We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries Of Teenagers Who Died In The Holocaust (Edge Books) [Hardcover]

Jacob Boas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1995 | Series: Edge Books

We are the bleeding clouds, and from the seas of blood have we come...We are witnesses...we were brought into being by an inferno of suffering; and we are a sign of peace to you. --Moshe Ze'ev Flinker, Age 17

On the eve of Passover, 1944, shortly after he wrote these words, Moshe and his family were betrayed to the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. Like the other four diarists in this book, he did not survive the war. But their words did. Written in the midst of "an inferno of suffering," these fragile yet powerful records are a "sign of peace" to all of us.

Each diary reveals one voice, one teenager coping with the impossible. We see David Rubinowicz struggling against fear and terror in Poland. Yitzhak Rudashevski in Lithuania shows us how Jews clung to culture, to learning, and to hope, until there was no hope at all. In Belgium, Moshe is the voice of religion, constantly seeking answers from God for relentless tragedy. Finally, in Hungary, Eva Heyman demonstrates the unquenchable hunger for life that sustained her until the very last moment. Yet We Are Witnesses is not just about any single victim in the Holocaust.

Author Jacob Boas, who was born in the same camp to which Anne Frank was sent, ends by discussing her famous diary. Looking back at the other four through Anne, and at Anne with fresh eyes after the others, we see the largest truth they all left for us: Hitler could kill millions, but he could not destroy the human spirit. These stark accounts of how five young people faced the worst of human evil are a testament, and an inspiration, to the best in the human soul.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Born in 1943 in the Westerbork concentration camp in Holland, Boas here brilliantly unfolds the history of the Holocaust through poignant excerpts from five teenagers' wartime diaries, enhanced with skillful commentary. Predictably, Anne Frank turns up, in the final section, but, as Boas points out, "alongside the other four diaries, Anne's looks different than when you read it by itself as the sole voice of the Holocaust." By the time readers encounter Anne Frank, they will have met Jewish teenagers trapped in equally tragic but even more violent circumstances in various parts of Europe, from a small Polish village to the Vilna ghetto to Brussels and Hungary. The young writers relay their hopes and fears even as they chronicle the disintegration of their daily lives. One is religious, another politically active, others wrapped up in their families-Boas points out each writer's sensitivities as he explains the terrible traps into which the individual teenagers fall. In exploring their fates, he impresses upon the reader their vitality, and, by extension, implies the enormity of the Holocaust's losses. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Holocaust survivor Boas bears powerful witness to what happened to ordinary families as they were crowded into the ghettos, persecuted, and murdered." --Booklist, starred review

"Boas ably guides the reader through these literary landscapes of hell, where none of the writers survived...[These] young people make the accounts more universal, and permit us to see the common humanity of each of these different witnesses." --Jewish Bulletin

"We are privy to the thoughts of five adolescents who wrote about, and then died because of, the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews." --Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); 1st edition (June 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805037020
• ISBN-13: 978-0805037029
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,741,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching, sad, but moving and worth the read, March 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries Of Teenagers Who Died In The Holocaust (Mass Market Paperback)

Although many people think that reading such books as these, the accounts of teenagers who died while under the Nazi regime, is depressing...people should tell them, it should be. This book was very good, and I read it a few years ago during a class that I had to take. Everyone had read the Diary of Anne Frank, but although this includes excerpts of hers, I was interested to know what others thought. Whether or not they were as optimistic as she was. If you are looking for a read that will give you different perspectives on how teenagers thought about the Holocaust, this is the book for you.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars We Are Witnesses, March 15, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries Of Teenagers Who Died In The Holocaust (Mass Market Paperback)

I am not a big fan of non-fiction history books. I find them hard to concentrate on because there are so many facts that they become overwhelming. But We Are Witnesses is a non-fiction history book that I liked. First, I liked it because it was set during WWII, which is something I am interested in. Secondly, this book is about five teenagers, which I can relate to because I am in the same age group. Each of their diaries was found. They all were Jewish, they all died.

In We Are Witnesses there are five main characters, David Rubinowicz, Yitzhak Rudashevski, Moshe Flinker, Eva Heyman, and Anne Frank. There is a whole chapter on each one of them. They all have the same big conflict, the Nazis. The Nazis forced the Jews to move into a ghetto, and each character had to do that. They all lived in different parts of Europe. They all had money issues. But each one was unique in their own way. For example, Yitzhak joined a club that would meet and do research projects, and learn a few new things. This was Yitzhak's favorite time of day. Eva Heyman admired her mother and wanted to be just like her. Each day was a struggle to live. There was barely enough food for any of them to eat. They all had to put their faith in God, that He would save them from the power of the Nazis.

Each character had their own religious beliefs but Moshe Flinker's was the most unique of all. He believed that if the Germans kept on taking over more land and the Jews kept on being killed then, when it seemed like all hope was lost, God would save the Jews from the Nazis. Moshe Flinker's story also was one that stuck out in my mind because he almost made it to Vichy France, which was a part of France that was not taken over by the Germans. Another memorable story was when David Rubinowicz was forced to move from his house and into a ghetto, but he many times was able to walk to his old house. One of the times he witnessed a Jew getting shot right in front of him.

From the very beginning of the book, the author tells that all of the characters die. They all did, but their life stories will be something that you never will forget. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who likes non-fiction history books. There were very good parts to the book but also some bad parts. The bad parts were where it got confusing. For example, when the author got into too much detail about a character's life. Also when Moshe Flinker tried to explain his religious beliefs it got very confusing. Although I knew the deaths of all the characters were certain from the beginning, I wanted to read this book because these people had to live with fear every day. But each one was strong enough to not let that fear get to them, and tried to live their lives like you and me.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Are Witnesses, March 1, 2001

By 

"tiffany_crisostomo" (Madison, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries Of Teenagers Who Died In The Holocaust (Edge Books) (Hardcover)

We Are Witnesses is a book containing the diaries of five young children that lived during the holocaust. The diaries tell of how these children dealt with all of the madness going on around them. Some of the diaries broke off early in the beginning of the story. Some diaries lasted quite a while. All of the stories told of how scared these poor children were during some points of time. The diaries tell of how horrifying it must have been for all of them.