Traitors Among Us

Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic

978-1-338-75429-2

288 pp.

Ages 8-13

September 2021

 

Do what you can, Maria, instead of worrying about what you can't. (pg. 21)

Everyone has their story. But is it the one they lived or just a story? Among the refugees from the Nazis, there are both kinds of stories, and sisters Krystia and Maria Fediuk from Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's earlier books, Don't Tell the Nazis and Trapped in Hitler's Web, can only be sure of what they've lived through and what they are willing to share.

It's June 1945 and the two Ukrainian sisters have made their way, separately and then together, from their town of Viteretz through Austria and now into the Karlsfeld camp in the American Zone in Germany, hopeful that this stop will help get them to their aunt and uncle in Toronto. But the Soviets, under the guise of repatriating refugees from Eastern Europe but really to punish them as traitors and silence them, take Krystia and Maria and several others into the Soviet Zone for interrogation before choosing how to deal with them.

With fellow prisoners Sophie, a former Hitler Girl, and Volksdeutsche father and son Elias and Finn, they are locked away, fearful that their roles in helping both the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Jews escape will have them sent to Siberia or worse. Drawing strength from their memories of their father and their mother, the girls make sure that they tell only one story, regardless of threat of death or worries for the other. But will it be enough to keep them alive? And who can they trust? When anyone can be a traitor, whether lowly prisoner, local cook or NKVD officer, the girls know only that they can rely on each other. They may only be 14 and 16 years of age, but Maria and Krystia have a lifetime of strength and suffering to help them survive.

Don't Tell the Nazis (2018)

Trapped in Hitler's Web (2020)

Traitors Among Us (2021)

If you've read the first two books in Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's trilogy about the Fediuk sisters, and I encourage all readers to immerse themselves in these earlier stories, you'll know the depth of heartache and hardship that Krystia and Maria and others have endured at the hands of the Nazis and the Soviets. Their experiences are not foreign to most in western Ukraine who were wedged between two dangerous oppressors and hoped that immigration to other countries might help them survive. Old enemies or new enemies are still enemies. From the girls' terror of Soviet and Nazi occupation in Ukraine, their enslavement by the Nazis and finally their seeking refuge with the Allies before imprisonment as traitors to the Soviets, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch informs young readers about stories seldom told of World War II. War is not just for soldiers and sometimes the civilians living through it are young people and their stories are compelling and tragic. But Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, a master storyteller of historical fiction as well as of picture books, non-fiction and realistic middle-grade and YA, takes us to those war-torn countries to travel with the girls as they walk dusty roads with thousands of refugees, toil on farms, hide from dangerous people, and find and offer support, even as they endure hunger, cold, fear and uncertainty. Every atmospheric scene is one of edge-of-your-seat nerves, worry that the next ally they make may not be one, shock at executions witnessed, and solace from a sisterly bond and fleeting memories of home.

 

There have always been traitors among them, but Krystia and Maria are able to find the hope and strength to achieve an ending to their story that satisfies, courtesy of Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, and young readers will appreciate that ending, acknowledge the stories that took them there and learn the history that started them on those journeys.

 

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Author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch will launch her new book virtually through the Brantford Public Library on December 1st. Register at calendar.brantfordlibrary.ca for an opportunity to hear this acclaimed author speak and read from Traitors Among Us.

 

Don't Tell the Enemy

Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-2839-1

184 pp.

Ages 10-14

January 2018

The Soviets have oppressed the Ukrainian homeland of twelve-year-old Krystia Fediuk for centuries but their occupation since 1939 has been a reign of terror for the Ukrainians, Poles and Jews in the town of Viteretz with appropriation of homes, imposed hunger, deportation to slave camps and execution.  With the Germans marching into Ukraine in 1941 and the Soviets fleeing, there are initial hopes and even proclamations of Ukrainian independence.  But the good spirits that come with the egress of their oppressors and the bestowing of food, as well as the opening of the church, are soon suspended as the Nazis begin to show their true objectives.

