Tag: childholo

On a warm night in August 1943, while the rest of Poland slept, a teenager named Celia Cimmer climbed onto a stocky horse with a long shaggy mane. She cinched the strap of her rifle across her chest and tightened her grip on the horse’s reins, preparing for a tough ride.

Celia was part of a team of twenty-eight young men and one other teenage girl, all riding their own horses. These young people had escaped from the Nazis and become partisans, a secret group that fought back from hiding places in woods and dense forests. In a schoolyard several miles to the east, Nazi soldiers had stored a pile of ammunition. The partisans’ mission tonight was to destroy it.

Celia and her comrades quietly walked their horses through stands of trees and thick underbrush. When the schoolyard was in sight, they brought their horses to a stop. In the middle of the schoolyard, silhouetted against the starlit sky, were boxes of dynamite, barrels of gunpowder, cans of gasoline, belts of bullets, and other weapons stacked up in a tall pile. At the far end of the yard stood an abandoned schoolhouse. Celia could hear German voices coming from inside—men talking and laughing.

The partisans didn’t have much time to do their job. Silently, the team crept into the concrete yard and pulled their horses up in front of the pile of weapons. Celia and the other teenage girl stood guard with their rifles pointed toward the schoolhouse. Several of the young men jumped off their horses, lit gasoline-soaked rags, and threw them onto the pile of weapons. The men jumped back on their horses and rode out of the yard at a gallop. Celia and the other girl followed close behind.  

Seconds later, the pile of ammunition exploded with a deafening Boom! It was a roaring, ear-splitting explosion, as though a bolt of lightning had hit the schoolyard. The air stung with the smell of burning gasoline, and bullets popped in the stockpile like strings of firecrackers. Celia’s horse was nearest to the explosion, and he flinched at the sound. The horse reared up on his hind legs, Celia’s rifle got tangled in the reins, and she fell to the ground. Her horse galloped off. Celia turned to see Nazi soldiers running out of the schoolhouse, yelling at the partisans and firing their weapons. Two of the soldiers lit flares and tossed them forward. The schoolyard burst into light. Celia was lying on the ground, exposed and alone. No rifle. No horse.

The soldiers took aim.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is one of history’s most powerful acts of resistance. Here, author Joshua M. Greene (Signs of Survival) tells the true story of a young Jewish woman who was instrumental in the uprising as a smuggler of messages and weapons into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Warsaw, Poland, 1940s: The Nazis are on the march, determined to wipe out the Jewish people of Europe. Teenage Vladka and her family are among the thousands of Jews forced to relocate behind the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto, a cramped, oppressive space full of starvation, suffering, and death.

When Vladka’s family is deported to concentration camps, Vladka joins up with other young people in the ghetto who are part of the Jewish underground: a group determined to fight back against the Nazis, no matter the cost.

Vladka’s role in the underground? To pass as a non-Jew, sneaking out of the ghetto to blend into Polish society while smuggling secret messages and weapons back over the ghetto wall. Every move she makes comes with the risk of being arrested or killed. But Vladka and her friends know that their missions are worth the danger—they are preparing for an uprising like no other, one that will challenge the Nazi war machine.

This astonishing true story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, told through the lens of Holocaust survivor and educator Vladka Meed, introduces readers to a crucial piece of history while highlighting the persistence of bravery in the face of hate.

Access the Teacher’s Guide here

Two sisters: one deaf, one hearing. This is their true story.

“I was ten years old then, and my sister was eight. The responsibility was on me to warn everyone when the soldiers were coming because my sister and both my parents were deaf.“

Meet Renee and Herta, two sisters who faced the unimaginable — together. This is their true story.

As Jews living in 1940s Czechoslovakia, Renee, Herta, and their parents were in immediate danger when the Holocaust came to their door. As the only hearing person in her family, Renee had to alert her parents and sister whenever the sound of Nazi boots approached their home so they could hide.

But soon their parents were tragically taken away, and the two sisters went on the run, desperate to find a safe place to hide. Eventually they, too, would be captured and taken to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Communicating in sign language and relying on each other for strength in the midst of illness, death, and starvation, Renee and Herta would have to fight to survive the darkest of times.

This gripping memoir, told in a vivid “oral history” format, is a testament to the power of sisterhood and love, and now more than ever a reminder of how important it is to honor the past, and keep telling our own stories.

The astonishing true story of a girl who survived the Holocaust thanks to Oskar Schindler, of Schindler’s List fame.

Rena Finder was only eleven when the Nazis forced her and her family — along with all the other Jewish families — into the ghetto in Krakow, Poland. Rena worked as a slave laborer with scarcely any food and watched as friends and family were sent away.

Then Rena and her mother ended up working for Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who employed Jewish prisoners in his factory and kept them fed and healthy. But Rena’s nightmares were not over. She and her mother were deported to the concentration camp Auschwitz. With great cunning, it was Schindler who set out to help them escape.

Here in her own words is Rena’s gripping story of survival, perseverance, tragedy, and hope. Including pictures from Rena’s personal collection and from the time period, this unforgettable memoir introduces young readers to an astounding and necessary piece of history.