The House On The Canal by Thomas Harding

A building located in the middle of Amsterdam next to a canal was referred to by Anne Frank as "the old house on the canal."  That house had it's beginnings long ago. 

In 1580, the land where the "tall, narrow house" would come to stand was part of a marshland filled with field mice and seagulls. In the 1600's people came to build a canal that had strong walls. In 1635, a stonemason built a brick house with a green door close to the canal. When he required more space, the stonemason built an annex at the back of the house. More homes were built next to the house, one with blue shutters, another with red shutters, as well as a church with bells that rang four times every hour. 

In 1653, the house was the home of a woman with twelve children. She had fled persecution because of her Christian beliefs.  The plague raged along the canal in 1709, but the woman and her family survived. She lived for many years there. The Great Frost came, freezing the canal, meaning that food and water could not be supplied to the people that lived hear the canal. Eventually a wealthy merchant and his wife moved into the rundown house, repainting and repairing the annex. Although they had no children there were parties and many of their friends visited. Eventually the merchant died and his wife moved out of the house. After many winters, the ground floor of the house became stables for horses. It soon became a place of business.

By 1880 the house on the canal was still used as a home with people living in both the front and the annex in the back. The area around the house and the canal smelled like rotten eggs. In 1884 a fire raged blistering the brick walls but firefighters saved the house. In the early 1900's the house once again became the home for a family, an ironmonger, his wife and children. The stage was set for the house to play an important part in a war that saw millions killed.

Discussion

The House On The Canal is a picture book that traces the history of the house that would become known as the Anne Frank House, so named because it was where Anne Frank and her family along with the van Pels family and a dentist hid from the Nazis during the occupation of Holland in World War II. In the back matter of the book, the author writes that the house was built on a canal, called the Prinsengracht (or Prince's Canal) by Dirk van Delft in 1635. He eventually added on to the rear of the house, an addition called the annex which would play a part in hiding Anne and seven others.

Although Harding doesn't mention them by name in his account, in the back matter he does identify the people mentioned: Baefje Bisschop was the woman with twelve children who found refuge in the home, the wealthy merchant was Isaac van Vleuten who moved into the house in 1740 with his wife Cornelia, the ironmonger was Alle Pieron who moved into the house in 1901.Of course many readers will know that the "...tall man in a fine suit" was Otto Frank and the "young girl with a sweet smile" was his daughter Anne.

Otto Frank moved his businesses into the house in 1940 but when the Nazis began rounding up the Jewish people in Amsterdam in 1942, he moved his family into the top three floors of the annex where they lived hidden for over two years. Sadly Anne and the other Jewish people were betrayed by an unknown person and sent to concentration camps. Only Otto would survive the war, returning to Amsterdam in 1945. Anne's diary had been recovered from the annex by two of Otto's employees, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl. It was given to Otto upon his return. The house was bought by NY Berghaus who were convinced by Otto Frank to donate it. More than a million people visit the restored house annually.

Thomas Harding previously authored a picture book about a house his great-grandfather built outside of Berlin prior to World War II, exploring the unique history of that house and how his family lost and then regained it. In this latest offering, Harding explores the history of a better known house, the annex that was the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family during World War II. Readers are taken back to the very beginning, before the canal existed and before the house was built. The timeline approach, with each two page spread featuring a specific year, identified in the upper right corner of the right page, offers readers a coherent and easy to follow story. Readers can see how, over a period of centuries, a house can be used in many different ways: as a home for a family,  as a place of work and sometimes as a place of refuge. The simple text is accompanied by illustrations done in mixed media by illustrator, Britta Teckentrup.

The House On The Canal offers a unique and interesting way to introduce young readers to the story of Anne Frank. Although there is a photograph of the Annex taken in 1954, a more recent colour photograph of the house, along with a photograph of Anne Frank would have put a face to the name.

Book Details:

The House On The Canal by Thomas Harding
Somerville, Mass.: Candlewich Studio     2025

The Tree of Life by Elisa Boxer

It was winter in the ghetto called Terezin. There were many children in the ghetto, scared and lonely. One woman, Irma Lauscher, was secretly teaching the children to read and write, and also to celebrate Jewish holidays. She asked one of the prisoners who left the ghetto each day on work detail to smuggle in a tree sapling. He agreed even though this meant risking his life if he were caught.

When the sapling arrived, it was a comfort to the children who planted it in a pot. Eventually, the children planted the sapling in the ground within the ghetto. To keep the sapling alive, the children each shared a few drops of their precious water each day. The tree grew taller and was known as Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life.