Krystia, her younger sister Maria and their mother Kateryna live amongst a diverse neighbourhood of Jewish, Ukrainian and Polish families of both modest and wealthier means and a Catholic church with resident priest, surrounded by farms.  Some residents are already gone, whether deported to Siberian slave camps, executed by trigger-happy Soviets or in hiding from the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, like Krystia's Uncle Ivan.  Regardless of atrocities, life must go on, and that includes taking their cow Krasa to pasture daily, tending to the garden, feeding the chickens and fetching water, always keeping their heads down to avoid suffering the wrath of the Soviets.  But when the Germans roll in, their community begins to change in different ways.  In addition to the Nazis, refugees from Germany as well as Volksdeutsche–ethnic Germans from Slav countries–begin to flood the area and force the displacement of residents.  Then the summons from Commandant Hermann begin, first naming a hundred Jewish men and declaring them to be murderers of those imprisoned by Soviets. The community is stunned when the men are shot and amassed in a single grave. 

The terror of the Nazis escalates with their acceptance of Aryan, German and Volksdeutsche as The Master Race and all others as subhuman, with particular targetting of the Jewish people, both in mass executions and then segregation into a Jewish Ghetto.  After her Auntie Iryna goes to live with the insurgents in their forest encampment, Krystia takes on the role of courier of photos and falsified documentation.  With food rationed to starvation levels, fines imposed for random acts and their Jewish friends in danger of imminent death, Krystia and her mother take increasing risks to survive and help their friends and family. 

...that the way to honor our family and friends was to be strong and to live and to tell their stories. (pg. 177)

Based on the true story of Kateryna Sikorska and her daughter Krystia Korpan, Don't Tell the Enemy reveals the often overlooked position of Ukraine during World War II when the terrorism historically imposed by the Soviets escalated to horrors which many believed would be appeased by the Germans.  But invasion is invasion and oppression is still that.  The shift from the Soviets persecuting all in their community to the brutality levelled by the Nazis against the Jewish people and those who might help them is especially tragic.  A simple life of family and work now becomes an exercise in survival and even more perilous with the pitting of groups of people.  No one should have to choose.  While some appear to do so easily and heartlessly, there are others like Krystia and her family who demonstrate incredible courage and resilience in the face of death and fear.  Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch in her author's notes mentions that she almost wrote this as a piece of non-fiction but chose to tell it as a fictionalized account to do the story justice.  She chose well and admirably tells a story that needs to be read to appreciate the circumstances of those living in western Ukraine during World War II when enemies were plentiful, dangers ubiquitous, survival precarious and a few good people could make all the difference.

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Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch launches Don't Tell the Enemy next week in Brantford Ontario.  The author is a passionate speaker and sure to captivate attendees with her reading and sharing of writing this new book.  Details about the launch are provided here.

The Pact

by Amanda West Lewis

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-544-8

352 pp.

Ages 10-15

September 2016

Remember there are always two sides to the same coin. (pg. 15)

The two-sides-to-the-same coin is a game ten-year-old Peter Gruber plays with his mother in order to see any set of circumstances from different perspectives but the reader would be well advised to heed this advice as well.  It’s very easy to sit back in the comfort of our lives today, wherever they may be, in the hindsight of World War II as a global entity.  It’s even easier to judge those involved in the war when we have countless sources of information about how it played out.  But we shouldn’t do so when reading The Pact by Amanda West Lewis because Peter Gruber’s story offers an opportunity to witness the then and there, starting in Hamburg Germany in 1939, when information was filtered and limited and reality was what you faced daily.

Although Peter is without a father and adept at black market trading of goods he scavenges at the port of Hamburg, he is probably a typical ten-year-old.  He goes to school (or he did until an accident that has him falling in the water leads to a case of diptheria and an extended hospital stay); he has his friends, Gunter and Eugene, who attend Hort, the youth organization, together; he has some family, notably his Tante Elsa and cousin Gerta who live in the country at Eutin; and he has hobbies like black-market trading and reading–his favourite is the western The Treasure of Nugget Mountain, though he gets into the Russian classics of Tolstoy, Chekhov and others after his hospital stay.  But Germany’s economy is in ruins after World War I and most Germans are happy to follow Chancellor Hitler’s directives to be dutiful and responsible to make Germany strong again.

