This book begins with a peaceful, comfortable Jewish family being taken to Auschwitz during the German invasion of Eastern Europe. It is written for an audience of 6th to about 9th grade readers. It is appropiately written for this age group. Eva Moses Kor tells her story of the horrors inflicted on her and her twin sister, Miriam, at the hands of Dr. Mengele. Dr. Mengele, better known in Auschwitz as the Angel of Death, preformed deadly experiments on over 3000 sets of twins during World War II. Kor goes to great lengths to explain difficult issues in a way that this age audience will be able to grasp. It is a moving story of one small girl who, through her own inner strength, was able to insure that she and her twin sister would survive.
But this story goes beyond the usual lessons to be learned from the holocaust. It is about learning how to forgive and what forgivness can do for survivors of any horrific ordeal. Whenever I read a book about the holocaust it never ceases to amaze me what how we as a civilization can inflict such horror on one another. And this story, in particular, is about horros inflicted on children. Of course, we have to remember that this type of behavior was/is not limited to the Nazis. Look what we did to people of color during hundreds of year of slavery.
I think this is an important book for children to read. It can have a tremendous impact on them. I took two of my grandchildren to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam to teach them about the holocaust. They are different people now from having witnessed first hand the destruction of genocide. 3 years later they still think of Anne Frank and continue to have questions. Their most often asked question? "How could this happen?" I have been able to explain that it is up to them to make sure it doesn't happen again. I gave this book 4 stars.
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