The Holocaust

Katherine T. Culler

This Website is for both of my grandfathers, Anthony Catalano and Bert Culler, who fought in World War II.


Picture Books:

Adler, David A., Ritz, Karen (Illustrator).   A picture book of Anne Frank. Holiday House, April    
     1994.

    The brief account introduces the courageous girl and the horrors of the Holocaust to young readers who are not yet ready to read The Diary of Anne Frank. Black-and-white drawings -- copies of actual photographs of Anne and her family -- are superimposed on the full-page, occasionally awkward illustrations, which are rendered in muted tones that appropriately reflect the mood and the times. -- Copyright © 1993 The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the School & Library Binding edition.



Hoestlandt, J, Kang, J.(Illustrator). Star of Fear, Star of Hope.  Walker Publishing Company. 2000.

     This is a story about two young girls, one of them who is Jewish, the other is not. The story takes place in France 1942. The story is told by an elderly lady who is remembering the day that her best friend was taken away by the Nazis. It was her ninth birthday. Her best friend Lydia, never returns, but she always has hope that someday she will come back.



Polacco, P. The Butterfly. Philomel Books, New York. 2000.

    Based on the true experiences of the author's great aunt, Marcel Solliliage, this poignant story is a good introduction to the terrors of Nazism, racism, and World War II. The emphasis is on simple friendship and quiet heroism, with an occasional lapse into clichéd metaphor (butterfly as symbol of freedom). Any child can relate to the bewilderment the two friends experience in the face of prejudice.
Patricia Polacco Homepage

Biography


Pariser, M. Elie Wiesel: Bearing Witness.  Millbrook Publishing Co. October 1994.

    Recounting the life of an Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Prize-winning writer, a young reader's introduction to the Holocaust and one of its notable figures tells of his courage, dedication to justice, and literary achievements.

Traditional Literature


Deedy, C.A., Sorensen, H.(Illustrator). The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X. Peachtree Publishers. Atlanta, GA.       2000.

From Parents' Choice®
Handsome double-page illustrations of Copenhagen and its residents during the Nazi-Occupation of World War II draw us into the events of a terrible time. We meet King Christian as he rides on horseback along the streets. We are with him in his office when he defies the Nazis order to fly their flag over his palace. When the edict comes that "All Jews must sew onto their clothing a yellow star," the king himself is reputed to have sewn a star on his own jacket. No one can actually corroborate this action by the King, yet it is known that no Jews within Denmark were forced to wear the yellow star, and more than 7,000 Danish Jews were smuggled to safety in Sweden during the war. The King's defiance was known throughout Europe and, factually true or legend, the story merits this straightforward retelling. A 2000 Parents' Choice® Gold Award.

Informational Books


Fox, A. (Epilogue), Abraham-Podietz (Epilogue). Ten Thousand Children: True Stories told by Children Who escaped the            Holocaust on the Kindertransport. Behrman House, 1998.

From Booklist
Gr. 5^-8. The Kindertransport was a rescue operation that saved 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe between December 1938 and September 1939 and found homes for them in England. Only 1,000 of them ever saw their families again. Olga Levy Drucker's Kindertransport (1992) is one survivor's detailed story. The authors of this book were also Kinder who got away to England, and they have written a profoundly moving, accessible account that combines the history of the time with the first-person testimonies of 21 survivors. Each chapter begins with the big picture--life under Hitler, Kristallnacht, preparing to leave, the journey, life in England through the war years and afterward--and then includes brief vignettes by Kinder who remember how it was for them; finally, a brief note summarizes what happened to each child afterward. The design is like an open scrapbook, with different size typefaces, snapshots, news photos, and marginal notes; and the combination of the general overview with personal memories will bring readers, from middle grades through adult, close to the experience. These people escaped; the brutality is offstage, but the anguish is in the childhood details. What was it like to say good-bye to your parents, knowing you might never see them again? To arrive in a new country, learn a new language, and live with strangers? To discover after the war that your family was gone? Or to find your parents, leave your foster home, and try to be a family again? The authors' quiet final note is rooted in the survivors' stories: the Kinder have learned, among other things, to appreciate people's differences and to remember the kindness of strangers. Hazel Rochman



Opdyke, I., Armstrong, J.(Contributor). In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer. Knopf. 1999.

From Horn Book
0-679-99181-6"--"Polish teenager Irene Gutowna's story--from happy eldest of four daughters to laborer in a German officer's mess hall to member of the Resistance--makes for gripping reading. Despite Armstrong's sometimes excessive novelistic flourishes, the power of Irene's true story keeps the reader spellbound. -- Copyright © 1999 The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.

Chapter Books/ Novels


Frank, A. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl. Prentice Hall. 1993.