In the fall of 1939, Peter begins Gymnasium, the elite school for privileged boys such as Hermann Weber, Peter’s trading nemesis and a bully, with friends Gunter Schmidt and Otto  Brandt, and participating in Jungvolk, the youth organization for boys of ages 10-14 that is all about training to fight.  But conflict with Poland and Great Britain’s declaration of war on Germany ramps up fears and patriotism, affecting work, food, education, and spirit.  Amidst lessons of ethnology of the German people and daily reminders that the boys are the future of Germany as well as celebrating the surrender of countries such as Denmark, Norway and Belgium, Peter is sometimes perplexed by what he previously thought or read in light of new and propagandist information (though he does not know it to be so).

With frequent air raids and bombings through 1940, Peter and his Gymnasium cohorts are evacuated as part of the Kinderlandverschickung south to Neumarkt where they are schooled and trained in all things Nazi, made to feel pride for the Party’s accomplishments, and reassured that the war would soon be over.

But the war is not soon over and Peter and his friends hear little news except that Britain is close to surrendering and on the brink of defeat. After returning to Hamburg in 1941, Peter is whisked away to his aunt’s for the summer.  Troops marching by share news of work camps where prisoners ("He wasn't sure where all of the prisoner were coming from, though."; pg. 136-7) work to support Germany’s economy and hears news of the conflict with the Soviet Union. Upon his return to Hamburg, though, pamphlets encouraging Germans to overthrow Hitler begin to surface and the BBC radio broadcasts his mother enjoys, illegally, have Peter revisiting what he hears and knows and fears.

Peter knew the British were lying.  But the broadcasts gave him this odd sense of huge events taking place somewhere else, things he wasn’t supposed to know about.  He tried not to think about it. (pg. 138)

The Pact is an involved and complex story, not unlike the war itself, and Peter’s experiences from 1939 through 1945 are no less so.  As a student of Gymnasium and a part of Jungvolk and then Hitlerjugend when he turns 14, Peter is shunted between home to safer evacuation locations in Neumarkt, Germany and Bistriz, Hungary and back to a demolished Hamburg, with forays to his aunt’s country home.  He begins to see that all he has lived through and experienced is “a life he now knew he didn’t want any part of.” (pg. 210)

“…we’re going to lose this damn war, and then it will be just like the last time, only worse.  They’ll take away our land; they’ll take away our food.  And this time, we’ll deserve it.  We’ll deserve to be punished.”  (pg. 218)

And even though he knows this, Peter is compelled to report to the Hitlerjugend office to avoid being deemed a deserter and begins apprenticing at an airplane engine factory in Klockner.  Still he is not free, ultimately commanded to attend a training camp in Denmark in November of 1944, a camp where the hundreds of young men are guarded by armed soldiers with dogs and forced to pledge allegiance to the Führer.  There is so much story to tell–hence my lengthy review–and yet Amanda West Lewis grips the reader with each scene, discussion, piece of propaganda, excursion, lesson, danger and thought that Peter faces and endures.  The Pact, which is based on a true story (the author's note and interview at the conclusion of the book reveal everything), will transfix readers with the story of war from a rare perspective, that of a child growing up in Germany, for whom home is everything, even if not everything is as it seems or should be.

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Take advantage of upcoming book launches for The Pact in Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa and Amanda West Lewis' reading at this weekend's Eden Mills Writers' Festival to hear from the author herself about this extraordinary, extraordinary story of historical fiction that will both enlighten and engross.

The Pact: Book launches (Perth, Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa)

It's going to be a whirlwind of book launches 

for

Red Deer Press 

and

the author of

September 17

by Amanda West Lewis

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-507-3

313 pp.

Ages 12+

2013

Reviewed here

Amanda West Lewis

for the launch of her newest book of historical fiction

The Pact

by Amanda West Lewis

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-544-8

352 pp.

Ages 10-15

September 2016

Saturday, September 10, 2016

1-3 p.m.

