Forging Freedom: A True Story of Heroism during the Holocaust

Author Hudson Talbot had been friends with Jaap Penraat for many years when he realized that Jaap had an amazing story that needed to be told. Talbot tells this story in Forging Freedom: A True Story of Heroism during the Holocaust. The book neatly combines narrative with illustrations which should make this very readable for middle grade readers.

Jaap Penraat begins in Amsterdam in the 1930s where he is friends with many Jewish people. One elderly Jewish man is a special friend to Penraat who always helps out with small tasks for his neighbor. As the Nazis move into the Netherlands, Penraat is worried about the safety of his Jewish friends and begins to create couterfiet papers for them. After being arrested for suspicion of aiding the Jews, Penraat realizes that he must help more people more quickly. He and a friend travel to Paris to obtain a new type of travel permit for a fake company ~ they will be moving men to build a wall around Europe. Of course, their real purpose is to move Jews to France where they can safely get to Spain and on to freedom. From 1942 to May 1944, Penraat and his friend saved 406 Jewish lives. Penraat was awarded the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations. His medal is engraved with this proverb:

He who saves a single human life saves the entire universe. (p.64)

I found it interesting that School Library Journal gave this book a fairly negative review on November 1, 2000.

• The author's personal connection to and affection for Penraat is evident in the warmth of his descriptions. Unfortunately, much of the story is told through unattributed or fictionalized dialogue, and while the imagined conversations have the ring of truth, they are not supported by any documentation. Competent watercolors and pictures of forged documents lend some authenticity, but today's young readers have come to expect explicit sources for factual accounts. General statements and information presented only on the jacket are insufficient.-Kathleen Isaacs

I disagree with the reviewer and feel that this book can certainly serve as a beginning read for students who can then do their own research to add to the narrative of Talbot's informative and emotional account of his friend's wartime experiences. And while Books in Print did not indicate that the book has won any awards, Forging Freedom has been nominated for the three awards listed below.

The Holocaust Teacher Resource Center has an excellent lesson plan for this book designed for grades 5-8. Here is another lesson plan from Chapman University.

TITLE: Forging Freedom: A True Story of Heroism during the Holocaust
AUTHOR: Hudson Talbott
COPYRIGHT: 2000
PAGES: 64
TYPE: non-fiction literature
RECOMMEND: This is a fascinating story about courage ~ how one man saved his fellow Dutchmen.

AWARDS: Maryland Children's Book Award (nominated 2004)

Virginia Reader's Choice Award (nominated 2003)

Young Hoosier Book Award (nominated 2005)

Hiding to Survive: Stories of Jewish Children Rescued from the Holocaust

The number of Jewish children who were hidden during the Holocaust is estimated to be somewhere between ten thousand and five hundred thousand. The range is so vast because there are no records of the children and rescuers who were caught and killed by the Nazis. Nor is it known how many children survived by hiding but have preferred to keep their story private. In any case, it's guessed that about 1 percent of the Gentile population in Europe hid Jewish children. (p. 5)

Maxine Rosenberg's Hiding to Survive: Stories of Jewish Children Rescued from the Holocaust is another book which came out from the 1991 international conference for hidden children which was held in New York City. Rosenberg offers fourteen first person narratives based on interviews with Jewish children who were hidden in Greece, Belgium, Poland, Holland, Hungary, Lithuania, and France. Each adult interviewed tells a different childhood story of being hidden during the war - they all have one thing in common - survival. And while 1 percent of the population which hid these children may seem small, for these specific children it meant the world.

The book begins with a brief and concise history of Hitler's rise to power and his march through Europe with the intent of killing all of the Jewish people and others deemed unimportant. This history sets the stage for the individual stories. Each story begins with a photograph of the individual from sometime before or during the war and ends with a current (early 1990s) photograph. In some cases, a photograph of the rescuer is also included. The stories vary widely, but all must have been very traumatic for the children who were often separated from their families abruptly and, in most cases, did not know the new family or people they were to live with. To further complicate matters, both the children and their rescuers were scared - scared they would be turned in to the Nazis and killed. When asked why they risked their lives, and the lives of their own family, to rescue Jewish children, most replied, I only did whqat I'd hope another human being would do for me (p. 8). If only we all always observed the Golden Rule of do unto others!

The author also includes a glossary and a short bibliography.

