The post–World War II publication of Anne Frank’s diary made her the icon for all the murdered Jewish children during the Holocaust. In 1958, an Austrian performance of the play based on the diary was disrupted by teenage neo-Nazis who had been taught that the Holocaust was a fraud. Simon Wiesenthal was a Holocaust survivor who gathered information about the whereabouts of Nazis in order to bring them to justice. Called to the theater, he vowed to find the Gestapo officer who had arrested the Frank family, thus proving that the diary was not a fake. This lengthy picture book carefully details the horrors of Wiesenthal’s life, from ghetto to concentration camps to liberation, and emphasizes the phenomenal memory that made possible his determination to “tell what it was really like.” It is a painstaking, long, frustrating piece of detection, hampered by postwar political realities and aided by phone books. Rubin, who has authored other titles on the Holocaust, has crafted another notable contribution. Farnsworth’s full-page paintings in dark hues are stark and haunting. (author’s note, resources, glossary) (Picture book/biography. 10 & up)
