I WILL PLANT YOU A LILAC TREE

“A man by the name of Oskar Schindler is taking eleven hundred Jews out of here. If only we could go with them.” Thus appears one glimmer of hope in Hannelore Wolff’s harrowing odyssey through eight labor and concentration camps, facing a rape, the death of a brother, lice, scarlet fever and near starvation. Yet, her story becomes one of courage and love and luck in the harshest of times. She falls in love with fellow prisoner Dick Hillman, who’s involved with the Czech partisans in the countryside, and they help each other keep hope alive. They indeed make Schindler’s list and survive until liberation, soon thereafter marrying and making their way to New York City. Hillman, born Hannelore Wolff, has written a memoir of astonishing power, told in plain, clear prose, even more powerful for its matter-of-fact tone. The facts speak for themselves in this work that ought to make its way into many high school Holocaust programs. (map) (Nonfiction. 13+)