Prior to 9/11, the greatest single disaster of New York City’s history occurred on June 15, 1904, when the steamship General Slocum caught fire on the East River, killing over 1,000 passengers. Most were German women and children headed to the Sunday School picnic of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Welsh tells his story through the ghost of 15-year-old Mallory, whose first kiss—from a Jewish boy—may have precipitated the fire. Mallory’s ghost roams the Lower East Side, witnessing the attempts of the grossly negligent steamship company to avoid blame; the parents carrying tiny, home-made coffins to the graveyard; and the German merchants, hoping to scapegoat someone from outside their community. In this last, Welsh falls short, as the catastrophic emotions the survivors must have felt pale, in his version, against the idea that they might be able to blame a Jew. While the physical time and place are very well realized, the emotional landscape isn’t—Mallory’s ghostly presence contributes to an overall feeling of detachment. On the whole, however, a remarkable account of an incident about which many Americans know nothing at all. (Historical fiction. 14+)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-47731-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
Evil that is impossibly difficult to comprehend and filled with word-images that will leave readers gasping. The author’s...
Gerta didn’t know she was Jewish until she and her father were taken for transport by the Nazis.
When Bergen-Belsen is liberated, Gerta and the other survivors are ill, skeletal, dying, or sunk in madness, and they have no homes to which they can return. Relating the events that led her there, she tells of a seemingly carefree life in Würzburg with her musician father and German gentile stepmother, an opera singer who is also Gerta’s voice teacher. But they were living with false identification papers, and their lives become ever more withdrawn. She has fleeting visions of her early childhood in Köln, of her mother, and of Kristallnacht. The cattle-car journey to Theresienstadt is only the beginning of days, weeks, months, years filled with unspeakable horrors in the “intricacies of the Nazi web…the animalization of human souls.” Then comes Auschwitz, where her father is gassed, then Bergen-Belsen, typhus, and, finally, a kind of awakening to her own humanity. Later she covertly enters British-occupied Palestine, Eratz Yisrael, and builds a life there. Stamper spares readers nothing. Everything that Gerta witnesses or experiences really happened in the hell that was the Holocaust, including the further humiliations in its aftermath, a rarely told part of the story. The text is on pale, sepia-toned paper with dark, eerie illustrations in the same tones, reminiscent of real drawings produced by camp inmates.
Evil that is impossibly difficult to comprehend and filled with word-images that will leave readers gasping. The author’s dedication says it all, in both Hebrew and English: “Remember.” (author’s note, map, glossary, resources, acknowledgments; not seen) (Historical fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0038-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
An important, well-executed work of historical fiction.
The story of two teenagers at the end of World War II: one raised by Nazis, the other a German immigrant new to the United States.
It’s 1946, and Eva is arriving in America, a refugee from Germany. The narrative then flips to 1945. Sixteen-year-old Inge has been raised a Nazi, her doctor father a prominent figure and integral part of the concentration camps. In the aftermath of the war, Inge realizes the atrocities her father and her people were responsible for and vows to atone for the murdered innocents. These are postwar young women hoping to do right by their complicated pasts, the story alternating between their points of view. While the horrors of the Holocaust are certainly discussed, the brutal realities of postwar Germany and the gray areas between good and evil offer a lesser-seen view of World War II. Cameron slowly, delicately weaves these seemingly disparate stories into one seamless storyline. As the two merge into one, there are twists and turns and plenty of edge-of-your-seat moments, even if the pace is a little inconsistent. The grim realities will stay with readers long beyond the book; the truths shared are honest but not gratuitous. All of the main characters are White, though African American artist Augusta Savage plays a minor role, and some background characters are people of color.
An important, well-executed work of historical fiction. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-35596-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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