The Boy on the Wooden Box

Wow.  Just wow. This is the true story of Leon Leyson, a young man whose family lost almost everything in Poland during the Holocaust, yet made it through alive thanks to Oskar Schindler and his famous list. This is a story of the survival of humans through the generosity of those who seem least likely to offer it, and it is a story of bold chances taken and grateful, hopeful people. 

From the first words, Leon draws us into his story of life as a young boy in Krakow, and how that life changed as the Nazis invaded; how his family managed to stay together (mostly) for the duration of the war, and how he was reduced to digging through garbage for food and lying to soldiers to stay alive. But it is a fortuitous meeting of Leon's father with Schindler that ultimately keeps Leon's family alive; one by one they are taken from their camp and brought to work in Schindler's factory. The fact that young Leon, small in body from his years of starvation, was taken into Schindler's group attests to the good this one man was able to do right under the noses of the Nazis hungering for death for all Jews. Leon is mindful of his good fortune but doesn't shy away from the hard, brutal details of life in the Krakow ghetto and the internment camp. The fact that many times it all might have gone even more horribly wrong than it already had is proof of the triumph of spirit, and it is beautiful.

Leon Leyson was a gifted storyteller, and his story is one that will capture you, enlighten you, and uplift you. This is a look at Schindler's List from one of the workers who was saved, and it's a story that we need to know.

~taminator40

At 64 pages, this rather slim book could be easy to dismiss among the large amount of stories that give faces to the horror of the Holocaust. And that would be a shame indeed, because this one's a gem, with my only complaint being that I wished it had been longer. 

I certainly did not know much of anything about Terezin (called Theresienstadt by the Germans), a small fortress town in the now Czech Republic which was turned into a Jewish ghetto by the SS during WWII, before picking up this volume. Amazingly, amid the starvation, deprivation, and inhumanity, artists of all kinds were able to find outlets within the ghetto and left behind stunning works of art that chronicled the time spent at the mercy of the Nazis. Illustrated throughout with examples of this art, Terezin brings to life those finding a small measure of beauty within the walls of the town. It would be enough if that was all that was found within the pages of this book. But the actual photographs and statements of prisoners make the story so much more than just a factual timeline; it lends faces to those whose lives were lost at the whims of the SS for no reason other than race. Seventy plus years on, it's still horrifying, and we need to remember. This book does an excellent job of reminding us what was lost--and what still managed to live in the face of such evil. Though this is technically a children's book, it has a voice that speaks to all. Recommended.


~taminator40

Eva's Journey by Hava Ben Zvi

Eva's Journey is a spare tale that follows a young Jewish girl living in Poland during World War 2. When her mother and older brother leave Eva and her father to go to Israel, both of their lives quickly come into peril when Nazi Germany invades. Eva's father forms a plan to place her in a convent for safekeeping but he is unfortunately killed, leaving Eva alone and dependent upon herself for own survival. What she endures in the ensuing years is often horrific, yet Eva somehow perseveres, living through the Holocaust and even finding love as a survivor.


There is much to like in this short story written many years after the fact by Eva herself (now called Hava). The horrors endured are often unimaginable, and while Eva doesn't shy away from them, she does gloss over some of the worst details. What becomes most apparent while reading, however, is Eva's indomitable spirit that led her to continue to live, even when she felt herself incredibly alone and forced to live with cold, harsh people and conditions. My biggest complaint is how quickly the story moves; I felt that while I got a sense of Eva and her trouble, I missed actually getting inside her skin because the timeline moved so quickly. However, this book would be ideally suited for teachers to use in middle school classrooms as an introduction to the severity of life for Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany, and many lessons about overcoming obstacles can be learned by readers of all ages. Inspiring and enlightening, this is a tale you won't soon forget.
~taminator40

Day After Night by Anita Diamont

Anita Diamont's novel Day After Night is set in late 1945 inside a "camp" in Haifa, just after the victims of the concentration camps have been freed and victory has been won in Europe. Many Jews, upon release from their nightmarish conditions (whether from a concentration camp, being hidden, or from concealment of identity), decide that the time has come for them to emigrate to Israel, their promised land. Unfortunately quotas for Jewish emigration to Israel have been enacted, and those without proper identification or family find themselves "held" in Atlit, a camp that is nothing more than a holding pen while their fates are decided. It is within this camp that Diamont's story focuses on four young women whose divergent stories come together as an escape is planned into the Promised Land.

