Words And Silence

By ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Like the little girl who had curls right in the middle of her forehead, books on the Holocaust, written for children and young readers, seem to fall into one of two categories: when they are good, they are very, very good. And when they are bad, they are horrid. This year, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, is observed on Saturday, April 29. One of the best ways to commemorate the day is by reading about the millions whose lives were forever changed by the Nazis. The books listed below are excellent resources for doing just that.

Note: Edward Sullivan, senior project librarian for the New York Public Library's Connecting Libraries and School Project, has compiled a list of relevant texts in his book The Holocaust in Literature for Youth. Scarecrow Press. It's often a valuable resource, but it serves primarily as guide for teachers. Parents must carefully consider the listed texts beforehand, as many of the books cited are not appropriate reading material for younger children and pre-teens.

FOR YOUNGER READERS—Ages 6-12

THE NUMBER ON MY GRANDFATHER'S ARM
By David A. Adler.
Photos by Rose Eichenbaum.
28 pages. Union of American Hebrew Congregations Press. $12.95.

"Tender" and "gentle" may not be the first words you think of when considering Holocaust literature. And yet this treasure, inarguably one of the best Holocaust books ever written for young children, is just that. Through a series of photos featuring Ariella Eichenbaum, the photographer's daughter, and Ariella's grandfather, Sigfried Halbreich, a little girl learns for the first time about the numbers on her grandfather's arm. The two are doing the dishes when Sigfried begins telling of the attacks on Jews, of family he lost, of Auschwitz where he was a prisoner. The girl says, "There were tears in Grandpa's eyes and in my eyes, too...It must hurt him to remember the time he spent there and to remember all the people he knew who were killed." The two hold each other for a time, they wipe away their tears, and then they finish the dishes together. Restrained, eloquent, breathtaking in its ability to illustrate both the most profound grief and love, The Number on My Grandfather's Arm is exquisite.

MY SECRET CAMERA
Life in the Lodz Ghetto
Photos by Mendal Grossman.
Text by Frank Dabba Smith.
40 pages. Harcourt Brace. $16.

Mendal Grossman was an extraordinary human being. Risking his own life, he took secret photos of life inside the Lodz Ghetto, one of many ghettos where the Nazis imprisoned Jews before shipping them to the death camps. Grossman had access to film and a darkroom only because his job was to take pictures of Jews for identification cards; he died after a forced march in Germany. Grossman's photos illustrate both the pain and beauty of life, evinced by his famous picture showing a boy of about thirteen, who himself probably is starving, sharing his food with a tiny girl. There is agony—a mother speaks across a wire fence to her son, about six, who likely is on his way to a death camp—and hope—Jews in the ghetto making matzah before Passover. These photos would have been enough by themselves, though the publishers chose to include an accompanying text which is not always successful For example, "We must be brave and remain free in our hearts," written by contemporary author Frank Dabba Smith, seems awfully trite in the face of the power of these pictures. Still, if you have never seen Grossman's photos, and even if you have, this book will never lose its power to astonish.

ONE YELLOW DAFFODIL
by David A. Adler.
Illustrated by Lloyd Bloom.
32 pages. Voyager Books. $6.

David A. Adler, the author of The Number on My Grandfather's Arm reviewed above, is one of the best children's authors around, so it's not surprising that this book isn't just good, it's great. And in this case the illustrations are actually up-to-par with the copy. They're beautiful and haunting. One Yellow Daffodil is the story of a survivor named Morris who lives in a small apartment and works in a flower shop. He is often alone, and lonely. One day two children come into the store to buy flowers for Shabbat. They have just two dollars and ask for any leftover flowers. Morris gives them a huge, lovely bunch and says, "When you buy old, you get more." As Hanukkah approaches, the children's parents, Mr. And Mrs. Becker, invite Morris for dinner and to join them in lighting the menorah. The next day, Morris takes out his own menorah, packed away for so many years, and remembers when he was in Auschwitz. There, he saw a yellow daffodil and thought, "If the daffodil can survive here, maybe I can, too." When he returns to the Becker home, he tells them of his life. "I thought I would find some of my old friends in the village [after the war], but I didn't. I had no one." Mrs. Becker takes Morris' hand and tells him, "Now you have us." In his introduction, Adler says of his decision to write the book: "Morris Kaplan is a fictional character inspired by many of the Holocaust survivors I interviewed while researching previous books. Many survivors told me that after the war they returned to their villages, as Morris did, hoping to find a relative or friend who had survived. Many told me, too, that after the war they felt an emptiness that would not go away."

