Of rising above a parent's life-choices

How many parents think about how their life choices affect their children? I am not speaking of parenting choices here. I am speaking of choices that we make for our self, or those that are made for us by significant others in our life. How much will my not working, despite a professional degree affect my daughter's life? Would that bare fact mold her thinking, or will the reasons behind that make a difference? Will she be able to see things from my POV?

Speaking for myself as a daughter, I began to really understand my mother only after I became a parent, and a lot more as I am growing older. I can now look beyond the strict parent whose strictures I so resented to the woman behind the facade. She is an intelligent, strong, principled woman, unfortunately married into a family that could never understand her - yes, my father's side was, and still is strongly patriarchal, and has managed to stifle my mother. I have very recently begun to appreciate the fact that her choices were often not real choices, and a lot of what I remember was a function of the times she lived in. Of late, I have been having conversations with my father about how he could have done differently by her. He, too, I realise now, was a victim of the system, and actually thinks that things were fine. He listens to me, fortunately, me being the favourite daughter.

Children like to make up stories. Watch a bunch of kids play-acting and one is amazed at the imagination and creativity they come up with together. What if there is the possibility that the story might be real? What if the story turns your view of the world upside down?

Here's a book that made me introspect: what do my actions convey to my daughter? Do my unfortunate choices taint her life? Do the good ones uplift her? How much is it possible for a child to lift themselves above the effects of their parents' choices?

pic courtesy flipkart

Hitler's Daughter
Written by Jackie French
Published by HarperCollins Children's Books
Ages 8-12

Mark, Anna, Tracey and Ben play a story game as they wait for their school bus every day. They have stories of fairies, of ball games and of horses. Until one day Anna decides to tell a story. It is an amazing story set on the fringes of a great war. It is the story of a child growing up tucked away from all the action, a privileged child who is kept safe despite not being the blue-eyed, blond, tall Aryan ideal, a child hungry for family and love, holding on to memories of the few-and-far between visits of her father. A father who obviously is somebody important. Important enough that people around her who have always taken care of her are in mortal fear of displeasing him. We are told early enough that the child, Heidi, is Hitler's daughter.

Anna's story focuses on the genocide from the outside in, raising many questions in Mark's mind. What if one's parent or child has done something really evil- how does one deal with such a parent/ child? Does one love them regardless? Do the sins of our parents taint us irrevocably, or is there redemption? Do the actions of someone dear reflect on us as individuals? How does society look upon those who stand in evil's shadow? Is a bad thing really a bad thing, or are we just victims of our convictions? Do we have a right to raise our hand against someone else's questionable behaviour if we, too, might be in the wrong in our own time?

These are very profound existential questions, and Jackie French, (whom ST has interviewed here), in her inimitable chatty style, raises them through Mark's thoughts, without thrusting them at us. There are also references to Australia's own genocide-  the colonial actions against their Aborigine population.

It has been so realistically told that we are left wondering if Hitler indeed, did have a daughter that no-one knows about. Also, it is an unusual look at the Holocaust; a great book to introduce them to it, along with Number the Stars and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. There are no grisly portrayals of the deaths, as the point of view is of a privileged, though unfortunate girl.

This page-turner of a book was devoured by A in an afternoon. She has been, since, recommending it to many of her friends.

Cross-posted at Saffrontree.

Anne Frank - on Womensweb

This review of one of my all time favourite books (reviewed for the 2nd time on my blog) was written by me as an entry to the June 'The Book that Hooked Me' contest at Womensweb. It was published on the site as one of the five reviews shortlisted.

This review is based on the Definitive Edition of the book. Published by Penguin books.

Pic courtesy flipkart

If she had survived the Holocaust, and lived to this day, Anne Frank would have been 83 years old, on the 12th of June, 2012. Would she have realized her dream of becoming a published writer? I think she would have. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most riveting pieces of work that I have ever come across. What makes it so compelling is the fact that the writer was just an ordinary girl in her teens, writing about the ordinary things of everyday life as lived in extraordinary circumstances.

In July 1942, Anne's family, along with some of their friends, went into hiding from the Nazi persecution of the Jews. They remained hidden in the Secret Annexe (as Anne calls their hiding place in a hidden area of her father's office building). They were helped from the outside by loyal non-Jew friends, who kept them supplied with food, essentials and news.

