the edge is the compassion and pacing, which does not make it overwhelming for the reader. It is extremely well researched and clearly evokes place and time showing, for example, the starving food smuggler gangs of children via the sewers, the secret schools in the ghetto and the random cruelties and kindnesses.

History has not been sanitised here and yet there is compassion for all caught on both sides, even the starving peasants who betray others. And, too, there's hope. Locals prepare to hide children and refugees. Readers are left with the question of how they might have acted in similar circumstances.

This is a highly significant novel and one I'd recommend for readers aged 12 years and upwards. It is also an excellent book to set for class discussions.

Alexander Altmann A10567

Alexander Altmann A10567 by Suzy Zail (black dog books)

PB RRP $ 18.95

ISBN 9781922179999

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Alexander Altmann at fourteen years old loses his name and becomes a number at Birkenau. Separated from his mother and sister by the wire fence, he pretends to be sixteen and is put into the men’s section to work.

Shattered at learning his young sister has gone to the gas chambers, and not knowing what became of his parents, he clings to ‘just get through the day’ as a lifeline. He watches as other boys get shot or kicked to death and he is determined not to be next.

When Alex is moved to the extermination camp at Auschwitz, his farm life and experience with horses, places him in the Horse Platoon to care for the animals. The decision to keep to himself and feel nothing for no one is fuelled by the smoke, smell and sight of death that constantly surrounds him. Even the friendship offered to him by the persuasive Isidor, another young horse-handler, is totally rejected.

It takes a new horse, a wild, frightened being, very much like himself, ‘to teach him how to be human’ again. As the Russian troops draw nearer and freedom is in sight, Alexander Altmann reclaims his name, along with many other things that were taken from him.

This deeply moving novel is based on the real life story of a Holocaust survivor. Suzy Zail has built powerful, heartbreaking images of the brutal life in concentration camps. The hunger, inhumanity and deprivation are presented in strong visual narrative. Suzy’s previous novel, The Wrong Boy, set in the same era, was short-listed for the 2013, CBCA Book of the Year Award.  

The Eagle Trail

The Eagle Trail by Robert Rigby (Walker Books)

PB RRP $16.95

ISBN 9781406346664

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

A dramatic prologue opens the scene for this action-packed war story. It is northern France, August 1940. Three Andorran mountain guides are taking a Jewish family to safety over the Pyrenees top escape internment by the Germans. Business is brisk for these hard men, but no one can guess what becomes of the people they are paid to accompany.

Paul Hansen has returned to Antwerp to his father and mother from an English boarding school. Although there is a night curfew, food is still available and conditions haven’t yet reached crisis point.

When Paul’s father, a senior manager on the docks, is murdered by German soldiers and his mother taken into custody, Paul too faces grave danger. His friend Jos, a member of the Resistance, makes secret plans to move Paul to safety. Twists and turns create nail-biting tension and increase the pace of the story as things go awry.

Traitors are everywhere and no one is who they seem. Paul finds himself swept up in a fast-moving tide of conspiracy and death. Betrayal and murder is all around him and no one can be trusted. The dangerous Eagle Trail holds the only exit, and Paul is forced to travel with the Andorran guides. Will he come out of it alive?

Lots of drama, journeys through changing landscapes and thrilling adventures create an interesting read about the beginning of WW2 and the French Resistance. The characters, seemingly strong and courageous patriots, kept me wondering who the traitors could be right till the end. 

Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto by Paul B. Janeczko (Candlewick Press/Walker Books)
PB RRP $16.95
ISBN 9780763664657
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

‘I saw many of the poems in it as solemn songs to the memory of the people who died within the walls of Theresienstadt’.

This powerful and profoundly moving collection of 35 poems has been informed by the writer’s research. Based on historical events and facts, the poems concentrate on the Czech village of Terezin (or Theresienstadt), which was used by the Germans as a way station to house the Jews of Prague on their way to the gas chambers.

The poems cover amongst other subjects: last goodbyes, letters from lovers, suicides, words of love, partings, the unbearable act of sorting the collected bundles, and several that describe the feelings of guards towards their prisoners. Included to accent the poetry are 9 historical illustrations by the inmates, three of which are double spreads.

This book is a valuable documentation on the tragic lives of the people at Terezin concentration camp. Readers interested in the subject can also refer to the extensive online information about this time in history, the area and its people.

A bibliography is listed with website information, foreign words and phrases and other resource references.

The Wrong Boy

 The Wrong Boy by Suzy Zail (black dog books, an imprint of Walker Books)
PB RRP $18.95
ISBN 9781742031651
Reviewed by Vicki Stanton

The Wrong Boy is a fictional account of a girl and her family struggling to survive one of history's most horrific events, the Holocaust. It is compelling reading. Written in first person, I felt I was there with Hanna every step of the way as her family is deported from their comfortable middle-class home in Budapest to the atrocities of Auschwitz concentration camp.

As the Mendels arrive at Auschwitz, Hanna, her sister Erika and mother are separated from her father. She never sees him again. Hanna finds solace in her music and eventually finds herself as pianist in the commandant's house. Hanna is ignored by all there. She is the invisible provider of the classical music. She feels the particular disdain of the Karl, the commandant's son, but later discovers that Karl's distance is not due to anti-Semitism but rather his own disgust towards his father and the Final Solution.

Life in Auschwitz is not glossed over: how the need to survive drives divisions within the Jewish women prisoners, the decline in the physical and mental health of Erika, and the relative health of Hannah are marked.

The romance between Hanna and Karl is delicately handled and not overplayed. Internal and sibling conflicts over the relationship simmer throughout. I thought it brave to introduce this element but Zail uses a deft hand and it adds to the poignancy of the story right to the very last line.