Louder Than Words by Kathy Kacer

Twelve-year-old Eldina Sternik lives with her mother and her younger sisters, six-year-old Gennadiy (Nadia) and baby Galya. They are Jews who live in the city of Proskurov, Ukraine. Dina's Papa had died a year earlier and her mother is planning to take over his job as a literature teacher at the local high school. Working fulltime means that the Sternik's need a housekeeper and to that end they hire Mrs. Pukas, who is a Catholic and who goes by the name of Nina. Although she is friendly and kind, Dina is reluctant to like her.

It is February, 1941 and there are reports that Hitler has invaded the Ukraine.Dina and her family have heard of the laws against Jewish citizens passed in other countries that Germany has invaded. There has been a long history of persecution of the Jews but so far only isolated incidents are happening.

When Dina's mother returns to work as a teacher, Nina begins walking Dina and Nadia to school every day with baby Gayla in the baby carriage. Their walk to school meant passing by Mrs. Timko who ran a candy shop in Proskurov. She was the happiest person Dina had ever seen and she always offered the children passing by her store a treat.

At school Dina meets up with her best friend Esther. In the playground, Avrum,one of the Jewish students is bullied by Ivan and a group of boys. One of the teachers, Mr. Petrenko approaches the boys to intervene but stops and doesn't move to help even when Dina begs him to do so. When Dina realizes no one will help Avrum she intervenes and stands up to Ivan. Later that night Dina's mother warns her to be careful, that incidents like this are happening at her high school too.

When Nina asks Dina to teach her more about the Jewish faith, Dina decides to take the housekeeper to the local library. However, she discovers that Nina can't read, so Dina sets out to teach her. This act of kindness will save their lives in the not too distant future. 

In early spring, Dina and Esther set out to have a picnic in the park. However, when they arrive at the park, they find signs stating that Jews are no longer permitted in the park. While Dina wants to defy the order, Esther is worried someone might see them and the two girls return home.

At home, Dina's mother tells them they must not draw attention to themselves. However, the situation rapidly deteriorates over the coming weeks. Dina, Esther and all the other Jewish students are moved to the back of their class in school.Then Mama comes home one day with a bag of yellow Stars of David that must be sewn onto all of their clothing. Then one morning on her walk to school, Mrs. Timko refuses to give candy to Dina. Even worse, Jews were no longer allowed to shop in stores and had to obey a curfew. Even worse, Mama and the other Jewish teachers are let go at the high school. 

But their life takes a turn for the worse when their house is set on fire by the Nazis. Although they are taken in by Mama's brother, they need a new plan as Dina's Uncle Leo and Aunt Maria are not keen to take them in. The daring plan Dina's mother devises might just save all of them!

Discussion

Louder Than Words is based on the true story of  Frima Sternik, a Jewish high school teacher who lived in Proskurov with her daughters and her Catholic housekeeper, Nina Pukas. As in the novel, Frima's home was destroyed by fire along with her important identity documents. To protect her children, she registered her children as belonging to Pukas, giving her children a chance to be protected from the Nazis. Although Frima did not survive the war, her children did, thanks to the efforts of Nina Pukas.

Kacer, whose own parents survived the Holocaust, successfully portrays the wide range of people and their beliefs during the Nazi occupation.  The novel includes both Christians who helped their Jewish neighbours as well as others sided with the Nazis and joined in the persecution. For example, the character, Mrs. Timko who owns a candy store in Proskurov, is described as "the happiest woman" and a "devout churchgoing woman who was always talking about what the Lord did and didn't do for us. She crossed herself and looked up to the sky as if she was waiting for someone or something to answer her."  However, when the Nazis invade Proskurov and persecution against the Jewish population begins, Mrs. Timko is one of the first to single out Dina and her family and other Jews by refusing her candy. 

There is Mr. Petrenko, Dina's teacher who doesn't support the Nazis but who is too afraid to act, even among children who are bullying Jewish students. Yet he does try to help in his own small way when Dina goes looking for her mother who has disappeared. And of course the focus of the story is Nina Pukas, in real life, Ludviga (Nina) Pukas, a Catholic who risked her own life to take on the care of the Sternik children. If she had been discovered by the Nazis, Nina Pukas would have been executed for hiding Jews. Her actions speak "louder than words", the title of the novel.

However, Kacer gets it wrong when she has Nina tell Dina about the "blood libel". When Nina expresses an interest in learning more about the Jewish faith she tells Dina that "My own church teaches us that Jewish people tortured Christian children -- even sacrificed a child once during the Easter celebration." This has NEVER been a teaching of the Catholic church and it is misinformation to imply that it ever was. It is not known when the myth of blood libel began but it dates back to Roman times into the Middle Ages where it gained some acceptance. It was opposed by many popes, among them Pope Gregory X who noted that his predecessors held the same, and who wrote, “Most falsely do these Christians claim that the Jews have secretly and furtively carried away these children and killed them, and that the Jews offer sacrifice from the heart and blood of these children, since their law in this matter precisely and expressly forbids Jews to sacrifice, eat, or drink the blood, or to eat the flesh of animals having claws. This has been demonstrated many times at our court by Jews converted to the Christian faith: nevertheless very many Jews are often seized and detained unjustly because of this.”

So while this may have been a horrific belief amongst Catholics and Christians that persisted into the 20th century and while it might have fueled the antisemitism so rampant throughout Europe, it was NEVER a teaching of the Catholic church as Nina Pukas suggests in the novel and it is wrong to teach young readers that it was. 

In this third of four books in the Heroes Quartet, Kacer effectively portrays the drastic situation that develops for Jews in the Ukraine, once they are invaded by the Nazis. But Kacer also demonstrates just  how fortunate Dina and her sisters are, especially once Dina sees the ghetto where her mother has been imprisoned and where she also recognizes her friend Esther, by her red coat. They do not survive the war.

Louder Than Words is another well written novel for younger readers that features a true heroine, Ludviga (Nina) Pukas whose brave actions were "louder than words". The back matter features a short Author's Note about the Nazi invasion of Proskurov and about the real life events that inspired the novel.

Sources:

https://sites.sju.edu/ijcr/2020/04/01/blood-libel-never-a-church-teaching-says-prominent-us-catholic-academic-as-defenders-of-antisemitic-italian-painting-come-forward/

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/g10-jews.asp 

Book Details:

Louder Than Words by Kathy Kacer
Toronto: Annick Press 2020
231 pp.