Unfortunately, they were discovered in August 1944. Anne's diary has its last entry on 1st August 1944. In the 2-odd years that they remained hidden, she wrote all her thoughts and experiences- the good, bad, and the ugly-  in a diary that she received for her 13th birthday, from her father, Otto Frank. Miep Gies, the lady who was one of their helpers, found the diary along with other papers after their arrest, kept it safe, and handed it over to Otto, who returned after the war as the only survivor.

Anne literally grows through her diary entries - we see her blossoming as a person, as an insightful, thinking, caring human being. Entries in the beginning show her to be a relatively spoilt, fairly self-centered little person whose otherwise quick mind is engaged in many inconsequential things. We see little girls like this around us so often.

Anne says this of herself- "I look back at that Anne Frank as a pleasant, amusing, but superficial girl, who has nothing to do with me. I'd like to live that seemingly carefree and happy life for an evening, a few days, a week. At the end of that week, I'd be exhausted, and would be grateful to the first person to talk to me about something meaningful. I want friends, not admirers."

I must have been around 13 years old when I discovered this book. Just around Anne's age when she began her diary. I was mesmerized by the book, amazed at her thoughts and feelings, which so closely mirrored my own as an adolescent. I connected with Anne and her thoughts, across the divide of time, place. I was drawn into her world. I think my fascination with history: specifically, the Holocaust, and my interest in writing, somehow began with this book.

Her ruminations on the books she read were also my first brushes with feminism, of a sort. "I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness and misery than any war hero ever does. And what's her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside when she's disfigured by birth, her children soon leave, her beauty is gone...I don't mean to imply that women should stop having children - what I condemn are our system of values and the men who don't acknowledge how great, difficult, but ultimately beautiful women's share in society is."

Anne’s journey is one of loss, but also one of hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Again, in her words- “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - on International Holocaust Remembrance day, 2012.

Pic courtesy flipkart.com

Today, 19th April 2012 is International Holocaust Remembrance day. Here is a review of a book on the Holocaust that is gentler and not so sad- one that A and I have enjoyed reading. A great book to introduce the time period to children.


When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Written and illustrated by Judith Kerr
Published by HarperCollins Children's Books
Ages 8-12 years

The year is 1933. Elections are being held in Germany, and one of the contenders is the Nazi party led by Adolf Hitler, well known for his anti-semitic views.

Anna's father is a political journalist. He is also Jewish. He has liberal views that do not sit too well with the Nazis. The Nazi party is expected to come to power in the forthcoming elections. If they do not, all will be well. If they do, it will prove to be dangerous for him and his family.

Fortunately for him, he has admirers of his work in the top police ranks. Someone calls him and tips him off about a possible arrest just the evening before. The family decides to move out of Germany immediately.

However, taking the entire family out would just attract attention to the flight. So Anna's father decides to go alone to Switzerland, as if on an assignment. The rest of the family is to follow in a week's time, as soon as school closes for the vacation, as if joining him there on a holiday. There is always the possibility, that in a few days' time, when the election results are out, the people of Germany would have voted out the Nazis, and it would be safe to come back home.

They have to necessarily travel light, as it would not do to be carrying too many of their possessions. It would certainly look like flight then. Anna and her brother Max have to choose among their belongings, books and toys. Anna decides to take a new toy with her, instead of Pink Rabbit, who has been with her from the beginning. After all, she has hardly played with the new toy. Pink Rabbit would not be going anywhere, and would be right there when they came back.

After a harrowing journey by train, when they almost thought that they would be caught by the authorities at the border, they get to Switzerland. They have escaped.

The Nazi party does win the elections, and Hitler does come to power. Anna and her family can never come back to Germany, as subsequent events that unfold decide. Pink Rabbit remains in their Berlin house, and is effectively 'stolen' by Hitler.

This tale of escape and survival, of a refugee life, first in Switzerland, then in Paris, with the family migrating to Britain in the end and settling down there, is autobiographical. For Anna is Judith Kerr's alter ego- it is their story. There is a very vivid potrayal of the privations of a refugee life, the experiences with different kind of people, the struggle to make ends meet, the positivity of outlook and the togetherness that keeps them afloat through many a sad day - all told in a fictionalised way that children can understand, even look at it as an adventure.