The Book Nook 

80 Gore Street East

Perth, ON

A book signing with refreshments and conversation

Friday, September 16, 2016

7:30 p.m.

Mabel's Fables

662 Mt Pleasant Road

Toronto, ON 

A reading and discussion with refreshments

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

 7 p.m.

Novel Idea Bookstore

156 Princess Street

Kingston, ON

A reading and discussion with refreshments

Saturday, October 1, 2016

7 p.m.

The Avalon Studio

738A Bank Street

Ottawa, ON 

A reading and discussion with refreshments

From the publisher's website, the book is described as follows:

This vivid historical novel follows the life of young Peter Gruber — ten years old at the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 — and explores how an intelligent, sensitive youth responds to the propaganda and posturing of the Nazis. It also provides insights into the realities of living in a country at war, a country that suffers increasing waves of devastation, as the tide turns against the Nazis.

The story is told through the eyes of Peter as he is drawn into the Hitler Youth and at the same time comes to doubt what he is being told about his country and its destiny.

(Retrieved from http://www.reddeerpress.com/Detail/0889955441 on September 9, 2016.)

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Look for my review of this middle grade historical fiction novel soon. I just wanted to get this post out before Amanda West Lewis' first event tomorrow. 

Uncertain Soldier

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-72-9

288 pp.

Ages 12+

April 2015

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing the attempt. 

- William Shakespeare, from Measure for Measure, 1.4.

If there’s any message that you can take from the latest young adult book of historical fiction from award-winning author of Graffiti Knight (Pajama Press, 2013) Karen Bass is that it isn’t always easy tell who your friends or enemies are, and even more so during wartime.  And the two young men whose stories are told within Uncertain Soldier, 17-year-old German soldier Erich Hofmeyer and 12-year-old Max Schmidt of Horley, Alberta, find themselves navigating uncertain paths as they attempt to survive as Germans in Canada during World War II.

After his German ship is sunk in the North Atlantic in 1943, Erich is sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Lethbridge.  As decent as the Canadians seem to be, the camp is run by the German prisoners and specifically high-ranking Nazis.  Because he is reluctant to use his command of the English language to spy for the other German prisoners, Erich is suspected of disloyalty to the Fatherland and repeatedly assaulted in camp.  A consequent hospitalization leads to his removal voluntarily, and that of his bunkmate Johann Nikel, to the logging camp of Henry Lane in northern Alberta.  There, ten Germans deemed not to be pro-Nazi, join Canadian lumberjacks to bring down trees and work the sawmill.  Sadly, but not necessarily surprising, Erich must still endure the prejudice and abuse of other logging camp residents, both German and Canadian, and outsiders,  as well as in the local community of Horley.

Meanwhile, the story’s other protagonist, Max Schmidt, son of a German immigrant farmer, cannot seem to appease his father, who chastizes the boy for not standing up for himself and his heritage, and his peers who bully him with vicious taunts and regular beatings, and locals who look down their noses at his family.  His only respite comes when he runs errands to the logging camp where he is treated kindly by the Lanes and meets Erich with whom he becomes friends.

Though the two young men differ in their ages by five significant years–uncommon for lead characters and friends in youngCanLit–Karen Bass capably creates a friendship based in adversity and support that spans the years, experience and even birthplace.  Max and Erich are very different Germans but their hardships are monumental and the brutality they must endure because of their heritage is beyond wrong.  Each is a prisoner to their fears and the fears of others, challenging their loyalty in every direction.

A book like Uncertain Soldier does not go down easily.  It burns in your throat with the rising bile of injustice and cowardice and the horrors of prejudice inflicted in war and out.  It churns in your gut and then sits like a heavy meal of reality and history.  Sometimes getting beyond that all is tough.  Karen Bass again, as she did in Graffiti Knight, examines an ill-fated part of our history (her author’s note is an especially enlightening and valuable read) and textures it with humanity that makes it a touching story of distressing times.  Uncertain Soldier will blow the historical fiction award juries away with its power.

The End of the Line

by Sharon E. McKay

Annick Press

978-1-55451-658-2

128 pp.

