We Had to Be Brave

Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport

Awards and Accolades

Kirkus Reviews Best Book
NCTE Orbis Pictus recommended book
Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable Title

What is this book about?

Ruth David was growing up in a small village in Germany when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. Under the Nazi Party, Jewish families like Ruth’s experienced rising anti-Semitic restrictions and attacks. Just going to school became dangerous. By November 1938, anti-Semitism erupted into Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, and unleashed a wave of violence and forced arrests.

Days later, desperate volunteers sprang into action to organize the Kindertransport, a rescue effort to bring Jewish children to England. Young people like Ruth David had to say good-bye to their families, unsure if they’d ever be reunited. Miles from home, the Kindertransport refugees entered unrecognizable lives, where food, clothes — and, for many of them, language and religion — were startlingly new. Meanwhile, the onset of war and the Holocaust visited unimaginable horrors on loved ones left behind. Somehow, these rescued children had to learn to look forward, to hope.

Through the moving and often heart-wrenching personal accounts of Kindertransport survivors, Deborah Hopkinson paints the timely and devastating story of how the rise of Hitler and the Nazis tore apart the lives of so many families and what they were forced to give up in order to save these children.

Reviews

“Well-crafted, accessible, and essential.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“[A] moving tribute to the organizers of the Kindertransport and to the courage of the children involved. Generously illustrated with black-and-white photographs, the book is extremely well researched and a valuable contribution to Holocaust literature.” (Booklist)

“Hopkinson never minimizes or rationalizes; readers learn that 90 percent of the children rescued on the Kindertransport would never see their families again. Her distinguished book tells a story of suffering and resilience with sensitivity and respect for the truth.” (Jewish Book Council)