The book has a foreword by on of my favourite children's writers, Micheal Morpurgo. He refers to Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. "The power of Anne Frank's story is that we know it is true, that these are her words, her thoughts, her feelings...Imagine for one moment that the Frank family had managed to escape, to find their way to England and safety. Imagine Anne Frank had lived. What would her diary have told us then? The truth is that many thousands like Anna (from this book) did find their way to safety and a new life. Happily for us, Judith Kerr was one of these."

Crossposted at Saffrontree..

The Story of Hana, and how she did not remain just a Holocaust statistic

This is one of those rare books about the Holocaust that is written with and ease which will lie gently on younger children wanting to learn about it, as it stresses the positive throughout the otherwise stark and sad tale. I would recommend this to be one of the first books that may be used to introduce the Holocaust to young readers. I picked this book up on my last visit to Mumbai. The publishers, Jyotsna Prakashan, are one of the leading publishers of Marathi books for children, and this one is available in both Marathi and English versions. 

Pic courtesy infibeam

HANA'S SUITCASE
Written by Karen Levine
Published by Jyotsna Prakashan, by permission of Second Story Press
Ages 10 +

An estimated 11 million people were killed in the Holocaust, of which about 6 million were Jews. Bare statistics. Since then, many stories of those killed and of the survivors have come to light, bringing home the horror of it all, how many ordinary and extraordinary lives have been lost.

Hana Brady would have been just such one faceless statistic.

Our book begins in Tokyo, Japan, in the winter of 2000, when an ordinary looking tattered suitcase from Auschwitz arrives there. On it are these words painted in white- HANA BRADY, 16 May 1931, WAISENKIND (orphan in German). It was sent here from Auschwitz on request by the Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Centre.

Pic courtesy:
Tokyo Holocaust Education
Resource Centre

Who was Hana Brady? What was her story? Fumiko Ishioka, the director of the museum, sets out to find out. This is the story of her journey to find out all about the girl, which takes her all the way from Auschwitz to Nove Mesto, in the former Czechoslovakia, where Hana's story begins.

A happy family of four- the parents and brother-sister, George and Hana. Their life changes in 1939 when the Nazis take over Czechoslovakia. Increasing sanctions make ordinary life difficult and then impossible by degrees, then first her mother and then father is deported.

Then one day, the two children are also deported to Theresienstadt, now Terezin, and they are permitted to take just one suitcase each with their personal belongings. There, they are separated, and later, Hana is transported to Auschwitz on 23rd October, 1944, where she is sent along with the rest of the girls straight from the train to the gas chamber. They had been commanded to leave their suitcases on the railway platform.

Pic courtesy hanassuitcase.ca
Fumiko and George with the suitcase

Fumiko Ishioka doggedly and painstakingly followed the leads from the entry of George and Hana Brady's name in the Nazi's registers to trace her journey, and found out about her death, but also the fact that George was known to have survived. By tracing other survivors who were with him in the concentation camp, she finally traced a 75 year old George Brady now residing in Canada, and got in touch with him.

Between them, they brought Hana's story to us, all his memories and the family photographs that he had saved, and which he now so generously shared. There were also many things that the siblings had put in a box and buried in their backyard all those years ago, in a game of 'burying treasure', that were found by another family now living there. Ensuring that she does not remain a faceless statistic. A lovely, lively human being, who was lost to the senseless genocide.

Pic courtesy radio.cz
Hana and George with their
mother Marketa 

The book by Karen Levine is simply written, shuttling between Hana's story in the 1930s, and the story of Fumiko's effort to bring it to us. There are plenty of real photographs of the Brady family, beginning with the toddler Hana to the 12 yr old Hana on the cover page, copies of the drawings Hana made in the Theresienstadt deportation centre, as also photostat copies of the Nazi records which Fumiko followed on her search.

The telling is gentle, though, so that even a child as young as 10 can read it. As A told me when we discussed the book after reading it, "I felt very sad, but it was not frightening."

Crossposted at Saffrontree and Bookreviews.

Am entering this review in Reading the World Challenge 2011 over at Papertigers for A under the Czech Republic.

ANNE FRANK :the diary of a young girl- on occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day

I have started to re-read an old favourite 'Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl' for the past few days. Why?

First, for the sheer pleasure of it.

Second, I had last read this book as a teenager, in fact read it 3-4 times throughout my teens, and wanted to revisit it. I had been deeply affected by it. 25 years back there weren't many books available to me that dealt with the topic of teenage angst as also with a topic that interested me very much- the Holocaust.

