We Must Not Forget by Deborah Hopkinson

We Must Not Forget is a compilation of the stories of Holocaust survivors for young readers. It is the story of the persecution of Jewish youth in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Poland and their acts of resistance.

We Must Not Forget is not an exhaustive account but chooses to tell the stories of  a number of survivors who were boys and girls at the time of the Holocaust. The book is divided into three major parts: Part One is true stories from Germany and the Netherlands, Part Two tells the stories of those in France and Part Three focuses on Poland. Their stories are too complex and varied, and their telling here could never do them justice. Instead, a brief summary of those people who suffered and survived will be given.

 

Part One Fleeing From Evil, Hiding From Horror  the focus is on four stories. Hopkinson profiles Fred Angress who fled Germany with his parents when he was fourteen years old. They settled in the Netherlands because that country had been neutral during World War I. When Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Fred was able to get a job with the Jewish Council that would prevent him from being transported to Mauthausen death camp. Fred tried to use this position to help others. But in 1943, the final transport of Jews was about to begin and Fred knew he had to go into hiding. 

Chella Velt Meedcoms Kryszek and her sister Flora as well as her father and stepmother went into hiding with the arrival of the Nazis in the Netherlands. The family was eventually transported to Westerbork, a transit camp near the Dutch border. With the help of an old friend, Chella and Flora  were able to get transported to Vught, at least delaying their transport to a death camp. There they were able to work in the Philips factory but they were both eventually sent to Auschwitz where they endured many horrors.

Gertrude Michelsohn Sonnenberg along with her younger sister Herta and their parents were deported in 1941 from Hanover Germany to the Riga ghetto in Latvia. They were able to survive multiple "selections" and as the war began to end, forced marches. They were saved by the intervention of Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden who had them transported to Denmark and then to Sweden.

In Part Two, Families Torn Apart, the experiences of Ruth Oppenheimer David, Hanne Hirsch Liebmann and her husband Max Liebmann and Alfred Moritz are told. Ruth's life was saved through the rescue effort of the Kindertransport. Ruth's family was deported to the Gurs internment camp in France. Her younger brother Michael was rescued from Gurs by two Scandinavian helpers while her sister Feodora was taken by the Jewish resistance group OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) and placed in semi-hiding. Sadly her parents, Moritz and Margarete Oppenheimer were murdered immediately upon arrival at Auschwitz. 

Hanne and her mother were also sent to the Gurs internment camp. There she met and fell in love with Max Liebman who along with his mother had been deported from Mannheim, Germany. Both managed to escape to Switzerland and we married after the war in 1945. Their mothers were murdered at Auschwitz.

Alfred Moritz along with his younger brother Ernest and their parents lived in Becherbach, a small village in southeastern Germany. They fled to Luxembourg and then to France. As the Vichy government began allowing the Germans to proceed with their policies against the Jews, Alfred's parents decided to have the OSE take the two boys into hiding at their children's home located at Chateau Le Masgelier in central France. Even here, Alfred and his brother were not safe and they were eventually removed to the more remote location of Vernoux-en-Vivarais. They stayed in this village for eighteen months until the Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944. They were reunited with their parents, a rare Jewish family that survived the war intact.

In Part Three, Desperation and Defiance tells the stories of survivors and resisters from Poland. Not content to be herded into ghettos and then sent to the death camps, Polish Jews fought back. Paula Burger and her younger brother Isaac lived with their parents in Novogadek, Poland. Paula's father, Wolf Koladicki managed through his many connections to stave off being sent to the Novogrudek ghetto. He was eventually able to get his children out of the ghetto (their mother had been murdered by the Nazis) and to safety in the Naliboki Forest. There the Bielski partisan group led by Tuvia Bielski worked to save Jews and fight back.

Ten-year-old Bronka Harz Kurz lived in Kolomyja, part of Poland at that time. Her family were forced into the Kolomyia ghetto. When she was eleven, Bronka, her mother, aunt and cousin escaped to the forest. They were captured and sent back to the ghetto and escaped a second time. But Bronka's mother was recognized at the train station and Bronka and her mother were sent back again to the ghetto. A third attempt was successful. They spent the war posing as Christians.

Wloda Blit Robertson and Helly Blit were smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto. Because their mother was part of the Jewish council, the two girls were exempt from being transported to the work camps in the east, which in reality, were extermination camps. They were hidden by a Polish Catholic couple.

Vladka Meed (born Feigele Peltel) and Benjamin Meed (born Benjamin Miedzyrzecki) helped plan and lead the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

Discussion

We Must Not Forget is a timely resource geared towards middle and upper grade students but can also be read by teens and adults. Recently it was reported that a significant number of American and Canadian students believe the Holocaust was fabricated.  "One in three of our respondents stated that they believed that the Holocaust was fabricated or not reported in a way that was accurate to what actually happened,” said Alex Lerner, researcher and assistant professor of political science at the U.S. Naval Academy." 

In Canada, January 27 is Holocaust Remembrance Day and an increasing number of schools are beginning to incorporate age-appropriate material on this significant historical event into the school curriculum. As fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors remain each year, it is important their stories be told. Remembering and learning from the past means preventing future atrocities.

We Must Not Forget incorporates survivor and resister stories with many black and white photographs, allowing young readers to put faces to those who suffered in the Holocaust. This is important because in the age of disruption and misinformation, the photographs help to humanize those who died. The stories are divided into three parts, according to country, each part beginning with a title page, a section  providing a short bio of those whose stories are featured and a page highlighting key dates. At the end of most of the personal accounts, there is a Look, Listen, Remember section that features primary sources, audio recordings and video. 

The book also contains a Glossary, a Selected Timeline of World War II in Europe, a a Look, Listen, Remember: Resources to Explore. The last section offers an extensive list of resources that includes museum websites and online resources, and links to oral histories, articles and interviews. There is a Bibliography which highlights resources of special interest to young readers, Source Notes and an index.

We Must Not Forget is probably best suited for students in Grade Six and up, given the extensive amount of information covered. A map showing the various European countries at the beginning of the war and the areas occupied by Nazi Germany would have been especially useful. Bur overall, this is a wonderful resource to help inform younger readers about the Holocaust so that these kinds of atrocities do not happen again.

Book Details:

We Must Not Forget: Holocaust Stories of Survival and Resistance by Deborah Hopkinson
New York: Scholastic Focus       2021
346 pp.