In My Enemy's House [Mass Market Paperback]

Carol Matas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

"They won't kill everyone in the ghetto right away," he continues, his voice matter-of-fact. "They still need workers. But not for long. After all, they have us Poles to work for them, don't they?"

He paused then, and looked at me. It was frozen like Polish winter. It was cold right through into my bones.

"You know Miriam," Mr. Kraszenski suggested, "you could be one of us."

With her blue eyes and blonde hair, Marisa could be a Polish Christian girl. But living a lie can also be a horrible burden for a young woman to bear. Writing in the same dramatic style as her other outsanding Holocaust stories, Carol Matas has outdone herself with this realistic, poignant story set in World War II Poland and Germany.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689824009
• ISBN-13: 978-0689824005
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,350,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In hiding.....in your enemy's house., February 25, 1999

By 

Rebecca Herman (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In My Enemy's House (Hardcover)

This book tells what it would be like if you had to hide, in plain sight of your enemy. Marisa, who is Jewish, is fifteen when Nazis invade her city in Poland. Her entire family is killed in a roundup, except for Marisa and a brother and sister. The brother and sister flee into the woods to join the partisans. That is their chance to live. But Marisa's chance is to pose as a Christian girl and work as a servant to a German Nazi. She will have to keep silent, forget who she is, forget everything except that she must not tell the truth, no matter what she does

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I hope you get the same vibes out of this book as I did., November 28, 2004

By 

tms - See all my reviews

This review is from: In My Enemy's House (Mass Market Paperback)

When I was first told about this book I thought it would be just another book about World War II and how a Jew went into hiding to escape Hitler. This book is about a girl named Marisa and how her blonde hair and blue eyes disguises her as a Polish worker. Marisa's family is separated and she is left alone with her cousin Shmuel, who she is in love with. He knows that the only way for Marisa to survive is to get papers from a family friend and take the identity of a Polish girl and work as a servant, to hide her true identity of a Jew. So that is what she does, she goes to Germany to get work and ends up working on a large farm for a Nazi family. The longer she stays on the farm the more confused she gets about her feelings toward this family. She gets very close to the oldest daughter on the farm named Charlotte. Charlotte has a secret and Marisa has to decide to betray her and tell her father about it to protect Charlotte and her own secret or to further endanger herself and Charlotte. Marisa is surprised that Charlotte and the rest of the family treat her like part of the family. Although Marisa kind of loves the Reymanns family she also hates them for some of the things they stand for, like all the insults and their hatred towards Jews, and for basically being Nazi. Can she stand pretending to be someone she's not?
At first I didn't think I would enjoy this book very much, but it shows you different views about how people thought about Jews and Hitler. Like the view of a Jew to the view of a Nazi. Even the view of anti-Hitler groups, they hated Hitler's ideas but they hated Jews too. This book would be enjoyed by mature children and adults. I hope you get the same vibes out of this book as I did.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely wonderful, May 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: In My Enemy's House (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is a wonderful piece of Holocaust literature. The perspective that it is told from, the eyes of a Polish girl living as a servant in Nazi Germany, is one rarely written about in any teenage Holocaust books. This book is a must read for any teenager interested in the Holocaust, especially interested in the daily life of an Aryan youth. Once again, Carol Matas adds another spectacular addition to the world of teenage Holocaust literature.
READ THIS BOOK NOW!