Pic courtesy Penguinbooksindia

Third, I came across this wonderful Penguin Edition in a comfortable, kid-friendly font, and I just had to pick it up for my daughter, although I am not sure she will be truly able to appreciate all of it yet. Maybe in 2-3 years' time. In the meantime, there was no harm in me reading it for old times' sake. My old copy was no longer with me, as I had left it behind with much else when I moved away from my hometown.


ANNE FRANK
The Diary of a Young Girl
Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler
Translated by Susan Massotty
Ages 12+

Anne Frank was an ordinary thirteen year old, who kept this diary from her thirteenth birthday for the next two years. She penned all everyday happenings, her feelings about everything and everyone around her. We have her account of her growing-up pains and joys, a lowdown on her relationships, all the yo-yo-ing typical of adolescence, her darkest, deepest secrets and her hopes for the future.

So how is this any different from something that anyone else might have written? Just this, that Anne was a Dutch Jew in hiding from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people. Other than the turmoil normal for her age, there was the fugitive existence, living life on the edge, in constant fear of discovery, and the chaos of having to live in close quarters with family and strangers, with no end to their troubles in sight.

Even in this situation, the diary is so full of life, and of hope, that the reader sometines forgets that this immensely talented girl died before her 16th birthday, and the world lost someone who could probably have been a prolific writer, and an original thinker who believed in the goodness of humans. The future that Anne herself had envisioned for herself.

Some lines of note from her diary-

5th April 1944 : "I don't want to have lived in vain like most people ... I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm so grateful to God for having given me this gift (a talent for writing), which I can use to develop myself and to express all that's inside me."   

11th April 1944 :"One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we'll be people again and not just Jews!"

11th May 1944 : "...my greatest wish is to be a journalist, and later on, a famous writer."

6th July 1944 : "We have many reasons to hope for great happiness, but ... we have to earn it. And that's something that you can't achieve by taking the easy way out."

15th July 1944 : "It's twice as hard for us young people to hold on to our opinions at a time when ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when the worst side of human nature predominates, when everyone has come to doubt truth, justice and God...Yet I cling to (my ideals) because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." 

After around two years in hiding, on 4th August, 1944, their hiding place- The Secret Annexe- was discovered, and they were arrested by the Gestapo and deported. The afterword gives details of the eight members' fate. They were first taken to Westerbork, a transit camp, and then on to Auschwitz. There, the group was separated, and in late October, the two Frank girls were sent to Bergen-Belsen. Anne and her sister were together till their end, dying of typhus in early March 1945, at Bergen-Belsen, a few weeks before the surrender of Germany and the end of WW2 in April 1945. Otto Frank, the girls' father, was the only survivor, and he was handed Anne's diary along with other papers by Miep Gies, one of the non-Jews who helped them while they were in hiding.

Otto Frank decided to publish the diary in deference to the wish Anne expresses in it to be a famous writer, and to go on living after her death. He also hoped that it could be instrumental in holding up a mirror to the horrors that can be perpetrated due to prejudice about the 'other', so that these things may happen "never again!" An optimistic and foolish hope!

A first edition of the diary was published in 1947, after Otto Frank had edited out what he thought were the more 'private' matters- Anne's thoughts on her relationships with the members of her family, and her growing sexuality, something that he was not comfortable with revealing to the world. This latest, definitive edition has the complete text of the diary, and we get a comprehensive picture of society and of Anne's life before and after going into hiding.

Recommended. I will certainly hand this to A as soon as I think she can handle it. In fact, she read a few entries before I realised it, and was enchanted. We have to take topics like the Holocaust slowly, though, and we are working on it.

Edited to add: I am entering this book for the 2011 Global Reading Challenge under Europe.

Re-edited to add: Also entering under the Reading the world challenge 2011 under Holland and non-fiction.

Crossposted at Bookreviews.

The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas

A very different book on the Holocaust. One that was crying out to be written.

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS
Written by John Boyne.
Cover illustration of a boy. From the Panstwowe Museum Oswiecim Brezinske, Auschwitz. By Ali Campbell.
Published by Black Swan books for Random House.
ISBN: 978-0-552-77380-5
Ages: This could be disputed. Check out this interesting discussion and judge for yourself.

