Deborah Hopkinson

Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son unearths the hero­ic sto­ries of Jew­ish sur­vivors from dif­fer­ent coun­tries so that we may nev­er for­get the past.

As World War II raged, mil­lions of young Jew­ish peo­ple were caught up in the hor­rors of the Nazis’ Final Solu­tion. Many read­ers know of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi state’s geno­ci­dal cam­paign against Euro­pean Jews and oth­ers of so-called “infe­ri­or” races. Yet so many of the indi­vid­ual sto­ries remain buried in time. Of those who endured the Holo­caust, some were caught by the Nazis and sent to con­cen­tra­tion camps, some hid right under Hitler’s nose, some were sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ents, some chose to fight back. Against all odds, some sur­vived. They all have sto­ries that must be told. They all have sto­ries we must keep safe in our col­lec­tive memory.

In this thor­ough­ly researched and pas­sion­ate­ly writ­ten nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion for upper mid­dle-grade read­ers, crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed author Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son allows the voic­es of Holo­caust sur­vivors to live on the page, recall­ing their per­se­cu­tion, sur­vival, and resis­tance. Focus­ing on tes­ti­monies from across Ger­many, the Nether­lands, France, and Poland, Hop­kin­son paints a mov­ing and diverse por­trait of the Jew­ish youth expe­ri­ence in Europe under the shad­ow of the Third Reich. With archival images and myr­i­ad inter­views, this com­pelling and beau­ti­ful­ly told addi­tion to Holo­caust his­to­ry not only hon­ors the courage of the vic­tims, but calls young read­ers to action — by remind­ing them that hero­ism begins with the ordi­nary, every­day feat of show­ing com­pas­sion toward our fel­low citizens.