Ages 8-11

August, 2014

When the Germans occupied Amsterdam in May 1940, not everyone, and certainly not elderly brothers, Hans and Lars Gorter, were adversely affected immediately.  The two Dutch bachelors, both in their 60’s, continued to live in the home they had once shared with their mother in a quiet cul-de-sac across the road from her friend, Mrs. Vos, now 80.  They continued to work on a city tram, Hans driving it and Lars collecting tickets.  And they continued to keep to themselves and their routines, though they were becoming perplexed by the hatred being directed at the Jewish people and the Nazis insistence that suspicious behaviour of any sort be reported.

But in 1942 when a woman on the tram separates herself from the little girl accompanying her and is taken away by the Nazis, Lars claims the young girl as his niece and, with a quick release of the hand brake, Hans distracts the Nazi who leaves without the girl.  Hours later, the two men, befuddled as to what to do with the child, take her home.  That simple act, including taking her hands to walk her across the street, has Lars and Hans becoming unofficial uncles to little Beatrix.

To Lars it was as if the curl of a wave had come to rest in his palm To Hans it felt as if the gentlest creature on earth–a baby bird, perhaps–had nestled in his hand.  In that moment both felt the intense pride that comes with great responsibility as they guided the child safely across the street. (pg. 22-3) 

The brothers and Mrs. Vos raise her as Beatrix Gorter and have her schooled in Catholicism. Neighbours are encouraged into silence with polite threats of secrets to be revealed, and a new neighbour, the young Mrs. Lieve van der Meer, taking a special role in Beatrix’s education and upbringing.  And as Beatrix grows, and the persecution of the Jews escalates, and food shortages and strikes make life virtually impossible, the years pass, Beatrix ever hopeful that her mother will return.

This could have been another story of surviving the Holocaust but Sharon E. McKay doesn’t do the same as everyone.  It’s not about escaping or surviving.  It’s the story about naively opening one’s home and one’s heart to a stranger and finding both enriched in unexpected ways. The End of the Line is such a simple story about two unlikely and even reluctant heroes who jump in to help a little girl and find their lives changed forever.  What makes the story all the more poignant is the way in which Beatrix’s unofficial adoption creates a lovely new family of anomalous individuals.  And even with the horrors of Nazism and the persecution of the Jewish people and the Dutch under occupation, Sharon E. McKay is able still to provide moments of sweet tenderness and a reassuring ending that will fill one’s heart with gladness and one’s eyes with tears.  

Underground Soldier

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-2437-9

192 pp.

Ages 8-12

January, 2014

OK–I admit it.  I love everything Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch writes.  Maybe it's because she writes to inform and touch, eloquently accomplishing both without teacher- or preacher-speak.  Maybe it's because we're both Ukrainian, though not all her stories have a Ukrainian focus.  Maybe it's just because she writes great books.  I suspect it's the latter but I would never deny the others.  I knew that I would appreciate Underground Soldier, as I did its prequels: Stolen Child (Scholastic Canada, 2010) and last year's Silver Birch Fiction award winner Making Bombs for Hitler (Scholastic Canada, 2012), reviewed here.  See if I'm not right.

Stolen Child focused on Larissa, a young Ukrainian girl, who struggles to deal with confusing memories before her adoption by a Ukrainian family in Brantford.  Her older sister, Lida, is the primary focus of Making Bombs for Hitler, as an enslaved Ostarbeiter taken by the Nazis.  Another Ukrainian, Luka Barukovich, becomes an ally of Lida's, though his escape from the camp hospital leaves her wondering and worrying about his fate.  Underground Soldier is Luka's story, from his escape to his desperate need to return to Kyiv (the largest city in Ukraine) and reconnect with his father who was taken to Siberia by the Soviets.