Based on a true story, Day After Night brings to light the plight of many Jews, who having survived the Holocaust, found themselves interned once more while the slow wheels of government turned. Zorah, Tedi, Shayndel, and Leonie spent the war years in different ways but all have decided that their best hope to escape the past lies in living within a kibbutz in Israel. The story alternates between the women as they try to come to terms with their pasts as they prepare for an uncertain future. All of the women have special gifts that enable them to be leaders in the secret escape planned for the almost two hundred Jews trapped within the camp, yet they find themselves at the mercy of their demons, unable to forgive themselves for surviving when so many others perished.

Day Into Night is a glimpse into the aftermath of the Holocaust, a time I admit to knowing little about beforehand. I liked how Diamont revealed the layers of the characters slowly, bringing their private griefs to the surface as the result of events going on around them. There is not a great deal of background revealed, but what does come to light shows the justification for actions and emotions. I do wish that a clearer explanation of what a kibbutz is had been supplied (and might be in the final edition, as this was an advanced reader copy), and a little more story on how each woman got along in the immediate days after escape would have been welcome. But this is indeed a well-told tale, and I found myself caught up completely within the lives of these fictional women thrown into a very real event. Recommended.

~taminator40

Review of Gertruda's Oath

Every time I read a book about a person who survived the Holocaust, I am amazed at the bravery of those involved in the survival of the hidden Jews. I wonder if I would've been so courageous, risking my own life to save those oppressed; I wonder at why sometimes rather ordinary people do extraordinary things without blinking. All of these thoughts occurred to me once more when I sat down to read Gertruda's Oath, the story of a Catholic nanny who not only saved her Jewish charge, she fulfilled his dying mother's wish that the boy be raised in Palestine.

Gertruda's Oath is the story of Gertruda Babilinska, a Polish Catholic who is hired by the Stolowitzky family to take care of their only son, Michael, right before the Germans invade Poland. The Stolowitzkys are very wealthy, and Gertruda comes to love young Michael as if he were her own. When the Germans come into Poland, however, Michael's father is in Paris on business and is unable to return to his family or bring them to him. Desperate, Gertruda, Michael, and Lydia, the mother, flee their home for the relative security of Vilna, but their chauffeur underhandedly takes all of their belongings and money, so the trio is forced into a small apartment with basically nothing. Lydia becomes sick and passes away, but before she does, she charges Gertruda with the life of her son, and Gertruda promises to be as a mother to Michael. As Gertruda fights to hide Michael's Jewish background, she must make life-changing sacrifices and rely on Fate to keep them both alive throughout the War.

Gertruda's Oath is also the tale of Karl Rink, an SS man married to a Jewish woman, who must make the gut-wrenching decision to send his only child to Palestine as he realizes what loyalty to the Nazi regime is going to cost him. Karl's story links to Michael's, and Oren moves back and forth between the two. Interspersed are also the stories of the local Jewish doctor and Michael's father, Jacob, who initially survives the German occupation of Paris with the help of a waitress named Anna. The story is also bookended with the grown Michael searching for his father's very large fortune known to have been left in a Swiss bank, making me want to turn the pages quickly to find out if restitution is ever made.

This is a well-written story, and the author obviously worked closely with Michael Stolowitzky in telling it. I learned about the illegal immigration to Palestine of many Jews after the war ended, something I had not known wasn't allowed by the British. There were times, however, while reading that I felt the author's style of writing was more suited to a younger audience than to an adult's; it felt a bit choppy occasionally and some of the dialogue seemed stilted. But this is not a child's tale, really; there is violence, loss, and deep emotion that might not be suitable for a younger audience. And this book does indeed deserve a wide audience, and Gertruda's love and sacrifices deserve to be told and celebrated. Definitely a riveting tale that gives true meaning to the triumph of the human spirit in the face of great evil.

