Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy

Yellow Star is a fictionalized account of one of only 12 children who survived in the Lodz ghetto during the Second World War. In 1939, the Germans invaded Poland. As they did in other Polish cities, all Jewish persons in Lodz were forced into a small area of the city. This area became known as the Lodz ghetto. The ghetto was formed in the spring of 1940 and was sealed off from the outside world on May 1, 1940. After this, the Nazis began the systematic deportation of it's residents to various concentration camps.

One Jewish family forced to relocate to the Lodz ghetto was the Perlmutters. Syvia Perlmutter was 4 years old when the war began. She lived in Lodz with her mother, father and her older sister, Dora. Her father became a leader in the ghetto and through various means was able to save his family from deportation to the gas chambers and in a miracle was able to save Syvia and 11 other children.

Syvia's story is told from her perspective, in free verse. It is a touching and remarkable telling of a very tragic story starting from the beginning of the war, continuing through the gradual deterioration of society in Poland, to the devastating end with the discovery of the survivors of the Lodz ghetto by the Russians.

The book also contains significant notes on the historical setting of the Second World War, and also on how this story came to be told.

Book Details:
Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy
Marshall Cavendish Corporation 2006
227 pp.