Unbreakable. The Spies Who Cracked the Nazi's Secret Code by Rebecca E. F. Barone

Unbreakable tells the remarkable story of how the British, French and Polish worked to break the Enigma code, helping the Allies to win World War II.

The story opens in Warsaw, Poland in 1929.  A "heavy package with a German postmark" arrived at the Polish customs office. Almost immediately, an urgent request came in from the German embassy to return the package which should never have been sent to Poland as it was intended for a German recipient. His curiosity piqued, the Polish customs officer opened the package and found what at first glance looked to be a typewriter. However, there was no ribbon, no carriage to hold paper like a regular typewriter. There were keys which when pressed lit up one of the small circular windows arranged in rows at the top. The Polish customs officer called the Polish cipher agency and two men arrived to examine the machine. Over the weekend they took the machine apart, examined it and reassembled it. It was repackaged and returned to Germany, the delay being that it was the weekend.

Two years later on November 1, 1931, Hans-Thilo Schmidt met up with Rodolphe Lemoine, in the Grand Hotel in Verviers, Belgium. Schmidt was an assistant to the head of the Germain cipher office while Lemoine was the top recruiter and handler for the Deuxieme Bureau of the French military intelligence. Germany had developed a new cipher that no one in the world was able to break. They were using a machine called the Enigma to create the code and it was unbreakable.  Schmidt told Lemoine that he had access to all the information pertaining to Enigma and could give it to France, for a price. When Schmidt began bringing information to France, Captain Gustave Bertrand, a senior officer and a code breaker became involved. The initial information Schmidt brought was not helpful to either the French or the British in solving the Enigma problem. 

Undaunted, Bertrand travelled to Warsaw, Poland in December, 1931 to meet with Major Gwido Langer, head of the Polish cipher office, in the hopes the Polish and French might work together. Bertrand gave Langer the Enigma manuals and instructions that Schmidt had passed along. Langer was ecstatic because up to this point they had been unable to crack Enigma and he had high hopes this new information would help.

 

The Enigma was complex machine in which an electrical signal passed from the keyboard to a plugboard connected to pairs of letters and then to three (or more) rotors and onto a reflecting drum which sent the signal back through the rotors, plugboard to a window at the top of the machine with a letter. Each letter in a message when through this encryption. In order to decode the message, the settings in the Enigma machine of the receiver had to be the same as those of the sender's Enigma. The daily indicator settings for the rotors consisted of three letters, one for each rotor that gave the starting angle for each rotor were sent TWICE at the beginning of the message, unencrypted. These daily settings were called the key.

Meanwhile in Germany in November, 1932 political events were beginning to move quickly. Adolf Hitler had been arrested for the Munich Beer Hall Putsch years ago in 1924 on charges of high treason. He was given a lenient nine month sentence during which time he wrote his infamous Mein Kampf. In this book, Hitler outlined his plans to recover Germany's glory and eliminate the Jews and Polish people whom he considered "inferior races". Germany's problems were all due to the presence of Jews in the country and the world. In the following years, Hitler began to spread his message throughout Germany, that certain races and religions were responsible for the dire economic situation in the country. His political power grew until the Nazis held almost a third of the seats in the German government.

In November, 1932, in Warsaw, Poland, Langer's cipher staff were unsuccessful so he decided to try a new approach: he hired electronics expert Antoni Palluth, one of the two men who had examined the missing Enigma in 1929 and built a replica. He brought along Maksymilian Ciezki, head of the German section of the Polish cipher office. These two men brought in three young mathematicians, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki. Langer's approach changed from linguistics to mathematics and it paid off. 

Working on his own, Rejewski initially had no success using variables and developing mathematical equations that explained how changes to the rotors or the plugboard affected one another. But then Schmidt gave Bertrand "...a photocopy of two tables of the keys for September and October, 1932". Bertrand passed these on to Langer who gave them to Ciezki and then to Rejewski.  At first it seemed like these did not help either, but then Rejewski decided to make a different guess about the Enigma keyboard which was arranged similar to that of a typewriter except adapted for the German language. Instead he wondered if the letters on the typewriter keys were arranged in alphabetical order. When he did this, all his equations worked and the Poles were able to read the German Enigma! It was January, 1933.

But the Polish ciphers had their work cut out for them. With Germany preparing for war, German military and civilian groups, each called a "net", were now using Enigma to send messages. Each net began using different keys and the Polish cipher team had to break each key for each net every day. This exhausting work went on for five years at Saxon Palace in Warsaw. As tensions increased between Germany and Poland, Langer decided to move the cipher team to the Kabaty Woods, ten miles outside of Warsaw to a new built complex called "the Gale". The code breaking continued but was so tedious that Rejewski developed a machine called a bomba, with switches and rotors "that could run through all the combinations from a known rotor starting point."

In Germany the situation continued to worsen.  In March, 1938, Lemoine was picked up the Gestapo and released, German troops crossed into Austria in the Anschluss, the Annexation of Austria, and in September 1938, the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany. Then in December, 1938, the Germans increased the number of rotors used in Enigma making determining the keys very difficult. 

The English and French still did not know the Polish had been able to read Enigma and their efforts were unsuccessful. Their meeting in Paris, France with the Polish revealed nothing. After Germany invaded Prague Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Slovakia, Alastair Denniston (head of British codebreaking) and Alfred Dillwyn Knox met with Bertrand, Langer and the Polish cipher team. There they learned that the Poles had broken Enigma years earlier and they obtained a replica of Enigma.

With the British, French and Polish codebreakers struggling to catch up and find a way to break open Enigma, open war began with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. As British codebreakers took up the task of deciphering Enigma, the British navy also set about obtaining any information they could from captured weather boats and sinking U-boats. The race was on to defeat Enigma and win the war.

Discussion

 

Unbreakable is the riveting account of the race by the Allies to unlock the German's Enigma coding machine. Barone masterfully guides her readers through this complex story that involves so many people, some of whom lost their lives to the cause.

Barone pieces together the contributions many Polish, French and British made in the race to break Enigma. Barone, in her Epilogue writes, 

"Breaking the naval Enigma was a testament to teamwork. There was not one hero, not even on team of heroes. The Enigma story played out over the course of more than a decade, with action spread throughout almost a dozen countries: Polish cryptologists worked early and long to crack the Enigma cipher; French and German spies and agents provided intelligence; British codebreakers took up the puzzle; naval ships and sailors seized codebooks from the U-boats; intercept stations relayed messages; and Wrens at the bombes actually ran the machines."

Her cast of characters includes not just the codebreakers like the Polish team of Rejewski, Zygalski, Rozycki, Langer, Ciezki and Palluth, and the British team of Alan Turing who developed the "cryptological bombe", Harry Hinsley, Hugh Alexander, and Gordon Welchman who devised a way to configure the wiring of Turing's bombe, and Joan Clarke. Many others took risks that sometimes cost them their lives. There were the over sixteen hundred "Wrens" (Women's Royal Navy Service) whose task was to operate and maintain the more than two hundred bombes, a physically challenging task that could easily cause a short circuit. There was Gunner "Florrie" Foord who rescued a bag containing "cribs"  and plugboard settings that allowed Turing to set his bombe to work solving the naval Enigma. And there was First Lieutenant Tony Fasson and sailor Colin Grazier who rescued codebooks from the sinking U-boat U-559 at the expense of their lives, codebooks that ultimately broke the naval Enigma. 

Unbreakable manages to explain the workings of Enigma and how it was deciphered in a way that is understandable and engaging to readers. It was a complicated machine and breaking it was not a one step task, but involved many attempts and innovations by the codebreakers.  The story is broken up into four parts, with short chapters, focusing on a single topic with some black and white photographs. Some chapters focus on events while others on specific individuals such as Joan Clarke.

Barone includes an Epilogue in which she informs readers as to the fate of some of the individuals she focused on, a detailed Timeline of events beginning in 1929, and extensive Bibliography for further research. There are also Endnotes providing sources to quotes used throughout the text.