Image: Courtesy GoodReads.

Bruno is the 9yr old son of a senior Nazi officer, and lives with his parents and elder sister Gretel in Berlin. His father is posted 'to a far-away place,' Auschwitz, so the family has to move. Against his wishes, he is taken away from his friends to a place where his family are the only occupants of a solitary house, with no neighbours, and certainly no little boys to be his friends.

"All around the house in Berlin were other streets of large houses...he liked to stand in front of these stalls and close his eyes and breathe in their aromas, feeling his head grow dizzy with the mixed scents of sweetness and life. But there were no streets around the new house...when he closed his eyes, everything around him just felt empty and cold, as if he was in the loneliest place in the world. The middle of nowhere."

So there was Bruno, with no friends, an elder sister who was more into teen interests and parents who were distant, and who do not answer his questions about the change. Until one day, Bruno looks out of a window into the distance, and sees a huge wire fence extending in both directions further than he could see. Beyond the fence, there were "nothing but low huts and large square buildings dotted around and one or two smoke stacks in the distance."  The place was teeming with people men, young and old, boys, too. But no women. They were all "wearing the same clothes as each other: a pair of grey striped pyjamas with a grey striped cap on their heads."

Bruno is puzzled by all he sees, but gets no answers from anyone. When he asks his father who all those people were, he is told "Those people...well, they're not people at all, Bruno." A Nazi officer's view of the Jews. Bruno asks his mother and sister about them, asks the maid too, but gets the same answer: Just keep quiet, don't ask too many questions, and just keep themselves safe until all this is over. But no good answers.

So Bruno decided to explore the inside and the outside of the new house. The inside was soon done, and there wasn't much to explore outside on their side of the fence, so he decided to go walking along the fence. Inspite of being warned countless number of times not to go anywhere near the fence or the camp. What was a boy to do with no-one to play with, no-one to speak to and nothing to do?

So he sneaked out and went for a long walk along the fence. The whole area was deserted, except that he saw a speck in the distance on the other side of the fence, who he realised was a boy about his own age when he came nearer, a boy in the striped pyjamas and an armband with a star on it.

courtesy wikipedia

They got talking, and soon became friends. Shmuel, the boy, told him that he and his father lived there and there were hundreds of boys there. But they all always had fights, so he had come there to be on his own.

"It's so unfair," said Bruno. "I don't see why I have to be stuck over here on this side of the fence where there's no one to play with...Why are there so many people on that side of the fence? And what are you all doing there?"

Questions similar to the ones he had asked his family, and had been fobbed off. So now Bruno gets answers from a boy his age. Someone who knows that he and his family had to leave their home and come to this place in a horribly crowded, smelly train, and that his mother had been taken away from them along with the mothers, aunts, grandmothers and sisters of the other boys. A boy who is as much unaware of what it was all about as much as he is. Who has been uprooted from the familiar as much as he is. A kindred soul. Like any other nine-year-olds, they try to make sense of their world from whatever they know of it from what is happening. A very dangerous thing, as we soon realise.

Bruno decides to keep his friendship a secret. 'After all, he reasoned, they might not want me to be friends with him any more...when it came to parents...what they didn't know couldn't hurt them.' So their friendship continued, and Bruno went every afternoon to that spot near the fence, and Shmuel was always there. 

Then one day, lice are found in Bruno's hair, and it had to be shaved off. Upset by this, his mother insists that she and the children go back to Berlin. But now Bruno does not want to go back. What happens after that is horrifying- a twist in the tale. Read the book to find out. It has also been made into a movie in 2008.

The ending packs quite a punch. An innocent boy, at the wrong place at the wrong time. The boy in the striped pyjamas. The horror of the Holocaust comes across in unexpected ways. Without there being anything explicit about the horror. No descriptions about the torture, the killings and yet mind numbing. 

Tracks leading to Auschwitz II camp
Courtesy wikipedia

Auschwitz is in Poland, and had two camps: Auschwitz I which was a concentration camp, and Auschwitz II which was an extermination camp. Both were operational from May 1940 to January 1945, when it was liberated by the Soviet army. An estimated 1.1 million people were killed there, mostly by gassing (using an insecticide gas Zyklon B), but also by torture, illness, starvation, medical experiments by the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele or point-blank killing. The dead included not only the Jews, but also ethnic Poles, Gypsies or Romas, and Soviet prisoners of war.

