Customer Reviews

Escaping into the Night

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Writing a review of a children's Holocaust book is surprisingly difficult. For one thing, you're dealing with a genre that's inherently dark. If you're the author of a Holocaust title, how do you balance an evil time period with enough hope to keep child readers interested, while still staying true to the events in all their horror? You do the best you can and then some dim bulb reviewer comes along and projects their own interpretation of past events they have no firsthand knowledge of onto your work. So as a reviewer of children's books I have to gauge whether or not a given title concerning the Jewish people during WWII is respectful enough, honest enough, and kid-friendly enough to recommend. This is probably why I don't read that many Holocaust books in general. Now earlier this year I found myself utterly charmed by Jennifer Roy's remarkable, "Yellow Star", and the pump (as it were) was primed. Good thing too. "Escaping Into the Night" is a gritty, no holds barred account of the Jewish encampments of western Belorussia and the guerrilla fighting that went on there. It's also a coming of age tale involving a girl, her transformation from child to woman, and how she comes to redefine what "family" means.

Halina Rudowski's mother always said she worried too much. Even though mother and child were sent to live in a Polish ghetto at the start of WWII, Mrs. Rudowski refuses to give up the niceties of life. Then she's unceremoniously gunned down after work one day, leaving her only child alone in a dangerous world. Aided by people within the ghetto, Halina, her friend Batya, and a boy named Reuven escape to the Bielski encampment hidden deep in the Belorussia forests. Life in the camps is never easy and Halina soon finds that it can be just as dangerous to be "safe" as it is to live a life in a Nazi run ghetto. Soon she and Batya are volunteering for difficult missions and are risking their lives for the good of the whole. Through a variety of trials and tribulations, Halina learns to care for those nearest to her, and is able to accept that all a person can ever be is brave as they have to be, "and not a bit more."

Character and plot move at a satisfying clip in this smart little novel. Though we meet a great many people, Friedman is able to adeptly keep all their names clear and concise enough that you are able to remember who they are from page to page. More importantly, they ring true. Not every Jewish person is a saint in this book and they don't suffer in saintly silence when they are hurt. These are real people with real concerns, and just because some madman wants to exterminate them, that doesn't suddenly make them two-dimensional good guys. There is depth to each person in this book. As for the plot, it knows when to speed up and when to slow down. A reader will find the book exciting, but not so breathtaking that it takes away from any of the action. And though a bibliography would have been especially nice for this too little known aspect of WWII, there is at least some further information about Bielski and his encampments in the Afterword.

Friedman's story also did a couple things I'd not seen before in a book for kids. First of all, Halina is not a slim delicate little flower. She's a well-muscled girl who takes after her father's Polish peasant side of the family. Though her mother desired "civilization" and the hum of urban life, in the camps Halina discovers the joys of living in the wild. Such a joy would be frowned upon by those sophisticates that regard a love of nature with poor farm folk, but the love Halina grows for this newfound life offers the book the much needed depth it needs to become more than just another Holocaust story.

Is the book too dark for child readers, though? Well, it has its moments. Halina's friend Batya is strangled before her eyes and tortured when Halina escapes without her (though you do not SEE the torture firsthand). The girls are forced to eat bacon though it goes against their beliefs. Beloved characters die, kill, and go through a variety of wrenching moments. What you have to keep in mind, though, is that at least Ms. Friedman is being honest about how awful it was to live under the constant threat of annihilation at the hands of the Nazis. It would be far far worse if Ms. Friedman chose to cushion these horrors in a falsely cheery light. There is honesty and there is sadism, and I think the author does a good job of leaning more one way than another. This is not to say, however, that all kids will be entirely ready to read a book of this nature. "Yellow Star" and "Number the Stars" have their place as Holocaust fiction for younger kids. "Escaping Into the Night", in contrast, is definitely for the older set.

Usually when a book takes place during a harrowing moment in history it will close with that moment in question ending. You read a Holocaust novel and you naturally assume that at the end of the book the war in Europe will be over and the healing will begin. To Ms. Friedman's credit she decided not to go the easy route with this puppy. So as not to spoil it for you I won't say how the story ends, per say. Just that somehow or other Ms. Friedman is able to create a hopeful ending in the midst of a still horrible situation. All in all, "Escaping Into the Night" is a good and well-written book, but not a pleasurable read. It feels good for you, but for those kids who, like myself, are not big historical fiction buffs, one read is all it takes. A remarkable title certainly worth remembering, but not for the chuckleheads amongst us.

Halina Rudowski lives in the ghetto with her mother. They share their cramped quarters with a religious family. When her mother and others do not come back from work, Halina is forced to deal with her absence and escape from the ghetto to save her own life. Her mother's boyfriend helps Halina and several other ghetto residents escape through tunnels from the ghetto through to sewer pipes that lead to the countryside. They hide during the day and walk during the night, eventually meeting up with a large partisan group that lives in the woods. Halina and her friends grow closer as they face danger and the elements. When they need to escape from the advancing German army, Halina summons all her strength, carries her injured friend, and eventually joins the rests of the partisans with the Russian army.

Ms. Friedman based this work of historical fiction on accounts of the Bielski partisans, who hid in the forests of Belorussia during World War II. The book captures many aspects of the Holocaust quite well: the separation of family and their not knowing what happened to each other; the questioning of faith in God after enduring tragedy and atrocities; and living under the constant threat of danger. Halina is a young girl who must grow up quickly, and her longing for her mother, her cat, and to be able to sing out loudly add dimension to this likable character. Batya is a religious girl, and when she is forced to eat bacon in order to survive, the reader gets an example of the cruelty of the Nazis and the lengths to which they went to make the Jews suffer. While there are graphic description of shootings and violence, the focus of the story is Halina's and her friends' survival. The action proceeds at a quick pace, and the descriptions of the hideouts and the forests give a convincing sense of place. This novel illustrates yet another dimension of survival during the Holocaust, and it is appropriate for all libraries. REVIEWED BY KATHE PINCHUCK (BLOOMFIELD PUBLIC LIBRARY - BLOOMFIELD, NJ)

Escaping into the Night is an eloquent tale of a young girl living during the Holocaust who flees from the Nazi-controlled Ghettos and takes refuge in the woods with other Jews. The main character, Halina, is someone to both cheer for and admire. A heartfelt and thoughtful, as well as thought-provoking, story.

Few stories have been written about Jewish girls, who having escaped the final "aktion" of their ghetto, made their way to the forest where Jewish partisans lived in underground bunkers. As this is fiction, teenage Halina will be instantly recognizable to teen readers through the literary devices of dialogue, suspense, romance, and mother/daughter tiffs; it also rings true as a danger-filled Holocaust account of one girl's strength in the face of destruction and is obviously based upon true experiences. Ages 10 and up. Reviewed by Marcia Posner

I took the book home after the reading and couldn't stop until I finished it. What a powerful and important story and how beautifully written! I have read hundreds of books about the Holocaust so I am a tough reader for new material on this subject, and this is exceptional. Not only does it introduce us to a form of survival that few knew about, but we can really get into the skin of this girl and the enormously difficult life she had to lead to survive.
Now that I have been introduced to this truth through fiction, I long to meet an adult who survived in the woods -- a "real" Halina. But if I never do, she lives in my mind through this wonderfully crafted story. For old AND young adults!

This book is a very thoughtful, well-written account of a little-known aspect of the Holocaust. Although it is published as young adult literature, it should be read and appreciated by adults of all ages. D. Dina Friedman is a very skillful writer who presents the material in a very compelling, dramatic way.