Meanwhile, many of the children were removed from the ghetto and sent by train somewhere even worse. But those children who remained continued to water the tree. After the war and the prisoners were released, the tree was now five feet tall. Before the children left the ghetto they gave the tree one more drink and placed a sign by it that read, "As the branches of this tree, so the branches of our people." 

Over the years the tree continued to grow, a mature, silent witness to what had happened in the ghetto. Irma survived the war and send seeds from the tree all over the world. In 2007, after a flood, the tree finally succumbed. But six hundred saplings were now living throughout the world!

In 2021, a fifteen foot descendent of the tree of life was planted in New York City. There children will come to care for it and learn more about the past, the ghetto, and the teacher and the children who had hope for a better future.

Discussion

The Tree of Life is the touching story of Jewish children creating a memorial of hope in the darkest of times, when most of them would have no future.

In January, 1943, Irma Lauscher and a group of Jewish children gathered in Theresienstadt concentration camp to plant a tree. This was to celebrate the Jewish holiday called Tu B'Shvat which is called "The New Year of The Trees".

Theresienstadt, also known as Terezin, was a Nazi concentration camp and ghetto located thirty miles north of Prague in the Czech Republic. Theresienstadt was originally a fortress created in the late 18th century by Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Terezin was located within the fortress. However, during World War II, with the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Nazis converted Terezin into a Jewish ghetto and concentration camp. The ghetto held over fifteen thousand Jewish children, of which only one hundred fifty would survive. Most of these children and the Jewish adults as well, were sent to their deaths at the extermination camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Unlike many other camps, Terezin prisoners were scholars, philosophers, scientists, musicians and artists. The camp was used as a propaganda tool to prove to the world that the Nazis were treated the Jewish people well. In 1943, the camp was beautified in response to a request by King Christian X of Denmark to inspect it. Named Operation Embellishment by the Nazis, the camp was cleaned, fakes shops and cafes were created and thousands deported to Auschwitz to alleviate overcrowding. When the inspection was done in June of 1944 by Danish officials they saw freshly painted rooms holding no more than three Danish Jews per room. The officials did not ask to see areas of the camp that were not part of the official tour and any questions they asked of residents were not answered. Rafael Schachter, a Czech composer, along with other Jews, was forced by the Nazis to give a repeat performance of Verdi's Requiem. He was deported to Auschwitz in October 1944  and gassed the next day. In September 1944, the Nazi's made a propaganda film titled Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet  or, Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement. 

Despite this, the children of Terezin were educated, even though it was apparent most of them would not survive. This was a ploy by the Nazis to hide the camp's true purpose. Irma Lauscher was one of the teachers. She was born in Hermanuv Mestec in 1904 and went on to earn a teaching degree from Chales University in Prague. In 1932 she married Jiri Lauscher. They had a daughter, Michaela in 1936.  Irma continued teaching even after they were deported to Terezin in 1942, helping the Jewish children learn about Jewish history and traditions.

The seeds for the tree were smuggled in by an unknown prisoner who worked outside the camp. In the spring of 1943 the tree was planted in one of the Terezin yards. Another version has Irma bribing a Czech guard who smuggled in a sapling of a silver maple. The tree survived the war by being watered by the children of Terezin, most of whom did not survive. Irma and her family also survived. 

After the war, Irma often visited the tree at Terezin, who grew into a stout sixty foot silver maple. Unfortunately, the tree was destroyed by a flood in 2003. But by that time many saplings of the original tree grew in the United States and Israel.

Elisa Boxer tells the story of the Tree of Life in this lovely picture book with digitally created artwork by Alianna Rozentsveig. It is a gentle retelling that focuses on the sacrifice of the Jewish children, to create a symbol of hope and peace, for a future they would never have. This symbol was spread throughout the world, in the form of saplings planted in different cities. Each tree is  a reminder to children of all peoples and faiths, of the lives lost and offers a reminder to fight hatred in all its forms.

The artwork portraying life in Terezin is dark and conveys a sense of foreboding with shades of beige, brown and black while the children are shown in brighter colours. The train taking the Jewish children to their deaths in Auschwitz, belches black smoke against an ominous dark sky. In the postwar images, the background is light, conveying a sense of hope.

There is an Author's Note at the back as well as a Selected Sources section which offers readers the opportunity to explore more in-depth the story told in the book.

Book Details:

The Tree of Life. How a Holocaust Sapling Inspired the World by Elisa Boxer

New York: Rocky Pond Books    2024

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