After the war, Auschwitz I was restored by the Polish government and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Panstwowe Museum Oswiecim Brezinske) was established, in honour of the victims of Nazism. Auschwitz II was preserved  as it was, and a visitor gets a feel of the horrors of this infamous extermination camp. It is an UNESCO World Heritage site.

    

My own Why-Why girl

Conversation between A and me today.

"Aai, was Ruskin Bond Indian or British?" A.

"Why?" Me.

"His name sounds British, but he does not write like Enid Blyton or J.K.Rowling. He writes about Indian people who are like the people in Indian folktales." A.

"You're right, A. Ruskin Bond was a British man, but he was born in India. He grew up in India, and has lived here most of his life. So naturally he writes like an Indian." Me.

"But he still doesn't write like the lady who wrote Younguncle. That is even more Indian." A.

"Because she was born to Indian parents and had learnt Indian customs at home." Me.

"So because Ruskin Bond's parents were British, they taught him British customs? So he ate British food?" A.

"Very likely, A." Me.

All this while watching (for the nth time) 'The Sound of Music'  on DVD. We watched in silence for some time. Till we came to the part where Rolfe delivers a telegram and Lisel goes out with him. We then have the song 'I am sixteen-going on seventeen'. At this point, A asked me to pause because she wanted to ask me something.

"Aai, Rolfe likes Lisel very much. Then why does he help the soldiers hunt for them at the end of the movie?" A.

"Because he has joined the Nazi party. You remember I told you about Hitler and the Nazis." This was during a discussion when we were watching the movie 'Life is Beautiful'. We had spoken then about Jews and Anne Frank and Hitler.

"Yes." A. "So even if he had joined Hitler's party, how can he do this if he likes Lisel?"

"That is exactly what the Nazis did. They influenced even young boys and girls who believed that what they said was right. That they were superior to the Jews, and that everyone who was not a Jew should join the Nazi party. These young boys and girls spied on their neighbours, friends, and even family members who did not side with the Nazi party and reported them. Then they would get into trouble like the von Trapps." Me.

"But why did these people not ask if it was right? Why did they accept that what Hitler was saying was right?" A.

"A, Hitler had a way of speaking that convinced people that whatever he said was right. And people believed in him. And remember I had told you that the Jews were a very small number compared to the total number of people? And even then they were richer or smarter or more educated than the others? So the people were jealous, and even this made them want to believe Hitler." Me.

"So Hitler had the power to convince people about what he believed and he used it to kill so many people? That is a wrong use of his power. It would have been better if he had used this power of convincing people to do good things, na?"

Way to go. I need to read up more, though.

Number The Stars

As promised, another book by Lois Lowry.

NUMBER THE STARS. Written by Lois Lowry. Cover photograph of Anne Johnson. Published by Yearling books, an imprint of Random House Children's books. Winner of the John Newberry Medal.  Ages: 10+ 

Image: Courtesy Wikipedia.
Map: Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Helsingor, Denmark and Helsingborg, Sweden. 

Annemarie Johansen is a 10 yr old living in Denmark in 1943, at a time when the Nazis invaded her country. Her best friend is her neighbour, Ellen Rosen. Life is still pretty much normal, except for soldiers at every street corner. The girls have been warned by their mothers to avoid the soldiers on the way to school, and to not give too many answers to any questions. 

Annemarie has two other sisters, the older Lise had died a few days before her wedding to Peter, who is still very close to the family, and who now works underground to help the Jews. The younger one is Kirsti. 

Then one day in September, Ellen's mother sent her to the little shop where Mrs. Hirsch sells threads and buttons for a matching button for her old jacket. When the girls went there, they found the shop closed.

"There was a new padlock on the door, and a sign. But the sign was in German. They couldn't read the words."

This is the first ominous sign in the girls' world which was sheltered till now inspite of the German occupation of Denmark and small everyday privations (Kirsti longs for cupcakes with pink frosting and new, shiny shoes.) for almost two years. That night, Peter visits them, and Annemarie too is woken from her sleep and included in their talk. He tells the Johansens that the Germans have begun the rounding up of Jews. They still do not know to what purpose, but it is serious. Annemarie realises that her best friend, Ellen, too, is in danger, as the Rosens are Jewish, and it is up to them to help them. She remembers the incident where a boy on the street remarks to a German soldier that Denmark's king Christian X was safe on the streets because all of Denmark would protect him with their lives. "And now she- and all the Danes- were to be bodyguard for Ellen, and Ellen's parents, and all of Denmark's Jews."

