Customer Reviews

Surviving Hitler: A Boy In The Nazi Death Camps

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Imagine urinating in the same cup you eat in. Imagine feeling fleas crawling all over you and sick people coughing on you. It doesn't exactly sound pleasant but that is the lifestyle the concentration camp prisoners had to go through. The book, Surviving Hitler, is a memorable and sad memoir that focuses on The Holocaust during World War 2. The book has a moving story, and a powerful message that has truly put a different perspective in my eyes on how crule people can be and how understanding people have to be.

This book is about a boy named Jack, who is a very fortunate Jewish boy living in Europe. Jack and his family move in with his uncle who lives in a nearby town. Jack's father stayed behind to get organized and then he would meet up with them after. He had to close up his shop, sell his place, and pack up the big furniture. Unfortunately, before he could meet his family he was put into a concentration camp. Three years later Jack is working and supporting his mom and little brother while his sister, Jadiza, goes to their Aunt and Uncles house to help them with aetheir new baby. Hitler's soldiers invade the town they are living in and later group all the Jewish families into the town square to send them to concentration camps. Jack gets separated from his family and starts a whole different life in the concentration camps. He learns to survive on his own and take what he can get. It is a very rough experience for him, and you have to read the book to see the outcome.

I really enjoyed how the author put black and white photographs in this sad but true story because it really helps you imaging the living conditions back then. The structure of the book is not terribly long, making it an easy read. What I truly love about this book is that the author is always keeping you on your toes and never drags on about one topic. This book sends out a powerful message that I never truly understood until I finished he novel. It taught me to never take anything for granted and to enjoy every moment possible. Of course I forget this message a lot and I do take a lot for granted but when in doubt I always try to remember this book. Jack also gets a message out of his experience in the concentration camps. He learns to live life to its fullest and try to help as many people as he can but still be cautious of his own well being. "Three years as a teenager in the death camps he survived through courage, luck, help from others, and sheer will. Like all survivors, he has much to teach us about bravery and self reliance, and about history and the lessons of the Holocaust." Surviving Hitler is a very moving book that can really make people change some of their views of the world.

In my opinion Surviving Hitler is one of the best books I've ever read. Not only has it intrigued me to know more about the Holocaust, it has actually interested me a little more in history in general. I would defiantly recommend this book and hope that the next person who reads it loves it as much as I have.

This book clearly describes the daily life in death camps.I will recommand this to readers who have just started learning about the holocaust.

This book follows a young man readers can relate to as he endures the terror of being rounded up, of being ripped from his family and then surviving in a death camp. You can smell it, you can understand his fear, you can feel his bewildered relief at surviving. Much of what is depicted is stark and painful, although it is written clearly and without sensationalism (really, the events are so sensational, they don't need to be amplified.) Even as an adult, I got a visceral, gut-wrenching feel for this boy's experience. I recommend parents read this along with their child and be prepared for important discussions. Lest I scare someone off, let me clarify that it is not too harsh for a pre-teen or teen reader. It's just bound to bring up strong feelings and discussion-inspiring questions.

I haven't read the book, but my 11 year old checked it out at school. He was hooked on the story from the beginning.
However, I was surprised when he asked me "Mom, what is a homosexual?" He said that homosexuals were singled out to be victimized. He also
was upset about how children, especially those with disabilities were tortured and murdered.
I appreciate all the positive reviews here, but it really opened up a lot of issues for my son. Might be better suited to older children.

I teach 4th grade and believe in being honest with my kids. In order to understand the world they live in, they need to understand past events. History has a way of repeating itself. My kids were very interested in the this aspect of WWII after reading Number the Stars. This biography is a neat tie-in to the historical fictional piece.

It's very hard for me to read anything about the Holocaust but I needed to make sure this book was appropriate for my young daughter. I try to keep her protected from the worlds horrors as much as possible since she's only 10 but she wanted to read this book. It is entirely appropriate for her age and I'm glad she'll know about the atrocities that happened so long ago and I hope as she grows up she'll fight for human rights.

This book is written for anyone who wishes to learn more about concentration camps and conditions during World War II in general. I had been taught the factual information and read the famous Anne Frank novel, but this book was a real eye opener. I had no idea how well planned the concentration camps of World War II really were. The fact that the prisoners in most labor camps had triangles denoting their reason for being there whether they were criminals, practiced a religion Hitler opposed, or other social delinquents showed a more sophisticated system than I had fathomed. The concentration camps were a very lucrative business and it is easy to see why when the prisoners are worked all day, fed almost nothing, save the bread filled with sawdust, and rated on the worth of their labor. Jack Mandelbaum is a perfect main character. His hard work and winning personality traits make it easy to see why he managed to stay alive. He has such a positive attitude and strength unimaginable that I don't think God himself could allow him to perish in a camp. Jack's mother is a bit impractical during the war as she still wears high heels in a time when some went without shoes. However, she may have been instrumental in Jack getting his Nazi working papers that in the end saved him from being sent directly to the gas chambers. There is a bright spot in the book when Jack meets and becomes friends with another Jewish prisoner, Moniek. They help to sustain each other and are most likely drawn to each other because of their positive outlook in such a dire situation. This book would be a wonderful novel to be read aloud in a Social Studies or Language Arts class studying the war. So often the military and strategic parts of a war are examined without the personal accounts which makes it all the more difficult to imagine the horrible things that were done. There is a wonderful resource section in the back of the book that would be very valuable to educators. This section details additional recommended books for grades 6-9, books for older readers, films and documentaries for older students, software, and websites.

I found this book to be a good starting place for a middle school aged student to begin learning of the Holocaust. I think this is a very difficult subject for young kids to even grasp but they do need to start somewhere after they have read the assigned 'Diary Of Anne Frank' in school.

I bought this book for my 14 year old to read as his class is studying WWII this semester and he has an interest in learning more outside of what is being discussed in class.

I am buying another copy of this book to be donated to our middle school library.

Surviving Hitler is a wonderful survival story depicting courage, and friendship in a great, breath stopping story about a boy in a Nazi death camp. Jack's faith, courage, and friendship with Moniek help him get through the hard time in his life and survive Hitler. This story is interesting to me because Jack is about my age and sometimes what happens to him can relate to life now. The story taught me about the Holocaust in a way that I could learn it better than usual. Jack can be an idol for people who are going through very hard times in their lives to show them that they can survive it. This book is so good that it is now one of my favorite books of all.

I recently read the book Surviving Hitler by Andrea Warren. I not only thought it was one of the most fascinating books I thought it was very well written. I had been to the holocaust museum in Washing DC and I was mortified looking at everything, but this book really put me in the perspective of the boy who was close to my age. The book got better and better as it went on, and I am usually not very fond of non-fiction books. This book really makes you realize how you can survive anything that comes at you as long as you believe in yourself. You are automatically hooked and as soon as the book is over you wish there was still more to read. I would definitely recommend this book to any person, young or old, it's truly unbelievable.