Sent to the camp hospital from whence most leave dead, Luka is encouraged by Lida to find a way out which he does, hidden in a truckload of dead bodies.  His escape from the truck is just the beginning of a tortuous journey towards the mountains that he knows will link with the Ukrainian Carpathians and home.  It's not surprising that, with the Nazis taking his mother and enslaving him while the Soviets arrested his father and oppressed the people of his homeland, Luka is cautious and suspicious of anyone he encounters on his journey.  The enemy is everywhere and everyone.  A Ukrainian-speaking German couple, Helmut and Margarete, are one of his first allies, though he has much to fear when he learns that both their sons are Nazis.  As he continues his trek, Luka is reminded of the many incidents, both personal and national, that have shaped his distrust of both the Nazis and the Soviets.  With the repeated and horrific losses of life and whole-scale destruction, Luka realizes Ukraine and its people are spoils of war, to take or destroy as need be.

His journey is helped when he meets Martina Chalupa, a Czech girl, whose skills in tracking, evading detection and survival are superior to his.  After they are helped at an underground hospital of the Ukrainian Red Cross, Luka and Martina join the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to help protect and defend against both the Soviet Red Army, the NKVD (the brutal Soviet law enforcement agency) and the Nazis, both from targeted attacks, death camps, and large-scale destruction.  Even after Hitler commits suicide in 1945, UPA is still committed to fighting Stalin and his NKVD, as Luka is to finding his loved ones: his father, his mother and Lida.

Underground Soldier is not an action war story; it is a sobering tale of a people wedged between two evils with no "winning" possible.  Those who seek the thrill of an enemy-laden, gun-fighting game between good guys and bad guys will not find it here.  The horrors of war are evident as is the compulsion to save loved ones and survive.  But Underground Soldier is a more involved story, obviously painfully researched by Marsha Skrypuch, to include all aspects of World War II and its aftermath as endured by Ukrainians such as Luka, Lida and Larissa and by so many others.  The story revealed information that I could link to my own family's history, as I'm sure it will for many Ukrainians whose parents or grandparents lived through WWII in Ukraine and environs.

In this emotion-laden plot-driven story, Marsha Skrypuch will touch new readers to this trilogy and provide closure for those who've read Stolen Child and Making Bombs for Hitler.  There is no happy ending for any of war's victims, but by providing clarifying details and authentic experiences of those whose stories are embedded here, Marsha Skrypuch honours both the past and the future of Ukrainians and other victims of World War II everywhere.  Informing and touching, Underground Soldier is Marsha Skrypuch through and through.

Behind Enemy Lines : World War II, Sam Frederiksen, Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1944

by Carol Matas
Scholastic Canada
978-0-545-99066-0
196 pp.
Ages 9-12
2012

Scholastic Canada's new historical fiction series for boys, I am Canada, is a brilliant twin to their Dear Canada series, whose female protagonist and diary entry emphases are often tiresome for boys interested in historical fiction. Behind Enemy Lines: World War II is the fifth book in this series, due out in February.

Sam Frederiksen is an eighteen-year-old Canadian airman/gunner when his plane is shot down over Nazi-occupied France in 1944.  He and the injured navigator, Bill, are rescued by a French boy of the French Resistance who takes them to safety.  Sam joins other Allies, including James Thompson, a Brit, and Ben Webber, an American, at a local Resistance fighter's farm to help sabotage the infrastructure the Nazis use (e.g., railroads, etc.). When the farmer's daughter's fiancé is arrested, she betrays her parents and the Allies, hoping to secure his release. Luckily, the farmer anticipates the Germans' strategy and moves the Allied airmen to safety, though his own farm is burned to the ground.

Sam often thinks about his Danish family back in Winnipeg, believing in the generosity of people such as his father, the doctor, and finds it hard to believe the rumours of Hitler's assault on the Jewish people and the treachery of others in supporting their actions.  Sam is safely taken to Paris, where he meets up with Max, a Jewish member of his downed air crew,  but they are betrayed and handed over to the Germans, along with other French Resistance fighters and Allies.  Sam begins to really see the true circumstances of the occupation, especially after they are sent to Buchenwald, the concentration camp.  There Sam is witness to the emaciated prisoners in their blue and white striped pyjamas, and the cruel SS officers with dogs, and the vile smells coming from ever-burning chimneys, but Sam still holds some hope that they will be treated as POWs according to the Geneva Convention, just as POWs in Canada were being treated.