Standards-based Activities with Scoring Rubrics: Performance-based projects by Jacqueline Glasgow contains an excellent activity for this book which will engage students with the children who survived during the Holocaust. You can view the entire activity and rubric from Google Books at the link above.

TITLE: Hiding to Survive: Stories of Jewish Children Rescued from the Holocaust
AUTHOR: Maxine R. Rosenberg
COPYRIGHT: 1994
PAGES: 166
TYPE: Holocaust narratives
RECOMMEND: The stories presented in this compilation provide compelling evidence that what Anne Frank believed - that people really are good - was at least true for the population of people who risked their lives to save small children from the Holocaust.

Behind the Bedroom Wall

Behind the Bedroom Wall by Laura E. Williams is an unusual fictional account of the Holocaust. It is unusual because the main character is a young German girl who is a member of the Hitler Youth Group. She, like many Germans, believed that Hitler was telling the truth about how he planned to lift up the German nation. She thought he was right about the Jewish people. This is certainly a different perspective than found in most Holocaust books.

Korinna Rehme is a 13 year old German girl who lives with her mother and father. She and her girlfriends belong to the Jungmadel, a Nazi Youth group for girls. Although their meetings are fun, the girls are taught Nazi rhetoric and trained to turn in anyone who does not comply with Nazi ideology. Korinna believes that she should be a loyal Nazi until something happens in her life that causes her to question everything. She finds out that there are Jews living behind her bedroom wall. At first, Korinna believes she should turn her parents in, but over time she learns that the mother and daughter living in hiding in her wall are people just like her family. Soon Korinna finds that she and her family must also hide.

The struggles of the young girl are often palpable in the book. I found myself hoping Korinna would make the right decisions. I think today's young people will identify with Korinna on many levels.

Here is a very nice teacher's guide for the book. The guide includes chapter by chapter lessons and vocabulary words.

TITLE: Behind the Bedroom Wall
AUTHOR: Laura E. Williams

ILLUSTRATOR: A. Nancy Goldstein
COPYRIGHT: 1996
PAGES: 169
TYPE: Holocaust literature

AWARDS: Numerous state book awards
RECOMMEND: This story is seen from the eyes of a young German girl, so the focus is a little different than normal. Certainly a topic of interest to young people.

Hiding Edith: A True Story

Edith Schwalb was only six years old when she and her family fled from their home in Austria to Belgium. As Jews, they were trying to find a safe place to live. By March of 1943, Edith's father had been arrested twice and her mother had to make a decision. Mutti sent Edith and her younger brother Gaston to live in a small town in France - Moissac; to live with strangers. But Mutti was convinced her youngest children would be safe. And they were. For a time.

Kathy Kacer shares this story with us in her book Hiding Edith: A True Story. There are two things that are amazing about Edith's story. The man and woman to whom Edith and her brother were taken were members of the Jewish Scouts of France and they provided a home for hundreds of Jewish children whose parents were either frightened or missing. What makes this a unique story is that all the townspeople knew the children were Jewish and instead of turning them it to the SS, they protected the children. After the war, all but one of these children was alive.

Even so, it was not only the townspeople of Moissac or Shatta and Bouli Simon that kept Edith safe. When it became so dangerous that the children could no longer stay in the house Shatt and Bouli found each one of the children a safe place to go and they left one at a time for their new homes. After the war ended, Edith returned to the home in Moissac to care for orphaned children.

For more information on the Jewish Scouts of France, click HERE.

Also, this book, published by Second Story Press, is A Holocaust Remembrance Book for Young Readers. You can view other titles in this series HERE.

TITLE: Hiding Edith: A True Story
AUTHOR: Kathy Kacer
COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 151
TYPE: Holocaust narrative, non-fiction
RECOMMEND: It seems that many of the books I have read recently have been about the rescue of Jews in France. Because most of my studies focused on Eastern European Jews, I am very glad to be learning about the experiences of Jews from other areas. This book is quite interesting and the photos provide another layer of education. The author did an excellent job in telling the story of Edith Schwalb Gelbard.

Angel Girl

Unfortunately this book is a little difficult to review. In addition, it is possible that even if you wanted to use it in your research or classroom you might not be able to locate a copy. As I read the book, knowing it was based on a true story, I found it odd that I remembered hearing something about this exact story recently. So I went to trusty Google and did a search for the title and author. Publisher's Weekly published the following on December 30, 2008:

Upon learning that the widely publicized Holocaust love story of Herman and Roma Rosenblat, which inspired the picture book Angel Girl, is not entirely true, Lerner Publishing Group announced yesterday that it would pull the book from shelves. Lerner imprint Carolhroda Books published Angel Girl by Laurie Friedman in September 2008. The house has canceled all pending reprints and is issuing refunds on all returned books. The company is no longer offering the book for sale and is recalling the book from the market.

