Altman. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Altman, Linda Jacobs    The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising     

Enslow      2011  128p  31.93 978-0-7660-3320-7 

 ms/jr E-BN        

 Features the people who led the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during the Holocaust. With photographs of events and artifacts along with diary entries and personal letters, students will learn about the heroes who resisted the Nazis. Grades 7-12.       

The Warsaw Ghetto was set up to contain Jewish people during the Holocaust. Yet the Jewish people found ways to smuggle supplies and weapons into their prison-like compound. When the Nazis came into the ghetto, the Jewish people fought a guerilla style warfare and managed to destroy many Nazi soldiers. Each chapter features either a male or female leader of the Jewish people who aided in the struggle. Even the lead Nazi,  General Jurgen Stroop is given a chapter explaining his background and his beliefs that led Nazis to treat Jewish people so inhumanely. Personal narratives are woven seamlessly into the text to give a first person viewpoint of their struggles. Chapter notes, glossary, further reading, index and timeline complete the book. A first resource to understand conditions in the ghetto and the valiant fight put up by the Jewish people during their captivity.     

     Holocaust Through Primary Sources contains four books that  focus on the people responsible for both the horror and liberation of many Jews during World War II. Well illustrated and written  with personal narratives seamlessly woven into the text.        Lois McNicol

 

Rubin, Susan Goldman. Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Rubin, Susan Goldman.
Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Holiday House 2011 40p 18.95
978-0-8234-2251-7 E-BN
Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who personally saved more than 400 Jewish children from extermination at the hands of the Nazis. This inspiring story of bravery and compassion in a time of dreadful fear is presented in an appropriate manner for its intended age group. The oil paintings greatly enhance the subject. The biography ends with an afterword about Sendler’s life after the war, a bibliography of resources, source notes, and an index.
Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who personally saved more than 400 Jewish children from extermination at the hands of the Nazis. She smuggled them out of the Warsaw Ghetto in toolboxes, lunch boxes, suitcases, and through the sewers and provided them with false papers and safe havens for the remainder of the war. She kept a record of their trues identities in two jars that she buried in a Warsaw courtyard. A member of, and aided by, the resistance organization Zegota, she was caught by the Gestapo and tortured but never revealed the locations of her children. Sentenced to death, she was saved at the last minute and survived to continue her work.
All told, more than 2,500 children were rescued by Sendler and her organization. In 1965, Sendler was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous among the Nations.”
This inspiring story of bravery and compassion in a time of dreadful fear is presented in an appropriate manner for its intended age group. The oil paintings greatly enhance the subject. The biography ends with an afterword about Sendler’s life after the war, a bibliography of resources, source notes, and an index.
Highly recommended for all upper elementary level libraries. Ogintz, Susan