The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

The Girl Who Fought Back: Vladka Meed and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Joshua M. Greene Scholastic Focus, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Jeanette Brod Buy at Bookshop.org The Girl Who Fought Back is an insider's account of the historic Warsaw Ghetto uprising that ironically finds our heroine stranded outside the ghetto walls on the day the revolt begins. But Vladka Meed’s story does not start there. It begins, as do many Holocaust stories, with the shocking downward spiral that afflicts Jewish families who were citizens of European cities. What sets this story apart is the portrait of despair in the life of a young woman who loses first family members, then friends, and finally fellow Resistance fighters. Survivor guilt permeates Vladka’s choices and actions with the recurring refrain, “Why am I still alive?” This telling is not for the faint-hearted. The internal dialogue is as honest as it is brutal. What balances the storytelling is the humanity and courage of a young w...

Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust by Renee Hartman with Joshua M. Green Scholastic, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Heather J. Matthews Buy at Bookshop.org Based on video testimonial recorded in 1979, Signs of Survival tells the stories of two sisters, Renee and Herta, and their experiences during the Holocaust. Renee, who is hearing, and Herta, who is deaf, recount their childhoods in Bratislava, the capital of what was once Czechoslovakia. The story begins in 1939, with the Nazi invasion of Bratislava, and the family being pushed into a ghetto. Through careful maneuvering by their parents, Renee and Herta are sent to live in the foothills or the Tarta Mountains, masquerading as Christians by 1943. However, the sisters are soon deported to Bergen-Belson concentration camp. Readers learn about Renee and Herta’s lives in Bergen-Belsen, their liberation, and their eventual lives in the United States. As this book is based on video testimonials of both Renee and Herta, th...