Facing The Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe (Hardcover)

by Simone Arnold Liebster (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Their courage is among the few truly bright moral examples during those dark times." -- John K. Roth, Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College; co-author, Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust; and Approaches to Aushwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy

...a shining example for the power of the spirit to triumph over evil... -- Ernst Rodin, author, War & Mayhem: Reflections of a Viennese Physician

As Simone's daily life changes ... we see, with her, the corrupting impact of German occupation. -- Christine E. King, President Staffordshire University, United Kingdom

Product Description
Facing The Lion is the autobiographical account of a young girl's faith and courage. In the years immediately preceding World War II, Simone Arnold is a young girl who delights in life - her doting parents, her loving aunts and uncles, and her grandparents at their mountain farm in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. As Simone grows into her pre-teen years, her parents turn from the Catholic Church and become devout Jehovah's Witnesses. Simone, too, embraces the faith.

The Nazi part (the "Lion") takes over Alsace-Lorraine, and Simone's schools become Nazi propaganda machines. Simone refuses to accept the Nazi party as being above God. Her simple acts of defiance lead her to become persecuted by the school staff and local officials, and ignored by friends.

With her father already taken away to a Nazi concentration camp, Simone is wrestled away from her mother and sent to a reform school to be "reeducated". There, Simone learns that her mother has also been put in a camp. Simone remains in the harsh reform school until the end of the war. She emerges feeling detached from life, but the faith that sustains her through her ordeals helps her rebuild her world.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 418 pages
• Publisher: Grammaton Press, LLC (April 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967936659
• ISBN-13: 978-0967936659
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #654,275 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important and inspiring book!, September 30, 2001

By	richard gibble (elizabethtown, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This book paints a portrait of life under Nazi rule that most people would otherwise never see. We are all aware of the treatment of the jews in world war II but this is the first book I've read concerning the treatment of Jehovah Witness's during this time. I knew very little about their faith when I started reading this book and even less about how they were treated by the Nazis.

This book was not only informative but the story is very compelling and very hard to put down. The writer has a wonderful writing style and many times I felt I was actually reading the thoughts of this young girl as she struggled on a daily basis with her life as a prisoner while at the same time tried as best she could to live a life that her faith required.

67 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you liked Anne Frank, you'll love Simone Liebster!, July 11, 2000

By A Customer

This excellent auto-biography provides a glimpse into the life and trials of a girl and her family who found themselves facing the wrath of Hitler. As members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, they refused to support Hitler's war machine and so the Nazis vowed to exterminate the group. Persecuted for their beliefs, not for their ethnicity, this story tells of Simone's quiet fight for right. Sustained by her hope and faith, she overcame opposition of the strongest kind and has found the strength and courage to share her story. For anyone who loved Anne Frank, this is a must read!

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A detailed view of life during Hitler's ill-fated regime, August 8, 2002

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Simone Arnold and her family were devout members of the evangelical Christian movement known as Jehovah's Witnesses and living in Nazi occupied Alsace-Lorraine during World War II. Like the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Communists, and political liberals, the Jehovah Witnesses were targeted by the Nazi's for extermination. Shunned by the community at the direction of the Nazis, rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps, starved, beaten, abused, and publicly humiliated, all that Simone and her family would have had to do to avoid arrest and persecution was to simply sign a piece of paper renouncing their religion. Facing The Lion is the compelling autobiographical account of a young girl's faith and courage, and her refusal to accept the Nazi party and remain loyal to her faith -- despite the her father's being sent to the camps and she separated from her mother and interned in a reform school for purposes of "reeducation". Facing The Lion is a compelling and highly recommended testament to both Nazi atrocity and the endurance of the human spirit, a detailed view of life during Hitler's ill-fated regime and an inspiration to future generations having to cope with overwhelming pressure to conform in violation of heartfelt beliefs.