So, you may wonder why I am bothering to review the book at all. For the author! Not that I know her, but she wrote the book believing that the story was true. And if it were true, it would be a powerful story. So she deserves credit for writing the book. In case you are wondering, she is not the only one who was fooled. A major motion picture company was making a production of the man's story when he finally told people that the story was not entirely true.

So what is the story. A young boy goes with his mother to a concentration camp where he is separated from his mother who tells him in a dream that "an angel will save you." The angel came in the form of a young peasant girl who threw food to him over the camp enclosure. Ater being liberated the young man travels to America where he meets and marries the same girl.

So it was an unlikely story, but one that held hope and love at it's core. Unfortunately the fact that it is based on a lie makes it very difficult to use or appreciate.

TITLE: Angel Girl
AUTHOR: Laurie Friedman
COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 32
TYPE: Holocaust narrative, written as non-fiction
RECOMMEND: It has a happy ending but is not true, so I just don't know what to say.

Hidden Child

While it will not be the last book I find written about this specific topic of Holocaust survival, it is the first for me to review. The author, Issac Millman, relates his experiences in France during the Holocaust. In a unique format which blends narrative with softly drawn mosaic illustrations sprinkled with photographs, the book is powerful in its emotion and child-like honesty. Because both indepth narrative and simple illustrations are used, the books is appropriate for a wide range of readers.

Issac Millman was only seven years old when his country, France, was invaded by Hitler's army. His father was arrested a year later and sent to a internment camp. He and his mother lived alone with the help of neighbors for another year and then attempted to escape to Free France. They were arrested and imprisoned. Except for the assistance of a friendly guard, Issac would have met the same fate as his mother and father who did not return at the end of the war. Issac was taken to a hospital where he pretended to be ill until he could be sent to live with someone safe. As in most life situations, safe was a relative term. Ultimately Issac was protected by a kind and caring Christian woman. After the war, Issac was adopted by a family in the United States.

After almost fifty years of silence, Issac Millman decided to tell his own story. He reminds us of what was lost and what was gained. Most of all, he urges us to remember.

TITLE: Hidden Child
AUTHOR: Issac Millman
COPYRIGHT: 2005
PAGES: 73
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: A rare story of a child who was hidden by Christians during the Holocaust.

The Secret of Priest's Grotto

The Secret of Priest's Grotto: A Holocaust Survival Story by Peter Lane Taylor with Christos Nicola is a different sort of Holocaust story. Two stories are told together and one supplements the other. Chris Nicola is an American caver and has traveled all over the world looking at and crawling into caves. In 1993, he was exploring the Gypsum Giants, a large cave system in the Ukraine, when he heard about the special use of one small part of the cave. Legend had it that a number of Jewish families survived in the cave throughout 18 months of the Holocaust. Through the magic of the Internet, Nicola was able to connect with survivors of this amazing Holocaust story. Luckily Esther Stermer, one of the Jews in hiding in the cave, wrote her memories in a book titled: We Fight to Survive. Through interviews with the living survivors, Stermer's memories, and an extended visit to the cave, Nicola produced The Secret of Priest's Grotto which is informative and amazing. One main idea through the book is that the cave provided the Jews a freedom the outside world could not. Esther wrote: We were masters of our own fate in the cave. There was no one to whom we owed our safety or upon whom we depended. After our men came in from the outside and scraped off the mud which would cling to their clothing as they slid through the entrance, and they had washed, they were free men. (p. 59)

To view some pictures of the cave, click here to visit the Ukranian American Youth Caver Exchange Foundation. Or visit the Priest's Grotto Heritage Project.

Another excellent article about the research and expedition can be found at the National Geographic Adventure Magazine.

TITLE: The Secret of Priest's Grotto: A Holocaust Survival Story

AUTHOR: Peter Lane Taylor with Christos Nicola

COPYRIGHT: 2007

PAGES: 64

TYPE: non-fiction

RECOMMEND: An exceptional book telling two stories. Both are stories of persistence, one an unimaginable story of survival.