Unbreakable is a fascinating account of the efforts of codebreakers, military men, and spies to crack Enigma which was considered unbreakable by the Germans. 

Book Details:

Unbreakable: The Spies Who Cracked the Nazi's Secret Code by Rebecca E.F. Barone
New York: Henry Holt and Company   2022

260 pp.

Refugee by Alan Gratz

Refugee tells the stories of three refugees from different countries and different time periods in alternating narratives.

Josef Landau 1938

Twelve-year-old Josef Landau, a Jewish boy living in Berlin in 1938, is awoken one night to the sounds of Nazi Brownshirts trashing his family's apartment and taking away his father, Aaron. Josef's father was forbidden to practice law because he is Jewish and he is hauled away for breaking the Civil Service Restoration Act of 1933. Later Josef learns that his family was not the only one who was attacked. In what has become known as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, many other Jewish families and businesses were destroyed.Six months after he'd been arrested, Josef's father was released from a concentration camp called Dachau on the condition that he leave the country within fourteen days.

Josef, his younger sister Ruthie and his mother travel from Lehrter Bahnhof, Berlin's main railway station to Hamburg Central Railway Station. It is May, 1939 and Josef's family is to meet their father in Hamburg, board a ship that will take them to Cuba, the only country still willing to admit Jewish refugees. They ultimately hope to travel from Cuba to the United States.

In Hamburg, their rendezvous with Josef's father is frightening, as he is gaunt, and paranoid. He is determined they board the ship, the MS St. Louis immediately rushing up the ramp and past the soldier taking tickets. While Josef and Ruthie go on deck, the parents are left alone in the cabin. 

Their journey on the MS St.Louis will not be what they expect. Despite the happy mood of the refugees on the ship, Josef's father insists it is all a trap and that they will end up back in Germany. As his paranoia increases, Josef begins to wonder if their voyage will it offer them what they were hoping for, life in a new country, safe from the Nazis.

Isabel Fernandez 1994

Eleven-year-old Isabel Fernandez lives just outside of Havana in Cuba, in 1994. Isabel is hungry and poor, like everyone else in Cuba. With the fall of communism in 1989, the Soviet Union dissolving meant that Russia was no longer buying Cuba's sugar for eleven times the price and in exchange sending Cuba food, gasoline and medicine. With no one to buy the sugar cane, farms failed, refineries closed and people were out of work. Domestic animals were eaten to stave off hunger, even the animals in the Havana Zoo. Isabel's friend and neighbour, Ivan Castillo tells her his father is building a doghouse, but she knows they are making a boat to sail to the United States. If they are caught, they will be thrown into jail, like Isabel's father, Geraldo was when his second attempt to flee to the United States failed.

However, things turn very desperate for Isabel's father when a riot breaks out on the Malecon, a broad street in Havana. Isabel is on the street, preparing to play her trumpet. Busking is a way for her to earn a bit of money to help out her family. But when a riot breaks out over the food shortage, Isabel finds her father and grandfather in the middle of it. After her father tosses a bottle at the police line, he is singled out and beaten by a policeman. Isabel tries to intervene and is almost attacked herself, but she and her father are saved by Ivan's brother, Luis who is a new policeman. However, his attacker threatens to hunt him down and have him arrested. Isabel knows her father must now flee Cuba.

Back at home, while Isabel's mother is tending to her father's wounds, Fidel Castro comes on television and after a long rant, tells Cubans that those who want to leave the country may do so. Isabel's father is determined to leave but her grandfather, Lito is against the idea. He insists that Geraldo just needs to lay low for a while. However, Isabel comes up with the idea that they should all leave, even though her mother is due to give birth in a week's time. 

Isabel approaches her neighbour, Mr.Rudi Castillo who is working on his boat. Mr. Castillo refuses to include her family, telling Isabel he has no gasoline, so she sells her trumpet to a local fisherman in exchange for gasoline. When Isabel and her family along with the Castillos arrive at the beach carrying the boat, they are shocked to see hundreds of people doing the same. As they are launching their boat, Luis Castillo and his girlfriend Amara join them. Because the police are not allowed to leave, they are pursued by fellow officers and gunshots fired, but the boat gets away safely. 

Isabel and her family along with the Castillos immediately experience problems. The boat motor dies, and then they are swamped by a near-miss with a tanker which almost costs Mr. Castillo his life. But the dangers are not over yet, and by the time their journey is over, their chance at a better life will come at great cost.

Mahmoud 2015

Twelve-year-old Mahmoud lives in Aleppo, Syria with his mother, Fatima, his father Youssef, his baby sister Hana, and his ten-year-old brother Waleed. Aleppo had been a thriving, modern city in Syria until the coming of the Arab Spring in 2011. Protesting against President Bashar al-Assad had led to Assad attacking his own people. Now in 2015, war is all that Mahmoud and his family know. 

As they are finishing their afternoon prayer, a missile destroys the building housing Mahmoud's family. They manage to escape their apartment before the entire building collapses. Mahmoud's father, Youssef, who was an engineer with a mobile phone company, arrives home and  immediately tells them they are leaving Aleppo at once for Turkey. In Turkey, they will sell their car and travel north to Germany which is accepting refugees.

An hour out of Aleppa, Mahmoud's father is forced to stop by armed soldiers and give them a ride to the highway. However, before they reach the highway their car is attacked and Mahmoud and his family barely escape. As they flee in terror from the gun battle, they leave behind everything they own except their phones and chargers. After a long walk Mahmound's family arrive at the Turkish border along with thousands of other refugees. At the border near the city of Kilis,  they show their papers, and are admitted to the country. Almost immediately, Mahmoud's father manages to make arrangements with a smuggler to take them by boat from Ismir to Greece. But after a two day ride across Turkey in cars and buses, they arrive at Ismir only to be told that the boat will be ready the next day. 

After days of waiting, their boat is finally ready to take them across the Mediterranean Sea to Greece. Crammed into a black inflatable rubber dinghy with an outboard motor, the crossing turns into a terrifying disaster that almost sees the family drown. Mahmoud makes a split-second decision to save his baby sister Hana. Their long journey to a better life will come with much sacrifice but with hope too.

Discussion

Refugee follows three families as they flee their home countries for the safety of another land. For each family the reason is different; for Josef, a German Jew, it is persecution by the Nazi government, for Mahoud it is war that makes life impossible, and for Isabel it is poverty and the communist government of Cuba. 

Gratz seamlessly weaves together the three narratives, while drawing his readers into each separate story with exciting chapter endings.  Despite the expansive time frame stretching from 1939 to 2015, Gratz, through the stories in Refugee, demonstrates how all of us are interconnected through time, place and people. And in ways least expected.

These connections become apparent only near the end of the novel. For example, Josef's family along with the other Jewish passengers on the MS Louis are eagerly awaiting permission to disembark the ship and begin life in Cuba. Instead of being allowed to leave, Cuban policemen are sent on board. When Josef's father attempts to commit suicide by jumping overboard, he is saved by a young Cuban policeman, Mariano Padon. Years later, that same Cuban man, now Isabel's grandfather Lito, decides to jump out of their boat as a diversion to the U.S. Coast Guard, giving Isabel, her mother and father and the Castillo's the chance to get to the beach at Miami. 

Lito tells his granddaughter Isabel that he kept hoping things would change but did nothing. "I see it now Chabela. All  of it. The past, the present, the future. All my life, I kept waiting for things to get better. For the bright promise of manana. But a funny thing happened while I was waiting for the world to change, Chabela: It didn't. Because I didn't change it. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice." Lito makes the decision to sacrifice his chance to get to the US and to act as a diversion for the Coast Guard, giving Isabel and the people in their boat the chance to get to freedom.

Josef's family also becomes connected to Mahmoud's family in 2015 when Mahmoud and his family arrive as refugees in Germany. They are taken in by an elderly German couple, Saul and Ruthie Rosenberg. She tells Mahmoud and his parents that she was once a refugee too and how she lost her brother Josef and her mother, who both died in a concentration camp. Ruthie, now very old, understands what it is like to be refugee and she acts by bringing a Syrian family into her home.