A beloved classic since its initial publication in 1947, this vivid, insightful journal is a fitting memorial to the gifted Jewish teenager who died at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in 1945. Born in 1929, Anne Frank received a blank diary on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Her marvelously detailed, engagingly personal entries chronicle 25 trying months of claustrophobic, quarrelsome intimacy with her parents, sister, a second family, and a middle-aged dentist who has little tolerance for Anne's vivacity. The diary's universal appeal stems from its riveting blend of the grubby particulars of life during wartime (scant, bad food; shabby, outgrown clothes that can't be replaced; constant fear of discovery) and candid discussion of emotions familiar to every adolescent (everyone criticizes me, no one sees my real nature, when will I be loved?). Yet Frank was no ordinary teen: the later entries reveal a sense of compassion and a spiritual depth remarkable in a girl barely 15. Her death epitomizes the madness of the Holocaust, but for the millions who meet Anne through her diary, it is also a very individual loss.





Lowry, L. Number the Stars. Laurelleaf. 1998.

Amazon.com
The evacuation of Jews from Nazi-held Denmark is one of the great untold stories of World War II. On September 29, 1943, word got out in Denmark that Jews were to be detained and then sent to the death camps. Within hours the Danish resistance, population and police arranged a small flotilla to herd 7,000 Jews to Sweden. Lois Lowry fictionalizes a true-story account to bring this courageous tale to life. She brings the experience to life through the eyes of 10-year-old Annemarie Johannesen, whose family harbors her best friend, Ellen Rosen, on the eve of the round-up and helps smuggles Ellen's family out of the country. Number the Stars won the 1990 Newbery Medal.



Orlev, U. The Island on Bird Street. Houghton Mifflin. 1992.

During World War II a Jewish boy is left on his own for months in a ruined house in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he must learn all the tricks of survival under constantly life-threatening conditions.

                                                                               

Speigleman, A. Maus: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Here my Troubles Began.  Pantheon. 1997.

From Kirkus Reviews
Together with the much-acclaimed first volume of Spiegelman's Maus (1987--not reviewed), this unusual Holocaust tale will forever alter the way serious readers think of graphic narratives (i.e., comic books). For his unforgettable combination of words and pictures, Spiegelman draws from high and low culture, and blends autobiography with the story of his father's survival of the concentration camps.





Wiesel, E. Night. Bantam Books. 1982.

Ingram
Elie Wiesel's true story of his experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War Two.



From Booklist
Gr. 5^-8. Korinna is a loyal member of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany, and she is appalled to discover that her parents are hiding a Jewish family right there behind her own bedroom wall. Aren't Jews vermin? What if the authorities find out? Should she report her parents as traitors, as she has been taught to do? This novel won the Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature. The history is accurate, and the plot is dramatic; but, unfortunately, the writing is florid, with contrived dialogue and with tears and trembling on every page. The illustrations are awkward and superfluous. Instead of the understatement of Holocaust accounts like Leitner's The Big Lie (1992), there's melodrama ("No more would she walk through the beautiful countryside. No more would she smell the sweet flowers of spring. No more . . ." ). Still, readers will be caught by the courage of the Righteous Gentile family and by the changes in Korinna as she gets to know these Jews as people. The ending is taut: Korinna and her parents must go into hiding behind someone else's bedroom wall. Hazel Rochman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.



Wiseman, E. My Canary Yellow Star. Tundra Books. Toranto, Ontario. 2001.

From School Library Journal
Grade 5 Up-In 1944, in Budapest, Swedish Diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews from deportation to concentration camps by supplying them with Swedish passports. This novel is told from the perspective of Marta, a Jewish girl whose life is saved on several occasions by his intervention. Unfortunately, what could be a fascinating story about resistance to the Nazis becomes bogged down by too many subplots and underrealized supporting characters. Dialogue, rather than action, moves the plot, and Marta tells readers how she feels about the events around her, rather than reacting to them. The novel ends with the Soviet liberation of the city and a historical note details Wallenberg's exploits. An error in the historical note, however, states that Hungary was liberated in January 1944, not 1945. Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (Houghton, 1989) and Renee Roth-Hano's Touch Wood (Four Winds, 1988; o.p.) are more emotional and moving accounts of Jewish rescue from the Nazis.

Teaching Materials


Quenk, R. The Spirit that Moves Us. Tillbury House. 1997.


For teaching middle-graders about the Holocaust across the curriculum, this is an outstanding, detailed, readable resource. The great value of Quenk's approach is that she uses books to humanize the history and also to connect the Holocaust with concepts of diversity, prejudice, identity, and community in students' personal lives. The books are well chosen, from Richter's Friedrich (1940) to Avi's Nothing but the Truth (1991); only Wild's cheery Let the Celebrations Begin! (1991) is inappropriate. For each book, the lesson plan includes a story summary, a concepts summary, topics for discussion, activities in several subject areas, and further resources, from picture books to the Internet. An appendix provides an overview of the history, with an excellent discussion of guidelines

  



Totten, S. Teaching Holocaust Literature. Allyn and Bacon. 2001.

Teaching Holocaust Literature is comprised of eleven essays in which noted Holocaust educators discuss how they have successfully taught short stories, poetry, novels, drama, and memoirs to their students at the secondary level. The book provides in-depth discussions on how to teach various pieces of Holocaust literature in a pedagogically and historically sound manner. Among many literary works discussed in this book are Hans Peter Richter's "Friedrich," Dan Pagis', "Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car," Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar," Ida Fink's "The Key Game" and "Crazy," and Elie Wiesel's Night.