A Struggle For Hope by Carol Matas

Ruth Mendenberg is safe now - at least from the Nazis. She survived the Holocaust and after leaving the displaced persons camp in Germany, returned to Poland. When she went to her Uncle Moishe's home, she found his maid living there, wearing her mother's dress and pearls. 

A man named Saul asked Ruth to help a group of Jewish children in Poland travel to Palestine. Believing everyone in her family dead, Ruth agreed and so she made the dangerous trip through Europe, without identity papers or permission, to cross into each country. In Italy they were taken aboard a boat and it was on this boat that Ruth found her brother Simon.  

It is May, 1948 and Ben-Gurion has just declared the land they are living on in Palestine to be the new country of Israel. Ruth is living in Kibbutz David along with Simon. When she first arrived at the kibbutz, she, Simon and her boyfriend Ziv joined the Haganah, the underground Jewish defense force.  Ruth is recovering from an injured arm and Zvi from injuries from a land mine.

Their kibbutz is under siege by Arab soldiers and to calm the children, Ruth is asked to tell a story. While she is doing this, one mother, Aviva realizes her five year old daughter, Batya is missing. After a brief search, Batya is found in the garden, shot in the stomach by a sniper. Ruth decides to risk rushing Batya by jeep out of the kibbutz to a hospital. With Zvi driving, Ruth holding Batya and Aviva manning a gun they race long.  Aviva is shot dead by a sniper but they make it to the hospital.  Batya's life is saved and she begins to recover.

When Simon comes to visit Ruth, Zvi and Batya at the hospital, he tells them that Kibbutz David is holding their position but that many kibbutziim are in trouble. Simon has come to determine if Ruth is well enough to go to the Syrian front to help Kibbutz Degania which is under siege. She is sent to Kibbutz Degania, where she and Zvi dig trenches. When they are attacked by Syrian tanks, Ruth and Zvi throw Molotov cocktails and set a tank on fire leading to the Syrians retreating. While their actions help save the kibbutz, both Ruth and Zvi are back in hospital. 

Simon tells them that the two Israeli factions, the Haganah led by David Ben-Gurion and the Irgun led by Menachim Begin are in conflict over an incoming shipment of arms. Even Simon who joined the Irgun and Zvi who belongs to the Haganah can't agree as to what should happen to the arms. During the ceasefire with the Arabs, the ship, the Altalena arrives with more refugees from Europe and the weapons. But suddenly the two Jewish factions fire on one another and Simon is seriously injured. Although his life is saved, the loss of his leg triggers the haunting memories Ruth has kept buried for so long. The memories of a loss so great that she loses all hope for the future.

Discussion

A Struggle For Hope is a thought-provoking short novel for middle grade readers set in 1948 in the newly formed state of Israel. As the title indicates, the main character, seventeen-year-old Ruth Mendenberg is struggling to recover a sense of hope in her life. A survivor of the brutality of Auschwitz, she has been struggling to deal with the loss of her friend Lotte, who saved her life in the camp, and the ongoing war in Israel that she is now a part of. The novel deals with not only the theme of hope, but the existence of evil in the world.

The novel consists of three parts; Part One is set in Israel from May to June, 1948,  Part Two covers Ruth and Lotte's experiences in Auschwitz from 1943 until the end of the war, and Part Three resumes the story in Israel, June 1948. An Epilogue set in Israel, 1958 provides the satisfying ending to Ruth's story.

Matas explores several relevant and timely themes in A Struggle For Hope, the most interesting being the one of evil in the world. In the kibbutz in Israel, Ruth, her brother Simon, and her boyfriend Zvi discuss the existence of God based on the horrendous evil they have all confronted as Jews during the Holocaust. Three years later, Ruth continues to struggle to understand what happened to her. "Why did they do it? How could they do it? Why did so-called good, ordinary people let them do it? How could God let is happen? Does he exist? And if he does, does he care, even a little bit?"

Simon believes that God wants people to behave a certain way, but Zvi doesn't believe in God at all. "Any god that would murder millions because they didn't pray enough or follow his stupid rules is a cruel and vindictive god," says Zvi." However, Ruth suggests that maybe God couldn't do anything because of free will. "If he makes us do thing we would just be puppets." She tells Zvi, "...why would God create a world where men can be so evil and in fact where evil can thrive?"  Ruth then goes on to explain what Lotte told her while they were in the concentration camp - that people freely chose Hitler because they wanted to make their lives better. The problem is people, not God.

In Part Two, a flashback to Ruth's time in Auschwitz, we learn that she was helped by an older girl named Lotte Rosenthal. Lotte tries to explain to Ruth how things got to the point where the Nazis are now murdering millions of people. Lotte explains this to Ruth because if she survives she wants her to make sure this never happens again. Lotte explains that Hitler succeeded because "he  repeated a lie over and over and over again. At first, people knew the things he said weren't true. But they got tired of correcting him over and over again, and they became confused too. What was a lie and what was the truth? You never knew with him. And then it didn't matter because it became too dangerous to correct him. And then people simply began to believe the lies..."

At the end of the novel, Ruth tells Zvi she desires real peace. Remembering Nazi Germany she states, "...I want us all to be better Zvi. I never want us to be small or little or mean. I want peace,...Real peace, except not at any price. Not at the price of giving in to our leaders if they are wrong. We could easily go down the wrong path here, in our new land, if we aren't careful."  He tells Ruth that they can "choose to make ourselves better. We can be the hope." The hope is that in remembering how Nazi Germany happened, we can make the choice to never allow it to happen again.