~taminator40

It Happened in Italy by Elizabeth Bettina

Through a series of coincidences and a lot of curiosity, Elizabeth Bettina, author of It Happened in Italy, discovered that Italy, ally to Hitler's Germany, also contained concentration camps in which Jews were interned. Though she had summered with her Italian grandparents for years growing up, it took a random photo showing a Jewish rabbi alongside a Catholic priest on the steps of a convent during World War II to spark Bettina's imagination: What was a rabbi doing in Italy during the war? What was a Catholic priest doing, smiling alongside him? Thus was born a journey that would take Bettina into Italy's past and forge friendships that would celebrate a shared heritage.

Elizabeth Bettina's discovery that Italy had concentration camps near her grandparents' hometown fueled her desire to get to know some of the Jews who lived in them, and through her research, she came to know several of the survivors quite well. Italy, though one of the Axis powers, did not persecute the Jews in the camps like the Germans did; many of the Jews were allowed to visit interned family and to even walk around the villages during the day. As Bettina further delved into the story, she came to realize that it was the decision of most of the Jews to move to Italy as the war began that actually saved their lives; their treatment was much gentler, and the local Italians not only helped them, they hid them when necessary. Bettina eventually brought the survivors to the notice of the Catholic church,which had sheltered and helped many of them, and was instrumental in having them visit with several high-ranking officials at the Vatican, including Pope Benedict. She escorted several of the survivors on trips back to the camps; her experiences often border on the fantastic when connections are made from random remarks and old photographs.

Elizabeth Bettina's book sheds important light on a facet of World War II history that is often overlooked. I personally had not realized that Italy housed concentration camps, but I was immensely relieved to realize that, as one survivor said, there were good people alive in bad times. Bettina's writing style is a bit repetitve at times, and though I truly believe she loves the survivors and their stories, she does make sure to give herself credit for their recognition. But honestly that is a minor fault in a well-told story that found me learning so much about an area I previously knew nothing about. I can recommend this book as a great way to get to know Italy's role in the Holocaust; the survivors' stories will make you realize how much they lived through and triumphed over.

~taminator40

Clara's War--A Holocaust Memoir

The next time I am feeling sorry for myself, I vow to remember this book. What are my trivial (often self-made) problems compared to surviving the Holocaust by living in a bunker for 18 long months? What do I have to complain about when there is no one hunting me down simply because of my race and/or religion, and I have more than enough food at hand? I've never lost a younger sister at the hands of sadistic Nazis and been unable to properly mourn because doing so might bring death to the surviving Jews hidden with me. Truly, reading Clara's War by Clara Kramer has put my problems in perspective and has given me keen insight into the experiences of a young woman forced to live underground in constant fear.

Told by Clara Kramer, the book is based on her life in Poland as a teenaged girl forced to survive the extermination of Jews by living in a bunker under the home of the Beck family. Clara documented (at her mother's insistence) the horror by writing in a diary as the eighteen people crowded together in the most primitive of conditions endured incredible heat and cold, constant hunger, and the terror of Nazi soldiers who moved in just above them. Though Clara was glad to be alive, she knew that her survival came at great expense to the family who lived above, and her constant theme throughout the book was that the Becks put themselves in danger repeatedly for people they hadn't really known very well before they volunteered to hide them. Clara also described the utter desolation she and her parents felt when her younger sister Mania, in an hysterical fit brought on by a fire in the house above, escaped the bunker and fled to the local nunnery, only to be turned in by former schoolmates and ultimately shot. Through the pages of her diary (now in the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.), Clara reconstructs an unbelievable and horrifying time in history from her often numb, and sometimes desperate, point of view.

Any time I read any book based on the Holocaust, I am amazed at this carnage allowed to happen and the loss of so many lives at the hands of the Nazi regime. That Clara and her family were among only 50 survivors of their Jewish town's population of 5000 is a testament to the goodness of the Becks and the determination of the Jewish families hidden inside a tiny bunker. This book rips your soul apart as you read of death and loss, and yet there is a triumph in the end that Clara and her parents somehow survived. This is a well-written story that brings to life a time many would like to forget occurred. Don't let that happen; pick up this book and let your own perspective on life be changed.

~taminator40