Sam's naiveté is not borne of ignorance but rather hope and honour.  He is relentless in adhering to the protocol that he only share his name, rank and service number, and in following the directions of the Allied officers they choose to lead them. When the prisoners in his cattle car are taken off and marched away at gunpoint, after an escape attempt, they are sure of their execution, but still do not cower or show shame, as they recognized the honour in following their orders to escape from the enemy.  By availing himself of the help of so many strangers and of the information they share with him, Sam gains both in wisdom and heart, during a time when many were abandoning both.

Surprisingly, there is a factual basis for this story, and Carol Matas, always a thorough researcher of history, provides extensive notes about it.  (An NFB documentary from 1994, titled The Lucky Ones: Allied Airmen and Buchenwald by Michael Allder also tells the story.) Matas provides additional notes related to the role of Canadians in WWII air operations, the work of the French Resistance fighters and the Holocaust, as well as images, of airmen and concentration camp prisoners.

Making Bombs for Hitler

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-0730-3

186 pp.

Ages 8-12

2012

The title of Marsha Skrypuch's newest book may blindside you, even knock you senseless about reading it, but it would be a shame for anyone not to read this compassionate historical fiction about a little known tragedy of World War II.  As always, Skrypuch demonstrates that she is to be trusted and respected for her ability to transform even horrific history into gentle but honest and enlightening stories.

With Russian Communist rule in Ukraine and Stalin determined to destroy the country to keep it from the Germans coupled with the Nazis heading for Moscow by invading Ukraine, Ukrainians were in an unfortunate position, territorially and psychologically, during World War II.  Sadly, this senseless situation leads to the murder of eight-year-old Lida Ferezuk's father by the Russians and her mother by the Nazis.  Separated from her younger sister, Larissa, Lida is taken with numerous Ukrainian children to Germany to be Ostarbeiter (eastern workers) for the Nazis.

Housed in barracked camps, provided with no clothes or shoes, and essentially starved on watery broth once a day, Lida and other children are slave workers for the Nazis, kept only as long as they are useful.  After showing her skills with needle and thread, Lida is assigned to the Nazi laundry. But, after being gifted a cast-off shirt by the laundress, Officer Schmidt decides Lida has been too privileged and assigns her with five others girls to construct bombs in a compound away from the camp. 

With repeated defeats at the front, many Nazis retreat and, without supervision, the girls begin to sabotage the bombs to ensure they are ineffective.  But, relentless bombing by the Allies destroys the camp, allowing many to escape. Unfortunately, a number of them, including Lida, are captured and taken to a German town where their enslavement is reimposed under a man manufacturing ammunition.  Locked in a basement, they endure inhumane conditions, worsened when they are abandoned by the departing Germans feeling the threat of the Allied forces.

The inevitable arrival of Allied soldiers and their discovery of Lida and others brings the reader small pleasure, as the deaths of many and the images of the starved with legs turning to sticks and teeth loosening cannot be erased or ameliorated.  Even with their rescue and care by compassionate soldiers and nurses, the Ukrainian children are in jeopardy from the Soviets who view them as Nazis, deserving of punishment.  If they do survive the machinations of the Soviets to retrieve and punish them, many will spend years in displaced persons camps, waiting, hoping to be reunited with family.

This heart-breaking story, as told from Lida's young eyes and heart, offers an opportunity for our young readers to get a different perspective of World War II beyond the battles expounded upon in history books or Remembrance Day activities at school or the tragedy of the Jewish people.  It provides an opportunity to see war from a Ukrainian child's perspective, hopefully sparking discussions with grandparents or research to understand more fully the plight of so many during war.  [n.b.  I may begin my own research with A History of Ukraine by Paul R. Magocsi (University of Toronto Press, 1996)]

Being of Ukrainian heritage, recalling vague discussions about Ukrainians dealing with the enemy they knew and the enemy they didn't, I recognize that choices were more akin to gambles, made with the single goal of survival.  As Lida acknowledges, even with the difficulty in believing that people could be so cruel, they saw hope even when there was none, just as Lida tries to see beauty anywhere, just as her mother deemed it was possible.