The connection between each place in the story is interesting to consider. One country, dangerous in 1939, is now a place of refuge in 2015. Josef's family is seeking to flee Berlin, Germany, while Mahmoud's family is struggling years later to find safety in Berlin. Another place, Havana Cuba, potentially a place of safety in 1939, is a dangerous in 1994 to those not supportive of Fidel Castro.  Josef's family hopes to find safety in Havana, Cuba, while years later, Isabel's family is fleeing that very country, for the safety of the United States. These connections are not lost on Mahmoud. "Mahmoud knew from his history class back in Syria that Berlin had been all but destroyed by the end of World War II, reduced to a pile of rubble like Aleppo was now. Would it take another seventy years for Syria to return from the ashes the way German did?..."

There are many other connections to explore in Refugee. These include the similarities in the journeys of the refugees. For example, all of the refugees in the story travel at some point by boat. Their journey on water is fraught with danger and in each case, they experience the loss of someone dear to them. 

In Refugee, Gratz does a remarkable job portraying the humanity of the different refugees and in challenging readers through these portrayals, to consider how they are not so different, with hopes, dreams and the desire to live in freedom. The  novel demonstrates that the reasons people flee their homeland are similar regardless of era or place and that their experiences in their adopted countries are also similar. The reasons the Jews fled Germany in 1939 is similar to why Cubans left their island in 1994 and why Syrians fled in 2015. 

Refugee is another outstanding novel by Alan Gratz. The author has included maps at the back, showing the journey of each refugee and there is an extensive Author's Note providing the backstory to each refugee's narrative. Refugee provides an excellent opportunity for students in Grades 5 to 8 to explore the issue of refugees and the world's response to the crisis of displaced persons.

Book Details:

Refugee by Alan Gratz
New York: Scholastic Press     2017
338 pp.

Our Castle By The Sea by Lucy Strange

Our Castle By The Sea is a juvenile historical fiction novel set in southeastern England during the beginning of World War II.

Twelve-year-old Petra (Pet) Zimmermann Smith lives with her father Frederick, her mother  Angela Helene whom they call Mutti as she is from Germany and her fifteen-year-old sister Magda (Mags). Pet's father operates the lighthouse located near the village of Stonegate so their family lives in the adjacent cottage attached to the lighthouse.

Their lighthouse has always been known as the Castle because it is surrounded by four granite megaliths known as the Daughters of Stone which look like buttresses or guard towers. The megaliths are believed to have been used by the druids. Pet's father once told them the legend of the stones. A fishing vessel named the Aurora failed to return to the harbour one foggy night. The daughters of the four men on board went each night to the clifftop to light a signal fire to guide the Aurora home. People believed the ship was lost to the Wyrm, a sandbank just offshore known to shift and sink ships. The last night of their vigil, the daughters sang a song to the sea, offering up their souls in exchange for the return of the Aurora. They sang all night and at dawn a ghostly boat returned with the men. In return for bringing home the Aurora, the Wyrm and they misty tentacles of fog turned the four daughters to stone. This story both entrances and terrifies Pet.

In the Autumn of 1939 Mag's comes home one day with a swollen eye and cut fists. She has been in a fight at school because people have been taunting  her about Mutti. With the start of the war with Germany people in England are suspicious of anyone who is German.

Pet's father receives an order from the government to paint the lighthouse green, camouflaging it from the air. Not long after this, Pet and her family are frightened to see so many planes flying over the lighthouse. They seek shelter in the coal cellar of the lighthouse cottage and while there, Pet discovers a photograph of her parents wedding which she decides to keep. The picture interests Pet because no one looks happy and there are only two guests at the ceremony.

Gas masks arrive in the village and everyone is called to the village hall where Mrs. Baron the headmistress and magistrate at the court in Dover, demonstrates how to use them. Mrs. Baron announces that she will also be the Air Raid Precaution warden for the village.

Pet begins to notice that her sister Mags seems to be acting strangely. She also notices strange goings on in the village. Her father seems distracted when aiding a ship with the lighthouse foghorn and the optic light. Then Pet discovers Mutti leaving the cottage early one morning, and discovers she is following someone else.

In the Spring of 1940, Hitler invades France by way of the Netherlands and Belgium. The real war has now begun. One morning Pet and her family wake up to a fire in the village; someone has set fire to the village hall which was being used as a base for the Local Defense Volunteers and the Scout hut where equipment was being stored.

But then one day Mutti is summoned to a tribunal. Because she was born in Germany, Mutti was considered to be an "enemy alien". Every enemy alien had to be categorized according to the risk they were considered to pose; Category A aliens were a serious threat and locked up in internment camps, Category B were not locked up but were restricted on where they could live and work, Category C aliens were minimal risk and faced no sanctions.At the tribunal, Mutti is declared at Category A alien when a set of maps and charts are presented as being drawn by her.  Despite Mutti's denials and little proof they are actually hers, she is sentenced to an internment camp.

In shock, Pet and Mags decide they must prove Mutti's innocence. But their investigations lead no where and Pet finds herself doubting everyone around her. But a shocking confession from Mutti in a letter and a stunning revelation overheard by Pet throws her world into chaos. What is the truth and will Pet's family ever be the same?

Discussion

Our Castle By The Sea is the story of a young girl, afraid and struggling to understand the world around her who overcomes her own fears to try to save her family from events beyond her control. Strange's novel is unrelenting in the tragedies the Smith family experience making it unusual for juvenile fiction. There is no happy ending here, but there is hope.

The coming difficulties for Pet's family are foreshadowed by her discovery of her parent's wedding photograph, hidden in the Castle's coal cellar. The photograph reveals a wedding that was not filled with joy and attended by only two other people. It suggests a troubled past that Pet doesn't know about and an uncertain future.

Strange weaves many historical details into her story which spans the time period of a year from Autumn 1939 to Autumn 1940. The war in Europe is just beginning. It's been only twenty years since the last world war which was supposed to end all wars. The Germans are in France and the threat of invasion is very real. The coast of France is a mere twenty miles away. The people are afraid and suspicious of anyone German. With little due process, anyone of German ancestry deemed "dangerous" is incarcerated in a camp. Pet notes how the war begins to change people so they turn on neighbours and friends,  when her mother is one of those sent to an internment camp.
"...They were our friends. People from church, the village shopkeepers and fishermen, the parents of the children we had grown up with. But something had changed them. The war. The enemy plane. The things they had heard on the wireless and read in the newspapers. The rumors, the whispers. They were angry. And they were very, very frightened."

Another event mentioned is the evacuation of children from areas considered dangerous such as the coast to villages further inland. The evacuation of Dunkirk is also incorporated into the storyline. When Pet's family learns that boats of all kinds are needed to rescue the trapped troops on the coast of France, Mags is determined to go. But their father insists that she not, although in the end Mags disobeys him. Instead he goes and is lost in the evacuation. Strange touches on all of these real events in her Historical Note at the back of the novel.

Strange incorporates the the legend of the Daughters of the Stone and the Wyrm throughout her story. The legend is presented early in the story and we see that it has a profound effect on Pet. She often dreams the Wyrm is pursuing her right up to the lantern room but never quite makes it. This motif of a shifting sea monster that is after her and her family represents Pet's fears associated with the war. She equates the war with the sea monster that haunts her dreams. "This war is a sea monster, I thought. Sometimes it destroys things violently and openly, and sometimes its tentacles squeeze in through the cracks of normal life, and it strangles us silently."

