Trapped in Hitler's Web

Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic

978-1-338-67258-9

240 pp.

Ages 8-12

October 2020

 

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch first addressed the impact of World War II on Ukraine and its people by the Soviets and then the Nazis in her series which included Stolen Child, Making Bombs for Hitler and Underground Soldier. With Don't Tell the Enemy (alternate title Don't Tell the Nazis), she began a different story, one of protecting Jewish friends in the Ukrainian village of Viteretz after the Nazis began to show their true colours. In Trapped in Hitler's Web, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch takes us beyond Viteretz, following Maria and Nathan after they've run away in the effort to keep Nathan's Jewish identity hidden and survive.

When the occupying Nazis started killing Jews in their village, eleven-year-old Maria Fediuk leaves her mother and older sister Krystia, whose story is told in Don't Tell the Enemy, to save her friend Nathan Segal from imminent death. Using the identity papers of a boy killed by the Soviets, Nathan becomes Bohdan Sawchuk, and the two sign up for work in the Reich, believing the promises of pay, food and shelter. Heading to Austria with others who'd been captured as slave labourers, their hope for safety is shattered when the two are separated in Salzburg, Nathan taken for bridge building while Maria is sent to the Huber farm near Innsbruck. 

The Huber farm is currently run by Frau Huber and her parents, Frau and Herr Lang. Frau Huber's husband and son are both fighting for the Reich and her fourteen-year-old daughter Sophie is a staunch Hitler Girl. Soon enough Maria learns that she and Bianka, a Polish girl captured two years earlier, are little more than slave labourers, sleeping in the barn and allotted minimal food, though not as badly off as the Ukrainians labelled as Ostarbeiters who return to a slave camp nightly. Though Frau Huber and her parents show kindness when they can, they are very cautious as their harvest is monitored, their actions are regularly scrutinized by Blockleiter Doris Schutt and they fear that the inexorable Sophie might betray them.

Realizing that her plan to help Nathan escape and to send money home to her mother and sister has failed, Maria does what she must to survive, knowing that she may be better off than some, but that she must find a way to make things right for Nathan and her family. Coming to realize that there are many trapped in Hitler's organization of cruelty and propaganda, from the Jewish people, to slave labourers, farmers, and even soldiers, Marie watches and listens and learns what she must to persevere and help those she cares about do the same.

As historical fiction, Trapped in Hitler's Web, like its companion novel Don't Tell the Enemy, is tragically honest and heartbreaking. The story is even more anguished as it is inspired by real events and people. But it is a telling story, from the perspective of a brave child who endured excruciating physical and emotional hardship, driven by hope to help those dear to her. It's also revelatory about the many victims of the Reich, borne in a manufactured hierarchy of discrimination. Hearing Maria and others referred to as "subhumans" and starved and abused is crushing. Still Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch writes to reveal another story of WWII, specifically about Ukrainians, and she does so with much heart and compassion, reminding us that there are sometimes more than two sides to a story and to war itself.

 

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Don't forget the virtual book launch coming up for Trapped in Hitler's Web.  Teachers and their classes are encouraged to attend for an opportunity to listen to Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch speak about her newest book of historical fiction. Register for this free event at the Brantford Public Library.