Yellow Star

Jennifer Roy first learned her Aunt Syvia's Holocaust story almost fifty years after Syvia had been liberated from a Nazi camp, one of only twelve Jewish children who survived the Lodz Ghetto in Poland. Ms. Roy knew immediately that she wanted to tell the story to others. After a number of attempts, she decided to write the story in first person verse. She states:

When my aunt recounted her childhood to me, she spoke as if looking through a child's eyes. She made her experiences feel real, immediate, urgent. In the poetry of a survivor's words, this is Syvia's story. (p. n/a)

This memoir in verse is divided into five distinct parts, based on time periods during the War. The author provides brief historical facts about the period as it pertains to her aunt's family and other Jews in Poland and all of Europe.

The author provides free downloads for educators. Pre-Reading, Language Arts, Social Studies, Art/Music, Math, and Discussion Questions. Although our library has the book listed as Grade 4-8, I think that most portions of the book could be read to or by even younger students. The free verse is beautiful and true to the young girl who lived this life from age four to ten. While the story is often horrifying, I believe it is a story we all need to hear. Here is just a small sample of the story:

Yellow

is the color of

the felt six-pointed star

that is sewn onto my coat.

It is the law

that all Jews have to wear the

Star of David

when they leave their house,

or else be arrested.

I wish I could

rip the star off

(carefully, stitch by stitch, so as not to ruin

my lovely coat),

because yellow is meant to be

a happy color,

not the color of

hate. (pp. 7-8)

Ultimately, the yellow stars on their coats help in the rescue of Syvia and her family. What a wonderful tribute to one child's Holocaust narrative.

TITLE: Yellow Star
AUTHOR: Jennifer Roy
COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 227
TYPE: poetry, Holocaust memoir
RECOMMEND: Excellent book

Memories of Anne Frank: Reflection of a Childhood Friend

I have been to Amsterdam. I have walked from the center of town, along the canals, to visit the house where Anne Frank and her family hid. I walked through the small spaces and stood in front of Anne’s diary. It was a humbling and emotional moment. It brought the book Diary of a Young Girl to life; intensified the feelings I remembered from multiple readings of this classic Holocaust biography.

But Reflections of a Childhood Friend is more than the story of Anne Frank, it is the story of Hannah Goslar who was friends with Anne from age four until Anne died shortly after being reunited with Hannah in Bergen-Belsen. It was not until after the war that Hannah realized that Anne had not lived but had died shortly before the camp was liberated. I am grateful to Hannah for telling her story and for Alison Gold for recording it in a way that young people can read and appreciate.

Hannah’s story is equally compelling as she was separated from her family with only her younger sister to care for as they were “relocated” from Amsterdam to Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen. The courage of these women who were but young girls is inspiring and through Hannah’s memories, readers will gain a greater understanding of the hardships which were endured and the friendships which were held so close.

TITLE: Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend
AUTHOR: Alison Leslie Gold
COPYRIGHT: 1997
PAGES: 135
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I found this book, with photographs, to add to the Anne Frank story, as well as introducing me to another survivor.

LibrarysCat

Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine

Hana’s Suitcase is the story of one woman’s successful attempts to bring the Holocaust alive for Japanese children. It is also the story of Czech Jew Hana Brady and her brother George, who survived the Holocaust without knowing his sister’s final fate. Fumiko Ishioka, Director of the Tokyo Holocaust Education and Resource Center, wanted to have just one item from the Holocaust that Japanese children could touch and relate to – so they would really understand the harsh reality of the Holocaust. Fumiko was given Hana’s suitcase. On behalf of the Japanese children who visited the museum, Fumiko worked tirelessly to find out more about Hana. The book tells this story. It is a wonderful testament to the good people of this world who make a difference in the lives of children everywhere. And in some ways, Fumiko’s quest reunited George with the memory of his sister.

The story was first told by Paul Lungen in an article in the Canadian Jewish News. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio presented a documentary by the author, Karen Levine in January 2001. You can listen to it here. In addition, there are many remarkable links from this broadcast page. Another interesting development with this book is the production of a play: Holocaust story makes theatre debut, as it is reported in the Canadian Jewish News.

TITLE: Hana’s Suitcase
AUTHOR: Karen Levine
COPYRIGHT: 2003
PAGES: 111
TYPE: non-fiction
AWARDS: 2002 Award for Older Readers, Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Book Awards