When Pa and Mags leave to help in the evacuation of Dunkirk, Pet keeps watch on the clifftop. But when it seems like they are not going to return, Pet believes like the Daughters of Stone, she must sing to bring them home."This was the moment that I had always known about in my bones, ever since Pa first told me the legend of the stones. This was the moment in which I would finally become part of this ancient story. The sky wrapped around me, gray as fate, enveloping me together with the stones and the cold-smoking sea." As she sings, a boat arrives in the harbor but it is Kipper and Mags and not her Pa. Later on Pet thinks, "I thought about the lullaby that I had sung to the sea as I prayed for Mags and Pa. I had felt so sure that some kind of magic was working...Just enough to bring Mags safely home, I thought. But not enough for my Pa." Pet continues to wonder, "Was there a price to be paid or not? Would I end up being turned to stone?"

After her accident on the clifftop which leaves her paralyzed from the waist down, Pet considers herself to be a Daughter of Stone. Now she sits in her wheelchair in the lantern room. "I was a Daughter of Stone now -- so, from up in the lantern room, from first light to twilight, I did what the Daughters of Stone do: I kept watch over our sky and sea."  During her watch one night Pet someone enters the lighthouse, knocking out Mags and entering into the lantern room. At first Pet believes it is the Wyrm coming finally to  claim her. In reality it is Mrs. Baron who turns out to be a traitor and a Nazi. Drawing on the legend, Pet thinks, "In that moment, I was aware of the Daughters of Stone outside on the clifftop, sparkling darkly, calling to me as one of their own - warning me, giving me strength." Mrs. Baron reveals much to Pet, including that she is in the lantern room to aid in the beginning of the Nazi invasion. With all the strength, courage and self-sacrifice of the Daughters of Stone, Pet helps to thwart Mrs. Baron's plans. Pet has been transformed from a girl, "...small and unnoticeable and frightened. A girl whose mother was locked away and whose father was lost at sea, who battled with monsters braving the raging skies and the darkness of the night..." Pet is now "Defender of the White Cliffs, Dragon Slayer, Daughter of Stone"

Our Castle By the Sea a mixture of  historical fiction and adventure, a coming of age story with a thrilling climax. And despite Pet having suffered many losses, she demonstrates her resiliency, courage and maturity in her hope for the future, despite the ongoing war. She grows into a strong heroine through adversity.

This novel would definitely have benefited from lovely pencil illustrations. Sadly, illustration in juvenile fiction is mostly lacking today, but a good artist helps tell the story and fuel the imagination of the reader. Nevertheless, Our Castle By the Sea is a well-written novel that historical fiction fans will very much appreciate.

Book Details:

Our Castle By The Sea by Lucy Strange
New York: Chicken House      2019
319 pp.

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Ten-year-old Ada lives with her Mam and her younger brother, Jamie in London, England. Ada's mother works nights in the pub below their third floor flat. It is Ada's job to get Jamie breakfast in the morning and tea at night. Ada isn't able to walk because her right foot is small and twisted, so she gets around their flat by crawling. Because of her foot, Ada's mother will not allow her to ever leave their flat. She believes her daughter's crippled foot is shameful and that people will judge her as a parent. She also frequently tells Ada that her foot is her own fault. Ada hasn't been to school and instead is forced to care for Jamie. She is often hungry.

As Jamie gets older he no longer wants to stay in their flat and one day to prevent him from leaving, Ada ties him up. Seeing how upset he becomes, Ada releases him, realizing that she is becoming cruel like her Mam. That day she decides to teach herself to walk, hoping that if she can walk, Mam will be proud. Learning to walk is a painful process but Ada persists, deciding to keep it a secret. When Mam discovers that Jamie has been stealing food, she punishes Ada by forcing her into the cabinet beneath their sink. This is a terrifying experience for Ada because it is damp, smelly, dark and infested with roaches. And now that she's older and bigger, being in the cabinet all night is painful.

In late August, 1939, Jamie tells Mam that his best friend Billy White says that all the children in London are leaving, being sent to the country. London is going to be bombed by the Germans. Mam decides to send Jamie but not Ada, telling her that "Nice people don't want to look at that foot." Later on Ada tells Jamie to make sure he knows the time and place they are to be, because she intends to leave with him.

On a Friday morning, Ada, wearing her Mam's shoes leaves with Jamie. The walk is painful for Ada, but they make it inside the school. At the school Ada meets Stephen White who is surprised to see Ada. He reveals to her that everyone believes she is "simple" and cannot talk and that people feel sorry for her Mam. Stephen gives Ada a piggy-back ride to the train station and by noon Ada is on the train with the rest of the children headed out of London.

The train ride proves to be a learning experience for Ada who has never seen grass or trees and is astonished to see a girl riding a pony racing the train. For Ada, the girl on the pony leaves a lasting impression. Finally Ada and Jamie along with the other children arrive at a train station and are lined up so they can be paired with adults who will take them into their homes. Ada and Jamie are so scruffy that no one chooses them.The woman in charge of placing the children and whom Ada nicknames the "iron woman" consoles them and then drives them to a house set amongst trees.

They overhear the "iron woman" and the lady who lives at the house, Miss Smith arguing about taking the children. Initially Ada doesn't care whether Miss Smith takes them or not, until she sees the bright yellow pony poking its head through the bushes. This makes Ada take matters into her own hands and she has Jamie help her back to the house. In the end, the iron lady whose name is Lady Thorton, leaves Ada and Jamie with Miss Smith who is not at all very happy with this turn of events.

They are forced to have baths and it is at this time that Miss Smith discovers Ada's foot was not injured by a brewers cart but instead that she has a club foot. She tells Ada that they will go to see the doctor in the morning. Miss Smith learns that Jamie is ready to go to school but that Ada doesn't attend because of her "ugly foot" and that the children do not know their last name. Ada's only concern is the pony whom she learns is named Butter. The doctor tells Miss Smith that the children have impetigo (a skin infection), that they are very malnourished to the point that Ada is developing rickets (a Vitamin D deficiency) The doctor is also disturbed by Ada's untreated club foot, which Ada learns could have been treated when she was a baby. Miss Smith decides she will write Ada's mother immediately in order to get permission for her to have surgery to correct her foot.

Life with Miss Smith is very different from life with Mam. There is lots of food, baths, and special clothes for sleeping in, called pajamas. Ada is allowed to be outside and play. They learn about soup served in bowls and eaten with spoons, little green things called peas and thin white blankets on the beds called sheets. Then with England at war with Germany, comes the risk of being bombed. While Jamie misses Mam and wants to go home, Ada knows "Home was more frightening than bombs." Ada knows if she goes back home she will run away again. But when Jamie has a tantrum at the train station after his friend Billy White is taken home by his mother, Ada wonders if her mother will be happy with her now that she can walk with crutches. Maybe Mam will see that she's not simple. As Ada's health improves and she comes to trust Miss Smith, Ada begins to realize there might not be any going back.

Discussion

The War that Saved My Life traces the journey of Ada Smith who discovers herself and saves her life and that of her brother Jamie after they are sent out of London to the countryside during the early days of World War II. Born with a club foot, abused by her Mam and malnourished, ten-year-old Ada  has no idea of the outside world.

Ada struggles to understand the world she's been dropped into. It seems that people use words but don't really mean what they say.  For example,  Miss Smith claims she's not a nice person, "but she cleaned up the floor. She was not a nice person, but she bandaged my foot in a white piece of cloth, and gave us two of her own clean shirts to wear."  Miss Smith tells them eggs are "all the food I have", but "All the food she had, she said, except there was butter on the slightly stale bread, and sugar in the tea." Ada notes that "Miss Smith was not a nice person, but the bed she put us in was soft and clean, with smooth thin blankets and warm thicker ones."

Because she can't trust the words people use, Ada doesn't know how to respond to questions, so she often shrugs. When Miss Smith asks if she's hungry Ada's not sure whether to say yes and she wonders, "Did Miss Smith want me to be hungry, or not?" She is in fact very hungry but telling her Mam would not have changed anything. What would telling Miss Smith mean? Ada has been told by Mam that her clubfoot is her fault but Ada has always wondered whether this was true. The doctor's shock at seeing her untreated clubfoot makes Ada feel like she's done something wrong. When the doctor asks her if she's in very much pain, again Ada has no idea how to answer this question; "How much was very much? What did he want me to say?" And when Ada makes tea for Miss Smith who tells her this was thoughtful, she wonders if thoughtful is good or bad?

