THE FLAG WITH FIFTY-SIX STARS
A Gift From the Survivors of Mauthausen
by Susan Goldman Rubin & illustrated by Bill Farnsworth
The bare bones of the story are remarkable and wrenching: In May 1945, a group of inmates at the infamous death camp, knowing the Americans were approaching, scrounged materials, including Nazi banners, their own ragged clothing and bedsheets, and stitched an American flag with which to greet and honor their saviors. Guessing at the number of stars, the prisoners added an extra row. The colonel in charge was so moved by the gift and by the indomitable spirit of the inmates who created it, that he flew it over the freed camp to the cheers of the joyful survivors, Simon Wiesenthal among them. Today the actual flag, shown in a colored two-page photograph within the text and on this title’s back cover, is displayed in Los Angeles in the Museum of Tolerance named for the renowned Nazi hunter. Rubin’s slim volume is spare in prose and tone; Farnsworth’s paintings are stark, brooding and fittingly rendered mostly in somber colors. A little-known incident brought to heart-rending life. (extensive notes, index, Web sites) (Nonfiction. 8-12)