A Tale of a Holocaust Survivor

Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy
Publication Date: 2006
Awards: 2007 ALA Notable Children's Book, 2006 School Library Journal Best Book, 2011 Rebecca Caudill Nominee
Interest Level: 6th-8th, Reading Level: 6.1

If you were inspired by Anne Frank, I highly recommend, Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy.

The author, Jennifer Roy, had recently discovered, her Aunt Syvia (renamed Sylvia when she immigrated to the United States) was a survivor of the Holocaust. Jennifer and her aunt felt they needed to share her story with the world, so Jennifer recorded all that her aunt recounted. She created a stirring novel, written in first-person free verse, so the story flows so nicely and your are finished before you know it! It moves so quickly it will leaving you craving for more.

Syvia was only four years old when Nazis invaded her hometown, and forced her to move into a ghetto in Lodz, Poland. She was forced to leave her home for a small, one-bedroom apartment that she was expected to share with her mother, father, and older sister. Things around her change dramatically. There were curfews and her close friends and neighbors are always disappearing. Her family is forced to sell what little possessions they managed to bring with them, even Syvia's most precious companion, her doll.

Conditions only grew worse for Syvia and her family in the ghetto. More and more people were forced to live in the already cramped space. The Nazis were allowed to shoot anyone in the ghetto, whether they had broken a law or looked at them the wrong way, sometimes for no reason at all. Syvia had even witnessed the a murder in the middle of a crowded street.

The food was always sparse and what little food there was, was usually rotten or filled with dirt, glass, or debris. Syvia survived harsh winters that froze her fingers, and resulted in the death of many neighbors. She managed avoid the trains that would bring her to the Nazi concentration camps, thanks to her cunning father. She escaped the wrath of the Nazis and certain death by hiding in a dismal graveyard in the freezing cold night. When she finally walked out of the ghetto, she was ten years old.  270,000 people entered the ghetto and only 800 walk out. 12 of those 800 were children. Syvia was one of these children.

You will be reading true survivor story. You will travel on a journey with a girl who overcame all odds, no matter how terrible, because, even in the worst of times, the love of her family and hope for the future kept her alive. I highly recommend you read this book and prepare for a life-changing experience.

Check out this website to learn more about the Lodz Ghetto: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/

More Stories about the Holocaust:
Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
The Grand Mosque of Paris by Karen Gray
Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Maus & Maus II by Art Spigelman
Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
Behind the Bedroom Wall by Laura Williams
The Book Thief by Marcus Zuska

Want to find out More?
We Remember the Holocaust by David A. Adler
Tell Them We Remember by Susan D. Bachrach
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitlers Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
The Hidden Children by Howard Greenfeld
The Holocaust by Patricia Levy
Smoke and Ashes: the Story of the Holocaust by Barbara Rogasky
Hiding to Survive by Maxine B. Rosenberg
Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II by Marisabina Russo
Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp by Anne Grenn Saldinger
Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary by Ruud Van der Rol