At first Ada's experiences in the village seem to confirm what she thinks about herself and what her Mam has labelled her. When they arrive in Kent, Ada and her brother are passed over by all the adults. One woman wants Jamie but not Ada. Lady Thorton then takes them to the home of Miss Smith, who initially rejects the two children but is forced to take them into her home.

Ada discovers that her mother has not told anyone about her club foot but instead has told people that Ada is "simple". Ada is not sure if she is "simple".  Mrs. White who arrives to take her younger son home to London, expresses shock and disgust that Ada is living in the village and not in an asylum. Even the evacuee teacher believes that Ada is "not educable", because she cannot read. However Miss Smith does not believe what she hears about Ada and tells her, "You mustn't listen to people who don't know you. Listen to what you know, yourself."

As time passes Ada struggles mightily with how she views herself compared to how Miss Smith and Maggie and Fred Grimes see her because her entire life she's been told she's filthy, stupid  and trash. For example, despite Miss Smith's kindness and generosity, Ada rejects her because she doesn't believe she's worthy of such treatment. She refuses Miss Smith's offer to make her a beautiful green velvet dress. "I had more than I needed. More than I felt comfortable with, really. I was still the girl I'd seen in the train station mirror, still the feeble-minded girl stuck behind a window. The simple one. I was okay with wearing Maggie's castoffs, but I knew my limits."

This feeling reaches a crisis point on Christmas Eve when Miss Smith (Ada now calls her Susan) gives Ada a beautiful green velvet dress she has made. She tells Ada she looks beautiful when she tries it on, but Ada believes she's lying and that she is not worthy of such a beautiful gift. "She was lying. She was lying, and I couldn't bear it. I heard Mam's voice shrieking in my head. 'You ugly piece of rubbish! Filth and trash! No one wants you, with that ugly foot!" My hands started to shake. Rubbish. Filth. Trash I could wear Maggie's discards, or plain clothes from the shops, but not this, not this beautiful dress. I could listen to Susan say she never wanted children all day long. I couldn't bear to hear her call me beautiful."

On Christmas Day Ada manages to wear the dress because she knows it will make Susan happy but she states, "I felt like an imposter. It was worse than when I tried to talk like Maggie. Here I was, looking like Maggie. Looking like a shiny bright girl with hair ribbons. Looking like a girl with a family that loved her." But when Jamie tells her she looks beautiful, Ada realizes that she does have family that love her - her brother loves her.

As her view about herself changes, Ada's perspective on her life also changes. She begins to desire more for herself and for her life. Her struggles with teaching Butter to trot lead Ada to reach out to Mr. Grimes. "A month ago I'd been thrilled with Butter, and now I wanted something more." Ada tells Grimes about having a clubfoot and asks him if he can fix her. It's the first time there's a hint that Ada might want more than just to walk around on crutches. She also initially refuses Miss Smith's offer to teach her to read. But once she's tricked into learning, Ada works hard to learn to read and write.She works hard for Grimes and eventually masters riding Butter and even identifies the arrival of a spy on the English coast.

The realization that if her mother had her foot fixed she could have been like Jamie able to run and attend school leads Ada to desire much more for herself. She comes to realize that her disability is not her fault. She could be more. When Ada accepts the truth of her situation, she realizes that she wants to be a normal person. "...And I wanted my foot fixed badly. I was tired of it hurting. I wanted to be like a normal person. I wanted to walk without crutches, and I wanted to go to school, and I wanted to wear shoes on both feet. I never wanted to be locked up again."

The knowledge that her disability is not her fault, that her mother inexplicably did not seek treatment for her and the realization that Mam doesn't love her or Jamie makes Ada want to fight for the right to live a life where she is wanted, loved and cared for. To Ada this is her personal war and she now intends to win it.  

Brubaker Bradley has crafted an endearing character in Ada Smith. Readers will identify with Ada as she struggles to find a place to belong, to make sense of the world around her and to confront her intense emotions about her mother and her disability. Ada works her way through anger and sadness over the fact that her Mam doesn't love or want her. Miss Smith's unconditional love of Ada and her brother Jamie, help her to confront her mother and to escape. At the same time Ada begins to know joy and love, learned from the actions of Miss Smith.

Miss Smith is also a complex, well crafted character who has her own issues. She too has believed what others have said about her and constantly tells Ada that she is not a nice person, despite her actions proving otherwise. Miss Smith sees herself in Ada, different, judged for a characteristic she feels cannot be changed and therefore socially isolated.

The War That Saved My Life has a subtle message about tolerance towards anyone who is different. Although never directly stated, it is hinted that Miss Smith is a lesbian who lived with her friend Becky. She was rejected by her parents who considered her unredeemable. She tells Ada and Jamie, "In my case being redeemed means changing my evil ways and regaining my heavenly crown. It means my parents don't like me..." Miss Smith's situation is compared to that of Ada with her clubfoot and Jamie with his left handedness, all conditions the author considers people to be born with. Unfortunately, there is no concrete scientific proof that same-sex attraction is something a person is born with. Nevertheless, the author's message that all people be treated with dignity and are worthy of love,  is an important one. Becky's treatment by her parents was not charitable nor Christian. No wonder she no longer attends church service. The novel ends on a more positive note with Miss Smith no longer isolated from her village community as demonstrated by the villagers desperately searching through the ruins of Miss Smith's house after it was bombed.

A sequel, The War I Finally Won has just been recently published and details Ada's life after returning from London with Jamie and Miss Smith to Kent. 

Book Details:

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
New York: Dial Books For Young Readers        2015
316 pp.

Genevieve's War by Patricia Reilly Giff

Thirteen-year-old Genevieve (Gen) Michel is an American who has been visiting her grandmother, Meme during the summer of 1939. Meme lives on the farm Gen's father, Gerard grew up on in Alsace, France only five miles from the German border. Gen's older brother, Andre has also been visiting for the summer, working in the village bistro. Andre has been working in France the previous two summers, first in Strasbourg and Colmar, then in Basel as a cook in restaurants. He returned to America two weeks ago to begin college where he will study business and eventually open his own restaurant.

Now it is Gen's turn to travel home to America where she will live with her cousin Ellen in Flushing until Christmas. Gen has mixed feelings about returning to America. She doesn't want to stay with Meme, who complains about everything. However, the best part of this summer has been spending time with her friends: Remy, tall with blue eyes and curly hair and her new friend Katrin Moeller on the nearby farm . Remy wants to farm some day, rather than take over his family's pharmacy.

Before coming to France, Gen  lived with her Aunt Marie in Springfield Gardens for as long as she could remember. Her parents died in a train crash when she was very young. Aunt Marie, who is like a mother to her, is teaching in the far north of Canada as part of her preparation for a book she is writing.   

Before Andre had left for America, he told Gen that war was coming to France, that the Germans intend to take back Alsace and invade Europe. Gen would leave just in time, taking a ship back to America. For her it couldn't come soon enough after a summer of Meme's gruff and stern ways, but Andre had felt bad about leaving Meme. 

The day for Gen to leave has arrived. She won't miss pulling cabbages or digging the potatoes, but she will miss Louis the shepherd dog who is Meme's watchdog, and the cow Andre named Elsie. When they climb into the cart, Gen notices Meme is in pain, dragging her left foot which seems to be bleeding. In the village Gen asks Meme to stop so she can say goodbye to Madame Jacques at the patisserie. Meme drops her at the train station where she meets up with Madame Thierry who will accompany her home to America. But when the train arrives, Gen cannot make herself board. Instead she turns around and walks back to the farm. On the way she hides her heavy suitcase and books in a wooded area to pick up the next day.

