While in the bookstore of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, I purchased Child of the Holocaust. Four years later I finally read it last week. I could not put it down. My heart bled for the danger and sufferings for young Jankele. This is one of the fastest paced books about survival that I have read of late. I believe that it is important for the youth of today to read such works and should be put into high school libraries. My only criticism is that further information about Jankele and his family was not included. I was hoping for a sequel to come from Jack Kuper. I can see this being made into a Spielburg masterpiece because this story should be told and what appeals to our youth now are only tales where they play a significant part.

Jack's mother sends him to live with a Polish family, away from German occupied Warsaw. When he comes back to visit he finds that his family has been taken away by the Germans. In vivid, realistic prose, the author recounts his wanderings from one family to another, often having to escape for his life from neighbors and even from the people who had previously befriended him. This is a fast paced book that reads like a novel. It also ends like one, leaving you uncertain as to whether it is a work of literature or a true story. Having read many other accounts of this kind, it has the ring of truth and captures in all its heart-wrending detail themisfortunes of Jews in Poland during the Second World War. /subm

I read Child of the Holocaust and thought it was an intresting portrayal of a young Jewish boy running from the Gestapo in Poland. I found myself immersed in a book filled with fear, hardship, and luck. The boy, originally named Jenkele, was a clever boy who I thought was more courageous than anyone I had ever seen. Plus the author described the story so well, that I thought I was part of the action. The book incorporates suspense, sadness, and the harsh reality of Hitler's Holocaust. Although the book was great, there were it's moments I didn't like. One of the moments I didn't like was when Jenkele and his friends were told to beat some sick kittens to death with sticks. There were also parts that were unrealistic. An example of an unrealistic part in the book is when a militia who turns over Jews to the Gestapo let Jenkele go not once but twice. Overall the book was great, and I recommend it to all people interested in the Holocaust.