Choosing the best instructional books for young readers

A friend and I were recently discussing Holocaust books for young adults. During our conversation, she mentioned The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. I told her that I dislike The Devil’s Arithmetic. In fact, I wish that my son’s middle school did not offer it as an option for literature circles. Of course my friend asked me why I felt this way. It occurred to me that my answer might make a good blog entry.

To begin, let me state that there are other of Yolen’s books that I enjoy and believe are worth teaching. The Devil’s Arithmetic just isn’t one of them. The novel is an odd combination of historical fiction and fantasy that tells the story of a Jewish girl named Hannah. At the start of the novel as her family shares stories during a Seder meal, Hannah feels the ennui typical of teenagers. During the evening, Hannah opens the door of her home and is transported back in time to 1942 Poland. The reader follows Hannah through the remainder of the novel as she attempts to survive as a Jew under Nazi occupation. Absurd premise? I thought so. Reading the book didn’t sway my opinion.

I wouldn’t stop a young person from choosing The Devil’s Arithmetic for pleasure reading, even though I think there are better choices. My primary objection to the book stems from the fact that some schools choose it for instruction; this lends legitimacy to the novel it doesn’t deserve. The time-travel element of The Devil’s Arithmetic s is contrived and trivializes the subject. The Holocaust and fantasy do not mix well.

For upper elementary readers, Lois Lowry’s novel Number the Stars is a fine choice. Generally speaking, however, my position is that there are so many excellent Holocaust memoirs, biographies, and non-fiction options, I simply don’t see why a novel is necessary or justified as an instructional choice. A sampling of my non-fiction favorites for grades 7-9 are listed below. I invite you to respond to this blog with suggestions of your own favorite books for teaching the Holocaust to secondary students.

Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood by Nechama Tec

This is the true story of how eleven-year-old Nechama and her family were hidden by Polish Christians. Because Nechama could most easily “pass” as Christian, she was sent out to sell bread to help support her family. This is a suspenseful story that illustrates the dangers for Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and the conflicting motivations of Poles who chose to help their Jewish neighbors.

Behind the Secret Window: A Memoir of a Hidden Childhood During World War Two by Nelly S. Toll

Nelly was only eight-years-old in 1943 when she and her mother went into hiding with a Polish couple. To keep Nelly occupied and quiet during the long and boring days, she was supplied with materials to paint and keep a diary. Twenty-nine of these childhood paintings illustrate this memoir.

Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story by Lila Perl and Marion Blumenthal Lazan

I don’t feel that the Holocaust should be taught to students as young as sixth grade. If your school’s curriculum mandates that instruction begin at that age, this book would be a good choice. The book tells the story of the Blumenthall family and features two sections of historical photos, family photos, and photos of family documents. The Blumenthals are German Jews. Like Anne Frank’s family, they sense danger when Hitler comes to power and emigrate to the Netherlands. Eventually, of course, they are trapped. This is a “happy” Holocaust book in the sense that all four family members manage to stay together throughout their ordeal and survive to liberation. The story follows the family members through their resettlement to life in the United States. There is a companion video called Marion’s Triumph.

Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps by Andrea Warren

This book is a favorite because it tells the story of Jack Mandelbaum, a Kansas City area Holocaust survivor and a co-founder of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education. The award-winning author, Andrea Warren, lives in Prairie Village, Kansas. Jack endured several slave labor camps and the loss of almost all of his family members. However, he does not lose his humanity. His love of people suffuses the text and makes it a wonderful choice for middle schoolers. Jack’s testimony is available on video from MCHE.

All But My Life: A Memoir by Gerda Weissmann Klein

A striking characteristic of this memoir is the elegance of the language. Klein wrote it in English – her third or fourth language. Gerda endures imprisonment in her own home, relocation to a ghetto, and slave labor in several different camps. Toward the end of the war, Gerda is forced on a death march. This is a compelling story and has a companion film titled One Survivor Remembers which won an Academy Award.

In My Hands: Memoirs of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opduke with Jennifer Armstrong

Irene Gut was a seventeen-year-old Polish girl when WWII began. She was forced to work for the German army as a waitress and eventually as a housekeeper for a Nazi major. Against all odds, she successfully hid twelve Jews in the basement of the major’s home until the end of the war. In My Hands is the story of the sacrifices Irene made to save these lives.