Her reappearance at the farm does not please Meme whom she finds laying on the bench by the hearth, her ankle bound. She considers Gen head-strong and impulsive, having wasted her Aunt Marie's money on her ticket. However, Remy is surprised and Katrin is happy that Gen has not left France. Even worse when Gen goes to retrieve her suitcase and books she finds they are gone, leaving her with no clothing. Meme gives Gen a few clothes and her father's old school notebook. Gen begins to settle into life on the farm, milking the cow and hanging herbs in the kitchen. 

One day war arrives with the invasion of the Nazis. School does not begin because Monsieur Henri and some of the other teachers are serving in the army. In December 1939, Gen receives a tearstained letter from Aunt Marie admonishing her for staying and fearing for her safety. Gen is homesick but Meme helps by bringing out some of the family traditions; a wooden shoe leaves out for Christmas, and the cutting of a Christmas tree which Gen manages to accomplish. For Christmas dinner there is goose, green beans and tart.

Following the holidays, school begins but there are soon many disturbing changes. In June, Paris falls and the war is over for France. The Germans begin deporting French Jews and those who fought against them in the Great War. At the end of the summer of 1940, Gen helps Meme harvest the many vegetables including carrots, potatoes, cabbage and squash. She also helps with canning the vegetables and making jam. 

On the first day of school they lose their pig to the Germans. When Katrin comes to walk with Gen, she tells her that they are hiding their food from the Germans. At school, students are stunned to discover they are no longer allowed to speak French, their names and street names are Germanized and even wedding rings must be changed to the right hand as is the German custom. All radios must be turned in and books not written in German are to be burned. When the Germans arrive in the village their presence brings fear to everyone. The history teacher, Monsieur Henri is replaced by the strict Herr Albert. The classroom's French flag is taken down and replaced by the Nazi flag.

Things begin to get worse as time passes. Gen helps Meme hide half of their food stores in a secret pantry behind the armoire and she is made to promise not to tell anyone. "You'll see," Meme said, 'There are those who are French, and others who are German sympathizers.' " In November they lose their horse, Sister and the cart to the German army. Even more upsetting, a Nazi officer named Furst begins living with them, taking Meme's bedroom. However, Gen disobeys Meme and tells Katrin everything.

The bombing of the railroad by the French Resistance to stop the Germans from deporting people angers the Germans. Remy is injured, his father is arrested, and his mother and sister forced to escape to neutral Switzerland. As Genevieve is drawn more and more into the Resistance she must learn to show discretion and take responsibility for her actions.

Discussion

Genevieve's War is a coming of age story set in occupied France during World War II.  Gen is only thirteen when the war begins in 1939. She's innocent and trusting, not realizing that in Alsace some French citizens will collaborate with the Germans.

Meme warns Gen repeatedly not to tell anyone about their food stores, about the secret attic where they eventually hide Remy. "We can't trust anyone. Tell no one Genevieve." and later "You'll see," Meme said. "There are those who are French, and others who are German sympathizers." But Gen believes that it will be fine to tell Katrin because she's her friend. Instead of listening to Meme Gen tells Katrin everything - "By the time we saw the school, I'd told her everything I could think of: the attic room, the painting, Louis. I wondered what Meme would say if she knew. But she wouldn't know. Katrin would keep our secret, I was sure of it." At this point, Gen is very naïve and doesn't understand that she might be endangering the lives of others. It isn't until her secret about Remy hiding at Meme's house is revealed and the Nazi's come looking for Remy, that Genevieve begins to understand that this time of war calls for discretion and courage, that she might be responsible for the safety and the lives of those she is helping.

Besides chronicling the war, Genevieve's War also portrays the change in Gen's relationship with her grandmother. At the beginning of the novel it's evident they do not get along. Meme believes Gen is headstrong and impulsive. Likewise Gen has a poor opinion of her grandmother. When she finds an old photograph of Meme with the word Miel written on the back Gen thinks "How pretty she'd been, young and smiling a little. How different from the sour old woman she was now. I turned the picture over. Miel was written on the back. Honey! More like vinegar, if you asked me." Gen believes Meme will be happy when she leaves for  America. When she decides to stay in France, Gen is not welcomed back. " 'You've missed the train, the ship. Headstrong! Do you ever think?'...'A disruption in my life,' I thought I heard her whisper."

Their relationship begins to change when Remy's life is in danger after the bombing of the railway tracks. Gen begins to see the good in her grandmother and Meme comes to see that Gen has some redeemable qualities. Gen displays quick thinking when she is questioned by Furst about where she's been. This earns praise from Meme who tells her "You never cease to surprise me, Genevieve."  Later on Gen becomes angry at Furst for criticizing Meme, telling him she thinks Meme is wonderful. Gen overhears Meme tell Furst she "couldn't get along without her during this terrible time...Her father would have been proud of her."  Gen realizes she is beginning to love Meme.

When Gen disobeys Meme and tells Katrin about Remy hiding in their home, this results in the Nazis coming to search for him. Fortunately, Remy is able to escape, but the kindly woodcutter who is part of the French Resistance is not so lucky. Gen is devastated at her role in this and confesses to Meme the possibility that she might be responsible for what happened to him. However, Meme understands, telling Gen how her father experienced the same thing and that in war, people do what they can. Gen realizes that in this war Meme "...had taken in a girl who was forgetful and messy, who hadn't loved her. She must have known what I was thinking. 'A girl who changed my life,' she said, 'A girl who looked like me when I was young, who acted like the son I loved.' " In the end Meme tells Genevieve, "You have been a gift, Genevieve." She gives Gen her wedding ring hoping it will remind Gen of her grandfather, Victor and Meme. Gen too feels love for Meme. "It's the best gift I've ever had, Miel. I do love you."

Because Genevieve's War is written for 9 to 12 year old's, many of the more terrible aspects of the occupation of France by the Nazis are only hinted at. For example, the deportation of French Jews is only mentioned once and the brutality of the Nazis is downplayed. However, readers are shown how the Nazis took whatever they wanted; animals, food, homes, and vehicles and how their presence creates an atmosphere of fear and mistrust in the village. Younger readers will also have a good understanding of just how dangerous the work of the French Resistance was and how it was difficult to know who to trust. Anyone might be a collaborator or an informant. For example, Gen first believes that their new teacher Herr Albert is a staunch Nazi and someone to be feared. Soon Gen learns that Herr Albert is working for the Resistance. Likewise, Madame Jacques is revealed to be a collaborator.

Genevieve's War is a good introduction to historical fiction for younger readers and offers them the opportunity to learn more about what life was like for a specific group of French during World War II. Reilly Giff provides her readers with a map showing the location of the Alsace region of France in relation to Germany and Switzerland but does not identify the location of Meme's farm. The novel ends on a hopeful note with the liberation of France. The title is a reference to Gen's brother's name for the restaurant he someday wants to open. Overall, a good treatment of the impact of the German occupation of the Alsace region of France during World War II.

Book Details:

Genevieve's War by Patricia Reilly Giff
New York: Holiday House      2017
222 pp.

Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit

The novel begins at the start of World War II in 1939. Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany months earlier and operation Sonderaktion Krakau, targeting Krakow's intellectuals and academics is now underway.

On November 6th, 1939, seven-year-old Anna Lania's father is summoned to a meeting of all the professors of the Jagiellonian University to discuss the direction of the Polish academy under the direction of the German occupiers. Professor Lania is an linguistics professor at the university. As a result, he often speaks to Anna in many different languages. By the age of seven she has learned to speak German Russian, French, English as well as a bit of Yiddish, Ukrainian, Armenian and Carpathian Romany.

Anna has been left alone before by her father before and if he's to be away for a lengthy period, she is placed in the company of an adult. This time she is left with Herr Doktor Fuchsmann around eleven o'clock in the morning.  By the closing time at the pharmacy,  Anna's father still had not returned.  What Anna does not know is that her father, like other Polish intellectuals, will be taken away to a prison in Krakow, then to various internment camps in Poland and finally to the Sachenhausen concentration camp in Germany where he will die.