FLOWERS ON THE WALL
Written and illustrated by Miriam Nerlove.
32 pages. McElderry Books.

In a poignant photo taken by Roman Vishniac, a beautiful little Jewish girl lies in bed in her Warsaw home. It is winter, and there is no heat, so the girl cannot get up from under her blanket. In the background is wallpaper, covered with flowers. Inspired by this picture, Miriam Nerlove has written a book about a girl named Rachel from Warsaw who must stay in bed. She is sick, and it is cold. Her parents and brothers search for work; it is difficult, because the Nazis have come to power. Rachel stays at home, all the time, and cleans. Until one day her father brings her paint, and Rachel covers the walls with a garden of flowers—fresh, sweet beauty against dark walls filled with cracks where the cold seeps in. Rachel dreams of going to Paris. As this book ends, she and her family are taken instead to Treblinka where Rachel's dreams, "along with those of thousands of other Warsaw Jews, faded like the flowers on her apartment walls. And then they were gone forever." Yes, this is painful and both parents and children likely will be moved to tears. But do not shy away from this book because it does not have a happy ending. There was no happy ending to the Holocaust. Instead, be grateful that this very difficult subject has been handled so beautifully, both with words and in art, by a talented writer.

I AM A HOLOCAUST TORAH
The Story of the Saving of 1,564 Torahs Stolen by the Nazis
By Rabbi Alex. J. Goldman.
40 pages. Gefen. $12.95.

Certainly one of the more perverse aspects of the Nazi persecution of the Jews was their determination to create a museum about the very people they were murdering. Consequently, rather than destroy everything Jewish (though they did plenty of that), the Nazis at times set aside such items as sifrei Torah for later display in the museum. Some of these Torah scrolls sat in Prague for almost twenty years before they were discovered, and then saved by a British art dealer who took them to London. A number were unusable, but many were repaired and have since found homes in synagogues throughout the world. I Am a Holocaust Torah is the story of one such Torah. The illustrations in this book are fair; but the text is wonderful. Although it is "narrated" by the Torah, it never comes across as silly or trite. ("I used to be handsome. No more! Now I have scars, burns, tears. Part of me is waterlogged. I was not kept dry.") The Torah tells of its life in Prague, of the excitement when it was written and first brought to the synagogue. Then the Nazis came, and the Torah is placed in a dark closet with other sifrei Torah. "At one point one evening we all cried. Do you know what it is to hear 1,564 Torahs cry at once? It was a symphony of weeping." In the end, the sifrei Torah are found and repaired. The Sefer Torah who tells its story in this book finds a new home in a new synagogue. Here the rabbi is young and clean shaven, but he lovingly holds the Torah and kisses it. "Inside," the Torah says, "I feel myself crying." The rabbi looks at the woman [who has given him the Torah scroll], his eyes tearing, and says, 'The Torah is crying tears of joy."'

FOR OLDER READERS—Ages 12-18

Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld, himself a survivor, does not believe in writing fiction about the Holocaust. In fact, he says, the subject is so extraordinarily unique that it can only be spoken of in the most direct way possible: with the hard, painful facts. To make up stories, he says, is to trivialize those who actually lived, and died, during the Holocaust, and it makes life all too easy for Holocaust deniers who assert that the murder of Six Million was indeed fiction. Just how much of the truth, and how many facts, can be told to younger children is debatable. But certainly older children understand a great deal, and need to learn it no matter how horrible. Consequently, I opted only for works of nonfiction in this category.

THE CHILDREN OF IZIEU
A Human Tragedy
By Serge Klarsfeld.
Harry N. Abrams.

Serge Klarsfeld, along with his wife Beate, is best known for his efforts to bring former Nazis to justice. Today, he is an attorney living in France. The forty-four children of Izieu, France, all between the ages of four and fifteen, were among a handful of Jews taken to private facilities during World War II, where Jewish philanthropists paid for their care. That is, until Klaus Barbie learned of their existence, and promptly had all forty-four deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. The Children of Izieu is not an easy book to read—not because of the material, which is painful enough, but because Klarsfeld, for all his good intentions, simply is not a writer. But the photos. Oh, the photos. With the exception of one little girl, of whom not even a picture remains, readers come to intimately know each of these forty-four children. There is the charming Egon-Heinrich Gamiel, an only child, who was nine when he was killed, and Alice-Jacqueline Luzgart in her fancy sandals. She was ten when she was murdered. There are family photos, letters and documents, newspaper articles, all of which tell us about each child and remind us, as well we should know, that it wasn't one million children who perished—it was one, and then another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another. Though it is these forty-four lives that will stay most with the reader, the book ends with a fight (it's great) as we learn of how surviving members worked to bring Barbie to justice.