The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by James Cross Giblin

I realize this may seem like an odd choice. Every year I have at least one middle school student who is fascinated with Adolf Hitler; you may also have students with this interest. This is the book I would recommend you hand to them. Giblin won the Robert F. Siebert Medal for this text which is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in the United States in English. The book is even-handed and does not glorify Hitler in any way. It dispels many common myths about the man and addresses his destructive legacy.

Book Review of Auschwitz: A New History

Laurence Rees is a writer and documentary filmmaker that has focused on the Nazis and World War II for approximately the last twenty years. This book accompanies the documentary film titled, "Auschwitz:  Inside the Nazi State" that was produced by the BBC and KCET (a public television station in Los Angeles). As the title of the book suggests, this history offers a new perspective because it provides the reader with new interviews (conducted by Rees) of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators.  Rees believes these interviews are unique because many of the perpetrators are approaching the end of their lives and are willing to record their roles, for better or worse, in this major historical event known as the Holocaust.  Another thing that allows for new perspective in this book was the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.  It opened the way for Rees to investigate archives and interview people that had once been out of reach. 

 Rees believes that "one of the worse crimes in history is best understood through the prism of one physical place - Auschwitz."  Rees leads his reader to the realization that the Final Solution, and the steps leading to it, was a business not of trials and errors, but of trials and improvements.  The reader learns about how Jews suffered as they were relocated into ghettos.  Their deportation to various work camps and the methods of their mass executions are examined.  Once the Final Solution became official Nazi policy, the methods of mass execution needed to be perfected to kill and dispose of the most number of bodies as quickly as possible.   Auschwitz-Birkenau was the culmination of all of the knowledge gained in this 'business' of the murder of the Jews.  This book gives its readers insight into behavior of perpetrators and victims at this one death camp.     

The author focuses on the alienation, relocation, and murder of various groups in Nazi occupied territory.  While readers are made aware of the persecution of groups like communists, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals, the story primarily focuses on the 1.1 million Jews that died in a strategic location that was chosen for its isolation and proximity to rail lines. Auschwitz was originally constructed as a prisoner of war camp but was transformed into an efficient killing factory with the use of gas chambers and crematorium (with the building of Birkenau).  Rees also examines the lives of those prisoners not immediately killed upon arrival at the camp and those Nazis charged with managing them. The stories about the psychological impact that the act of murdering had on the perpetrators, explains why a more efficient and hands-off method of murder was needed at Auschwitz than existed in other camps.  (The author also explains how the hands off approach that is developed at Auschwitz also helped make it easier for Nazis to escape prosecution when the war was over).

Rees takes his interview and intertwines them with policy development in Nazi occupied territories to give the reader both a top down and bottom up historical perspective of the Holocaust.  For example, Rees tells us about the development of the Kapo system where a person (known as the Kapo) would be put in charge of his fellow Jewish prisoners in the concentration camp.  As Heinrich Himmler (Head of the SS) explains, it was the job of the Kapo to get his men to work and if he did not he would lose his title and return to being a regular inmate. If that happened, they would "beat him to death his first night back." On the flip side, Otto Pressburger was a Jewish prison at Auschwitz and explained the violence of the Kapos toward the other Jewish workers.  He recalls how the Kapo killed twelve people "just for fun" and it all "happened the first day" he was at work in the camp. This mixing of a top down and bottom up perspective gives the reader a more in depth and intimate understanding of events.

Overall, Rees provides a balanced perspective of personal narratives and big picture historical events.  He is, at times, critical of the first hand accounts of not only perpetrators but also at least partially of survivors.  He delves into his interviews by examining questions he knows his reader will likely have. (Ex. What might be a person's motivation to lie or tell a partial truth? How does history impact memory?)  Rees also addresses issues that also seem a bit taboo such as a love story between an SS officer and female Jewish prisoner and a story of a survivor, who at the end of the war, took pride in hunting down and murdering Germans.  These lesser known stories, while shocking, help demonstrate the madness of the time period.  At times it seems Rees takes his reader off on irrelevant tangents, but he always comes full circle and ends up giving more depth to the reader's understanding of the Holocaust.