But in early November, all Anna knows is that after spending the day at Herr Doktor Fuchsmann's shop, she has no where to go and no father to return home to. Herr Doktor fuchsmann refuses to take her to his home so Anna spends the night sleeping beneath the counter of his shop. In the morning Anna is given something to eat and then taken to her father's apartment where she is abandoned by Herr Doktor Fuchsmann. The door is locked and so Anna is forced to wait in front of the apartment door. That evening she returns to Herr Doktor Fuchsmann's shop to wait for her father. It is outside the pharmacy that Anna first encounters the tall, thin man whom she comes to know as the "Swallow Man".

Like Anna, this unknown man also speaks German, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish as he questions her about who she is and if she is alright. When she begins to cry, he summons a swallow with a series of chirps and whistles. Anna responds to all of the man's questions in the language he asked each in and then when he tells her to stay out of sight, Anna believes he is telling her to follow him. Anna follows the man out of Krakow and into the fields outside the city. After Anna warns the thin man and likely saves him from a Polish farmer, he tells her he will take her back to Krakow and find someone to care for her. He tells her "It is not good for a girl to be without a father, these days."  Anna asks the Swallow Man, "...But is it any better for a father to be without a daughter?"  This leads the Swallow Man to reconsider and decides that Anna will travel with him. However, he sets up several rules: she can ask him all the questions she has but only when they are alone, she must follow him as a river follows its riverbank. He also tells Anna that names are not safe because "Names are ways for people to find us,... If you keep a name, people know whom to ask after. ...We don't want to be found." The Swallow Man explains to Anna that the reason her father never returned is because someone knew his name and was able to find him. He tells her he will call her "Sweetie" and she will call him "Daddy".  He tells her when they are alone he is to be called Swallow Man and she can use her name, Anna.

As they travel around Poland, the Swallow Man begins to teach Anna how to survive. First he teaches her practical lessons like "People are dangerous. And the more people there are in one place, the more dangerous the place becomes."  and that "Human beings are the best hope in the world of other human beings to survive." He also begins to teach Anna a new language which he calls "Road". In "Road there's more than one way to say everything...It's very simple to translate something into Road, but it's very difficult to translate anything back."  An example of the language of Road is the Swallow Man's descriptions of the German and Russian soldiers they meet in their travels. He tells Anna that the soldiers look like young men but in reality the Germans are Wolves who are part of a cruel pack while the Russians are Bears who are solitary but proud. Both are determined to harm people. The Swallow Man also teaches Anna how to survive in the forest. "...the Swallow Man knew well which roots were good to eat, which berries were safe, what fruits yielded a good nut or seed, which leaves left a sweet taste in the mouth and which a bitter..."

As she follows him through forest, hills and plains and wetlands, Anna finally asks the Swallow Man "Where are we going?" He tells her they are on a "mission of crucial scientific significance" to save an endangered species of bird of which there is only one left.  "The Wolves and the Bears desperately want to find the bird, because it tastes delicious; and because it's the last, they think that whoever eats it will become very, very strong." The Swallow Man tells Anna that the Wolves and the Bears have eaten all of this bird but one and he's "going to make sure the last one stays safe."  through the use of their knowledge, observation, patience and time.

Although Anna and the Swallow Man do their best to avoid people, a chance encounter in the forest changes their situation in ways neither could have anticipated. Anna meets a man in the forest who appears to be kissing his rifle. When she asks him what he is doing with his rifle, he explains to her that his "rifle" is actually a clarinet which he cannot play because the reed is cracked. Reb Hirschl "plays" his clarinet for Anna. The Swallow Man does not want to having anything to do with Reb Hirschl and takes Anna away from him. He admits to Anna that he does not want Reb Hirschl to come with them because he is a Jew. But Anna argues with the Swallow Man insisting that they should help Reb Hirschl who likely will not survive in the forest alone. When Anna attempts to sneak back to Reb Hirschl to bring him bread because she is worried about him surviving, the Swallow Man relents and brings the Jewish man to where they are camped.

Anna, the Swallow Man and Reb Hirschl travel throughout Poland and as the war progresses and Operation Barbarossa begins, the three struggle to survive. Mass graves, dead soldiers, unexpected death and the sickening of the Swallow Man force Anna to make difficult choices but in the end lead to unexpected redemption and rescue.

Discussion

Anna and The Swallow Man is an unusual story that is much different from the usual fare offered to young adult readers, as it offers a more interpretive than literal story.  Told in third person narrative, the novel on one layer tells the story of Anna, a seven-year-old abandoned when her father is caught in the Nazi net and who remains strangely unconcerned about her father's whereabouts. It is a fairy tale about surviving in an world filled with evil, as fairy tales often are.

Although Anna and The Swallow Man is historical fiction, the focus is not so much on events of history - although they are referenced and form the backdrop for the story - as it is about relationships. The main focus is on the relationship between Anna and the Swallow Man who refuses to share his true identity with her. While her name is important to Anna, the Swallow Man convinces her that names are dangerous because they lead to people being able to find other people during this dangerous time. This is the first hint the reader has that the Swallow Man might be someone of importance whom the Nazis may be searching for. Given the background information in the opening chapter about the German operation Sonderaktion Krakau and the description of the Swallow Man who is wearing a three piece suit and carrying a physicians bag, it is likely he is part of the Polish intelligentsia and therefore attempting to escape the Nazis. But for Anna, giving up her name is difficult because her identity is tied up with her name.

Because Anna's father was a linguist, she is skilled at speaking to people in the language they speak to her whether it be German or Polish or French or Russian. Ironically, all the languages she speaks, are those of the people the Nazis are out to eliminate: the Polish, French, and Russian Jews, the Romany an so forth. When she meets the Swallow Man, she finds his language to be "an erratic, shimmering thing" and that he does not say what he means. Anna quickly adapts, since she is versatile in languages and so when the tall thin man tells her merely to "stay out of sight...For as long as you can." Anna interprets this to mean that she is to follow him as he heads out of Krakow and into the forest. 

The Swallow Man eventually teaches Anna his language which he calls "Road" because "The world as it exists is a very, very dangerous place".  In "Road" there is no way to lie - it's a matter of interpretation and the words used. Using a language that is subjective is a way of protection for the Swallow Man, and a way to survive during this time of war, when one's language can give one away to the enemy.

Just as the Swallow Man teaches Anna to survive in the forest, he also teaches her to survive in the wilds of a world at war. To that end he frames danger in wartime which comes primarily from soldiers by identifying them as predatory animals. This is the only way he can explain the danger to Anna, who is a child and a girl. The Swallow Man refers to Germans as Wolves who are part of a cruel, angry pack  while Russians are Bears who are solitary. He also tells Anna that they are on a mission to find an endangered species of bird which the Wolves and Bears wish to find a devour because "it's the last and they think that whoever eats it will become very, very strong." This bird is special because it flies and sings in a unique way.  Readers will have their own interpretations as to whom or what the Swallow Man is referring to in these passages. It would seem that the Swallow Man is teaching Anna who the prime threats are to her survival during war and how she is to stay alive during this dangerous time.

 Later in the novel the focus shifts to the relationship Reb Hirschl has with both Anna and the Swallow Man. Reb Hirschl is a character who brings some measure of delight into Anna's difficult life; he brings music, poetry and even play. Unlike the Swallow Man who is tasked with keeping them alive, Reb can afford to be a source of joy in a more open way. In the case of Reb Hirschl and the Swallow Man, although neither of them likes the other, they do develop a relationship of "cooperative understanding" - " ...in which one of the two men would forgo his own strongly held way of being and embrace the others as if giving a moment of his life to his opposite in tribute." 

Not all the men Anna meets are as good-hearted as Reb Hirschl. The Peddler whom they encounter in the forest is a creepy man who attempts to convince the Swallow Man to let him use Anna sexually. For Anna's safety, the Swallow Man murders the Peddler later in the night when he is asleep. But he also admits that Reb Hirschl is correct that the Peddler may have recognized him and this is the main reason he was killed. The Swallow Man tells Reb Hirschl that if he is discovered, the world will burn. Reb Hirschl does not accept the Swallow Man's explanation and leaves them.