THE CIGARETTE SELLERS OF THREE CROSSES SQUARE 
By Joseph Ziemian.
Avon Books.

Ziemian, a former prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, tells here a true story of both despair and astonishing bravery. In 1943, a group of children stayed alive by escaping from the ghetto to the Aryan side, where they sold black-market cigarettes and sang (sometimes to Nazi soldiers), all the while somehow managing to conceal their true identity. Often, they were starving. Their families were killed or deported. But this group of children stayed together, worked together, and cared for each other. (A number survived, and they maintained their close friendship even as adults). Most stories of the Holocaust are painful to read, and rightly so. This book is also difficult, but it's such a powerful story of human courage and creativity that it gives us life, too.

THE HOLOCAUST HEROES
By David K. Fremon.
128 pages. Enslow. $20.95. (CCAR) Press. $12.95.
English and Hebrew.

If you only know a little about the Holocaust, it is easy to understand how you might imagine that everyone was a victim or a murderer. But there were heroes, too—not just the famous ones like Raoul Wallenberg, but others like young Sophie Scholl who helped create the resistance group the White Rose and was subsequently caught and executed by the Nazis when she was just twenty-two; and Sempo Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who defied his government and issued two thousand visas to Polish Jews, certainly saving their lives. There was Emmanuel Ringelblum, who chronicled life in the Warsaw Ghetto, and Janusz Korczak, who was offered the chance to live, but instead went to his death because he could not bear to be parted from the orphans for whom he was the sole guardian. The Holocaust Heroes is not a complete accounting of the subject, but it's a good start. Consider this an introduction, then encourage children to read more about the figures who intrigue them most—there are plenty of biographies on Scholl, Wallenberg, Korczak and Ringelblum.

BEHIND THE SECRET WINDOW
A Memoir of a Hidden Childhood During World War II 
By Nelly S. Toll.
161 pages. Dial Books. $5.99.

Adults sometimes have the annoying habit of thinking they can write from a child's perspective. So many "young adult" books try to present a teen's struggles, for example, but they're not written by teens and almost invariably something is lost in the translation. One of the most compelling aspects of Anne Frank's diary is that we see the world through a young woman's eyes. The same is true of Behind the Secret Window. Nelly was eight when she and her mother were hidden, in 1943, by gentile friends in Lvov, Poland. They stayed in a tiny apartment, where Nelly wrote in a black book about her life, the basis for this text. She speaks of family members, gone and certainly never to return, and of day-to-day life. She looks out the window, she prays ("At night, I continued to wait for my father as I lay in bed, watching the stars. Far away beyond them was God; I trusted Him, and He protected us") and she waits. Nelly is a bright girl who understands the evil around her, but like Anne Frank she never loses her dream for a better future. Nelly also draws, and this adds a truly unique dimension to this book. For while painting primarily served to entertain Nelly, it allows us to see the world—however bleak—through a child's delightful imagination. She paints flowers for her mother's birthday and a girl bathing her dog (although "In reality I was terrified of dogs, since the Germans used them to hunt Jews.") The bathtub where Nelly and her mother hid during air raids (since they obviously couldn't run to the cellar) becomes a lovely fixture, tended to by a chambermaid. Unlike Anne Frank's story, this one has a happy ending. Both Nelly and her mother survive. As they leave for a new life, Nelly breaths in the deep air of the beautiful outside: "Sun flooded the sidewalk and the wind seemed to hold its breath as our footsteps carried us away from the brick building."

YOUNG MOSHE'S DIARY
The Spiritual Torment of a Jewish Boy in Nazi Europe
By Moshe Flinker
419 pages. B'nai B'rith

You will not forget this book. It is the story of an observant Jewish boy, Moshe Flinker, who was a teenager when he was murdered in Auschwitz. Before his death, Moshe wrote down his thoughts—about persecution, about God, about suffering. For unknown reasons this book hasn't received as much attention as it deserves. It will challenge you, and your teens, to think.