But a few days later, on the Jewish New Year,  when the Rosens came back from the synagogue, Mrs Rosen spoke hurriedly to Annemarie's mother,who came and told them that Ellen will be coming to stay with them for a few days, as her parents had to go away to visit some relatives. Annemarie is puzzled, but welcomes the idea of having her best friend stay.

The soldiers come in the night. And they ask-"Who is the dark-haired one?" Annemarie's father saves the day by showing baby photos of his three daughters : golden-haired Annemarie and Kirsti, and dark-haired Lise, with their names written on each photograph.

When they went, "Annemarie relaxed the clenched fingers of her right hand, which still clutched Ellen's necklace." (which she had yanked off Ellen's neck moments before they had entered the bedroom.) "She looked down, and saw that she had imprinted the Star of David into her palm."

The next day, Mrs Johansen took the girls with her to Gilleleje near Helsingor, where her brother Henrik was a fisherman, and had his own fishing trawler. Annemarie tells Ellen that it is on the sea-shore and that they could see Sweden from there.

Inspite of their worry and the danger they are in, the girls enjoy their visit to Gilleleje. They have to wait a few days during which Annemarie hears things which puzzle her. "Is the weather good for fishing?" When she knew that Uncle Henrik went fishing in all weathers. "There will be one case of cigarettes delivered. There are many more such cases in Copenhagen." When she knew very well that there had been no cigarettes since the beginning of the war. And the most puzzling- "There has been a death, and tonight your Great-aunt Birte will be resting in the living room, in her casket, before she is buried tomorrow. It is the old custom, you know, for the dead to rest at home, and their loved ones to be with them before burial." When she knew very well that there was no Great-aunt Birte!

When Annemarie confronts her uncle for both him and her mother lying to her, he asks her not to try and find out more than she is told, as "it is easier to be brave if you do not know everything.........We know only what we need to know." 

Annemarie soon realises the wisdom in these words. Ellen's parents and some other fugitives (brought there by Peter who had arranged to hide them all this time)  join them as mourners at Great-aunt Birte's funeral, so that the German soldiers do not become suspicious. Uncle Henrik prepares to ferry the Rosens along with some other Jews across to Sweden. They are taken in twos and threes to the boat in the dead of the night. In the confusion, Annemarie's mother stumbles in the dark on the way back and sprains her ankle. She panics when she realises that a very vital packet, without which all would be lost, has been left behind. It is now left to Annemarie to summon her courage and deliver the packet to the fugitives. Is she able to help her friends escape? Is she able to confront her fear of the dark woods, the German soldiers searching for the Jews, and their hounds? What is of such vital importance in the packet? And most important of all, is she able to return the Star of David to her friend Ellen when the war ends?  Read the book to find out.

Lois Lowry has written a wonderful story of friendship in the face of very real danger. She gives us a peek into the everyday life of ordinary people who have had to do extraordinary things. Annemarie's innocence, her realisation of the grave danger and her courage comes across very vividly. The last chapter has the flavour of a thriller. In an afterword, the author tells us that the story has been based on real-life events at the time it has been set in, and has been dedicated to her friend Annelise Platt, who was a child living in Copenhagen during the German occupation. And the contents of the packet, too, are not something out of a sci-fi scenario, but based on fact.

This is one of the many books based on the biggest horrors of the last century, the Holocaust. It has been a topic by which I have been fascinated ever since I read the Diary of Anne Frank in my teens. I have been trying to find books suitable for A on this topic. Most books depict the horror in terms too explicit for her age. NUMBER THE STARS touches very lightly on it, when the soldiers are around. It focuses more on the friendships of the Jew and non-Jew characters, the commitment with which help is given and the trust with which it is received. It also ends on a hopeful note.

Sweden was a neutral country during World War 2, and received Jewish refugies from Finland, Norway and Denmark. Almost all of  the 8000 Jews in Denmark at the time of German occupation were successfully helped across to Sweden by the Danes in their ferry and fishing boats. Sweden saved the maximum number of Jews during WW2.

I hope to review many more books on the Holocaust. Watch this space.

Crossposted here.