A Struggle For Hope is set in the aftermath of World War II in the newly created state of Israel. It's likely most young readers may not have the background knowledge to appreciate the setting of the novel or the events of the War of Independence in the Middle East. Matas does offer some background information in her Afterword. A map of the newly formed state of Israel would have been helpful for her readers to help them situation the events in the novel.

A Struggle For Hope is another well-written novel by Carol Matas and is highly recommended for middle grade students. Matas, who was born and lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba is known for incorporating important issues into her novels. 

Book Details:

A Struggle For Hope by Carol Matas
Toronto: Scholastic Canada Ltd.  2021
186 pp.

Documentary DVD: Orchestra of Exiles

Orchestra of Exiles recounts the efforts of  violin virtuoso, Bronislaw Huberman, to rescue the best Jewish musicians from prewar Germany and Europe to form a new orchestra in Palestine. It is a story few people outside the Jewish community remember. The documentary, which is 85 minutes in length, was written and directed by Josh Aronson, who himself is a renowned musician, a concert pianist, married to violinist Maria Bachmann.

Orchestra of Exiles begins by tracing the early musical formation of Bronislaw Huberman who was born into a poor Jewish family in 1882 in Czestochowa, Poland. Bronislaw's father was known for his bad temper but also for his passion for music. 

When Huberman was eight, his musical abilities were very much evident so his father took him to Berlin, Germany to find the best teacher and he began his studies the following year with Joseph Joachim.

In 1894, Huberman was invited to perform at Adelina Patti's farewell party and she gave him an outstanding review. His father stopped his lessons to start Huberman's career and Huberman achieved early fame at the age of 13 when he played the Brahms Violin Concerto in January of 1896. Brahms attended the concert and was so impressed he was moved to tears. Huberman played all over the world including America, Europe and Russia and he was soon acknowledged as a virtuoso.

The devastation of World War I changed Huberman, rousing his political consciousness and making him an ardent Pan-European, that is someone who believed in uniting all of Europe. He cancelled all his concerts for two years to study at the Sorbonne. During the interwar years, in 1922, the Pan-European movement which called for the unity of European states for peace was growing. In 1929, Huberman toured Palestine. He found the Jewish immigrants passionate for music but there was little culture. However, this was soon to change and that change was to be led by Huberman.

Huberman was stirred to action by the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany, in 1933. Hitler initiated his anti-Semitic views by firing Jewish artists, teachers and performers from the cultural institutions in Germany. This meant that thousands of Jewish musicians were out of work. Many with money and foresight left Europe. While others in the Jewish community felt that they could wait the situation out and that the hatred towards them would pass, Huberman understood what was going to happen in Germany and likely all over Europe.

As a result, Huberman cancelled all his concerts in Germany. In 1934, Joseph Goebels, Minister of Nazi Propaganda enacted a law allowing musicians to play in orchestras regardless of their race. Wilhelm Furtwangler who was conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic asked Huberman to reconsider but he declined as a way of protesting the Nazi regime. By 1935, every Jewish musician in the philharmonic was gone. Huberman left Germany and moved to Vienna, Austria. He stated: "I am a Jew, a Pole, a Pan-European and by each of these characteristics I am a dead enemy of Nazism."

Although Vienna was now his home, Huberman was stunned by the indifference of the Viennese when the Jews were attacked during anti-Semitic violence. Huberman realized that with many fine musicians being fired from world class orchestras, this would be the opportunity to bring them to Palestine to form a new orchestra that would bring culture to a people who hungered for it.

In 1936, the most famous musician in the world, Arturo Toscanini refused to perform in Germany and adamantly refused even a personal invitation from Adolf Hitler. When Huberman learned of this, he met Toscanini who volunteered to conduct the opening concerts of the new orchestra in Palestine. It would be an orchestra composed of exiles.

Huberman through his remarkable foresight, knew that Nazism would spread throughout Europe and so he set began to select the best musicians from European countries. He held auditions and selected the best. The Warsaw Symphony was forty percent Jewish and Huberman knew most of them so he decided to hold blind auditions.

As it would turn out, Huberman's predictions proved correct and Nazism spread throughout Europe. Those who were recruited and emigrated to Palestine were saved. Those who were not, disappeared into the Holocaust never to be seen again. Huberman was responsible for saving the lives of almost one thousand Jews. Interestingly the documentary reveals two musicians who left Palestine after being recruited and who returned to Europe only to die in concentration camps.

Orchestra of Exiles dramatizes Bronislaw Huberman's life through realistic re-enactments. Aronson also portrays, through interviews with the descendants of some of the orchestra's founding musicians, the difficulties Huberman encountered as he worked to select musicians, obtain visas for them, permits to enter Palestine and transportation to their new home. For many it was to be a life or death situation. The documentary also explores the situation in Palestine in the mid 1930's, as strife between the Arab and Jewish nations escalated. There are many interviews with renowned Jewish musicians including Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Zubin Mehta. There is also an interesting story involved Huberman's violin and Joshua Bell.

Orchestra of Exiles came out of the suggestion by a friend of Aronson's, Dorit Grunschlag Straus, whose father, David Grunschlag was chosen by Bronislaw Huberman to travel to Palestine as part of the new orchestra. Grunschlag emigrated along with his parents and two sisters, thus saving them from the horrors of the Holocaust. This documentary is well worth watching and tells a remarkable story about an incredible musician who put his career on hold to fight for what he believed in and to save an important part of his culture.

Image credit: https://www.gramilano.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Bronislaw-Huberman-2.jpg