Anna and the Swallow Man spend most of the novel in the forest sequestered away from events happening in Poland and Russia. Their fears are confirmed when they meet the Peddler who provides them with horrific news of the ghetto liquidations and the camps that are killing Jews. After they are caught up in Operation Barbarossa which sees the Germans conduct a lightning advance into Russia, the full reality of war begins to confront them.  Anna, Reb and the Swallow Man encounter on a daily basis, dead soldiers whom they scavenge so as to be able to survive. For Anna this is a fact of life which she quickly adapts to. "It was not pleasant to harvest from the dead -- particularly the recently dead, whose warmth thwarted Anna's efforts at stoicism -- but soon she learned not to look at their faces, and if she interacted with only their clothing and their kits, she didn't have to wonder about what their names had been..."  Anna learns from Reb to treat the dead bodies with dignity as she watches him look the dead in the face, apologize to them and pray over them.

When the Swallow Man becomes ill due to a lack of his medication and he is badly wounded in protecting Anna, she manages to walk him to a German field camp. Anna does so despite being taught the Germans are Wolves set on devouring the endangered species - a bird because she remembers what the Swallow Man taught her that  "Human beings are the best hope in the world of other human beings to survive." Overcoming her fear of the "Wolves" she begs for help, recognizing that they are also humans who can help. The doctor Wolf, so desensitized to the death of humans, he doesn't see the humanity of the Swallow Man - he's just a wound to him. "The soldier was only doing what he'd done a hundred times before -- treating the wound and ignoring the man."  Perhaps the endangered species is a human being who can see and feel the humanity of others.

Author Gavriel Savit identifies Anna and the Swallow Man as a fairytale "about the magical uncertainties of war and childhood, and it aims to ask more questions than it answers."   Savit certainly has accomplished this with his thought-provoking novel. Marketed as a young adult novel this story is more suited for older teens and adults.

Book Details:

Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit
New York: Alfred A. Knopf        2016
232 pp.

50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus

Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus had a comfortable life in America, with a family of two young children, nine year old Ellen and eleven year old Stephen. Like many people around the world, they had watched the rise of Hitler and the growth of anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. Although American newspapers were filled with articles about the loss of basic civil rights German Jews were experiencing. the United States government remained indifferent. It was nearly impossible to bring refugees, even children into America at this time.

Gilbert Kraus was a forty-two-year-old business lawyer who was determined to save at least some Jewish children from the clutches of the Reich. Raised as a secular Jew, Gilbert and his wife, Eleanor, sent their two children to a Quaker school in Philadelphia. Liz Perle, a granddaughter of the Kraus's, says they do not understand the motive behind their actions, but they are still proud of what they did.

Gilbert told his wife of his intentions and then set out to find a legal way to bring the children to the U.S. Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt was popular with the Jewish American population, he knew that a large influx of Jewish immigrants would not be popular with the American people. According to Jonathan Sarna, Professor of American Jewish History at Brandes University, saving Jews was not popular with Roosevelt. It was a time of high unemployment and economic crisis.

Gilbert met with George Messersmith, the Under Secretary of State and told him that they were prepared to go to Nazi Germany to rescue the children of Jews. The United States had a quota system for refugees and Messersmith told Gilbert that the number of people who had applied for asylum from Germany and Austria would fill the quota for the next five years.

As conditions worsened in Austria and Germany, approximately 10,000 Jewish children were sent to England in what came to be known as the Kindertransport.

Originally Germany was ambivalent about Jews leaving the country - after all that is what they wanted - to rid themselves of their Jewish population. But that attitude was gradually disappearing and it was becoming increasingly difficult to leave Germany.

Meanwhile, when Gilbert compared the lists of Jews applying for asylum and those actually being granted it, the numbers did not match. In fact, he discovered that the quotas were not being filled as people either did not use their visas due to illness, lack of money or the decision to travel to Palestine. Could these unused visas be used for Jewish children?  Gilbert approached Messersmith about this idea and while he did not say yes he also did not say no. In March of 1939, Eleanor began preparing affidavits from people who would sponsor the Jewish children and six weeks later she had fifty four affidavits.

This period of time in America was difficult because there was much antisemitism in the country. There were over one hundred organizations in the U.S. that openly promoted antisemitism including Catholic priest, Father Charles Coughlin whose talks often focused on the evils of usury. Because of popular resistance to Jewish immigrants, even the Jewish community in America did not support the Krauses mission to bring Jewish children to America. They feared a public backlash and a further rise in antisemitism.

The documentary interviewed Marsha Rozenblit, Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Maryland. Rozenblit states that at this time no one in Germany or Austria believed that the Nazi's would outright kill the Jews. Many people thought that eventually this would pass. As we now know, it did not.

In April of 1939, the Krauses prepared to travel to Germany to see if they could get fifty Jewish children out of Austria. War seemed imminent. Eleanor was advised against traveling with Gilbert who needed someone to help him. In the end, they decided to ask their children's pediatrician, Dr. Robert Schless to accompany Gilbert. Schless would give each child a physical examination and help determine those children best suited to be assigned visas.

When Gilbert was in Vienna, he decided that he needed Eleanor to be there and she met him in Paris. They then took the Orient Express to Vienna where they met Schless. Using a list that the Nazi's obtained of all the Jews in Vienna, the Krauses began interviewing boys and girls who might be suitable to emigrate to the United States. Social and financial backgrounds were not considered. However complications with the affidavits arose, as the American consulate did not know about the plan to use the unused visas. In May, 1939 Gilbert went to the American embassy in Berlin to meet with Mr. Raymond Geist. Berlin was filled with Nazi stormtroopers. Geist would try to set aside fifty visas for the children. In addition to the visas, each child had to obtain a German passport from the Nazi government. The time when the German government was agreeable to allowing Jews to leave Germany was quickly passing but in the end, the Gestapo gave them the fifty passports.

The children and their families arrived at the Vienna train station. The faces of the fathers reflected their deep sadness, while the mothers remained hopeful. The parents were warned not to wave to their children as Jews were forbidden to give the Nazi salute and a wave misinterpreted as a salute could get them arrested. The children traveled by train to Berlin to get their visas and then spent ten days on the USS President Harding, arriving in New York on June 3, 1939 and to safety.

Discussion

50 Children is an HBO documentary, written, produced and directed by Steven Pressman. It aired in April of 2013. 50 Children presents the incredible story of a young American Jewish couple who traveled to the heart of Nazi Germany in 1939 to save fifty Jewish children from certain death.  Using interviews from the Kraus's granddaughter and some of the children (now elderly adults) rescued or the children of  those saved, this documentary weaves a narrative that tells how the Kraus's came to save these children from certain death.

Pressman began his research in 2010 and was able to collect a great amount of information from the families of the rescued children as well as never before seen film footage. 50 Children is narrated by Alan Alda and actress Mamie Gummer who voices Eleanor Kraus. The HBO documentary was aired on April 8, 2014, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Since almost all Jewish children sent to Nazi concentration camps were exterminated, the photographs of some of the children the Krauses saved take on a special poignancy when they are now seen as elderly adults. These people would likely not have survived had it not been for Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus. In fact, as the documentary relates, one of the children originally chosen, Heinrich Steinburger, fell ill just before the Krauses and the children left Vienna. He was too sick to travel and remained behind, his place taken by the brother of another child already chosen. Heinrich Steinburger perished three years later at Sobibor, an extermination camp in Poland.

The Krauses went back to their life in America and rarely spoke of what they did. The story became public when journalist Steven Pressman learned about it from his wife, Liz Perle, granddaughter of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus. Perle had in her possession an unpublished manuscript written by Eleanor detailing their efforts to save the children.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website has a page on Eleanor and Gilbert Kraus: https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/personal-story/eleanor-gilbert-kraus