Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries [Paperback]

Laurel Holliday (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1996

An anthology of diaries written by children from Nazi-occupied Europe includes the writings of twenty-three boys and girls aged ten through eighteen and includes vivid descriptions of the horrors they endured.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA?Diary entries written by young people in ghettos, concentration camps, cities, and a Copenhagen prison camp offer insightful comments and glimpses of life during World War II. Each selection is introduced by a brief biography that includes the author's name, country, age, family circumstances before and during the war, and concludes with circumstances of death or postwar life. Nine girls and 14 boys, Jews and gentiles, aged 10 to 18, are featured. Teens should be interested in reading about the sexploits of Joan Wyndham, a 16-year-old London resident; her suburban neighbor, Colin Perry, 18, and his detailed recording of air raids; resistance fighter Hannah Senesh, 17; and Danish spy Kim Malthe-Brun, 18. A good selection for YAs interested in the experiences of their agemates from other times, the Holocaust, life during war, or those in need of a collective biography.?Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax,
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (June 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671520555
• ISBN-13: 978-0671520557
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #890,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Each page is precious because each page is a life., August 3, 2001

By 

Cipriano "www.bookpuddle.blogspot.com" (Planet Claire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries (Paperback)

This is a chilling, moving, important book in which 23 youth and youngsters try to understand the hatred and violence that engulfs their previously peaceful lives. The average age of the writers is around 13-14 years. For many of these children, these excerpts represent their final plea to the surviving world, fully understanding that they will not be a part of that world. Writing became their last and sometimes ONLY form of resistance. I found the very last entry of the unknown brother and sister in the Lodz ghetto to be especially moving. Without access to any other paper, the boy scrawled his diary entries into the margins of an old French novel. After the war was over, a next door neighbor returned to the wreckage of the house, and found the book with the boy's notes in it. If any one of us actually knew any one of those who wrote these diaries... if any one of them were a member of our own families, we would naturally value even one of their retrieved pages far above all of the other books we own, would we not? Well, as I read this book I realized many times that just because I did not know one of these children personally does not really diminish the inherent importance of any one of their pages... these children were all known and loved by their own families and friends. They should have been loved by those who were then acting as their mortal enemies, but sadly, they were not.

Some of these entries depict deprivations and describe atrocities that are near impossible for most of us today to imagine. Some would avoid the book on account of this, and that is understandable. We can go to horror novels to be deliberately horrified in a fictional sense, but it seems morbid to turn to non-fiction for the same results. But we must remember that we do not read non-fiction for the same reasons that we read fiction. We read non-fiction, not to dwell on or glory in horror, but to LEARN something about ourselves and others. There is an old saying "To dwell on history is to lose an eye; to ignore it is to lose both of them." Laurel Holliday has here edited a book which should not be ignored.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Children in the Holocaust and World War II: their secret diaris, January 15, 2007

By 

Donna (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries (Paperback)

As a teacher I found this book to be an excellent way to personalize the experiences of the many child victims of the Holocaust for my students. They could see that these children had families, hopes, and dreams just like any other child although some were shattered by the Holocaust. My students could read about someone their own age and identify with them. I was disappointed with the inclusion of the Joan Wyndham diary for my own school setting. I teach eighth graders in a Catholic school and some of the discussion of her sexuality is inapproriate for my students. That is the only blemish on this wonderful book from my particular situation. It requires that I take extra caution when I use the book.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The children behind the scenes, January 11, 2000

By 

T. DeBrock (Atlanta, Ga United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries (Paperback)

This book will touch you. It will make you sad, it will make you reflect on the past. But most of all, it will inform you about the perils and daily life of children (mostly Jewish Children) during World War II. The author did an excellent job of compiling, translating, and editing the diary entries she found and chose to print. I would recommend it to most of my friends.