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| Book | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | 940.5318 SHE / TEEN | 31330009456207 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503909 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503453 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503495 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503537 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503578 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503610 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503651 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503693 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503735 | Searching... Unknown |
| Summer Reading (Andover) | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | TEEN SUMMER READING 2024 | 31330009503776 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Billerica Public Library | YA 940.5318/SHEI 2023 | 33934004666567 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Burlington Public Library | YA 940.5318 SHEINK | 32116004012072 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Carlisle - Gleason Public Library | TEEN 940.53 SHE | 32117002191991 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Chelmsford Public Library | Y/940.5318/SHEI | 31480011716930 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Dunstable Free Public Library | YA 940.53 SHE | 32118001117516 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Georgetown Peabody Library | YA 940.53 SHEINKIN | 32120001436649 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Groton Public Library | YA 940.5318 SHE | 37003702008419 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Hamilton-Wenham Public Library | Y 940.53 SHE | 30470002127297 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Haverhill Public Library | YA/940.5318/SHEINKIN S | 31479007642589 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Ipswich Public Library | YA 940.5318 SHEINKIN | 32122003045105 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Lawrence Public Library | 940.5318 SHE YA | 31549005036966 | Searching... Unknown |
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| Book | Searching... Lowell - Pollard Memorial Library | YA 940.5318 SHE | 31481005721977 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Methuen - Nevins Memorial Library | YA 940.53 SHE | 31548003500171 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Newburyport Public Library | YA 940.53 SHE | 32128004203593 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library | TEEN HIS SHEINKIN | 31478010238591 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... North Reading - Flint Memorial Library | YA 940.5318 SHE | 31550002587209 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Rockport Public Library | YA 940.531 SHEINKIN | 32129002605433 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Tewksbury Public Library | TEEN HISTORY / WWII / SHE | 32132003412049 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
From three-time National Book Award finalist and Newbery Honor author Steve Sheinkin, a true story of two Jewish teenagers racing against time during the Holocaust--one in hiding in Hungary, and the other in Auschwitz, plotting escape.
It is 1944. A teenager named Rudolf (Rudi) Vrba has made up his mind. After barely surviving nearly two years in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, he knows he must escape. Even if death is more likely.
Rudi has learned the terrible secret hidden behind the heavily guarded fences of concentration camps across Nazi-occupied Europe: the methodical mass killing of Jewish prisoners. As trains full of people arrive daily, Rudi knows that the murders won't stop until he reveals the truth to the world--and that each day that passes means more lives are lost.
Lives like Rudi's schoolmate Gerta Sidonová. Gerta's family fled from Slovakia to Hungary, where they live under assumed names to hide their Jewish identity. But Hungary is beginning to cave under pressure from German Nazis. Her chances of survival become slimmer by the day.
The clock is ticking. As Gerta inches closer to capture, Rudi and his friend Alfred Wetzler begin their crucial steps towards an impossible escape.
This is the true story of one of the most famous whistleblowers in the world, and how his death-defying escape helped save over 100,000 lives.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up--Sheinken has penned another must-read with this powerful and harrowing account of childhood friends Rudolf Vrba and Gerta Sidonová, Slovakian Jewish teens who not only survived the Holocaust but fought back against the Nazis. In 1942, when their government announced that Jews were to be deported to "work camps," Rudi was determined not to go and ran away to try to make it to England. He was captured at the Hungarian border and sent to Auschwitz. Due to his age and health, he was spared the gas chambers and sent to work. With cunning, determination, and good luck, he managed to survive, but never stopped thinking about escape. In April 1944, Vrba and friend Alfred Wetzler made an astonishing escape--even though they were near starvation, they walked to Slovakia with a goal to tell the world what was happening in the camps. Their account became known as the Vrba-Wetzler report, which compelled President Roosevelt to intervene with the Hungarian authorities, credited with saving over 200,000 lives. Paralleling Rudi's story, readers learn how Sidonová and her family hid with relatives in Hungary, and her later work with a Hungarian resistance. Sheinkin's unflinching account of the torturous conditions in Auschwitz is chilling and unimaginable, and the escape is heart pounding. This is all expertly interwoven with informative background information making for an absorbing page-turner. This book is well documented with extensive source notes, bibliography, and index; it also includes two diagrams of the camp and black-and-white photos. VERDICT Thoroughly researched with exceptional writing, this riveting narrative is an important addition to Holocaust literature. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Karen T. Bilton
Publisher's Weekly Review
In striking detail, Sheinkin (Fallout) chronicles how, in June 1944, 19-year-old Rudi Vrba, together with 24-year-old Alfred Wexler, both Slovakian Jewish, were the first to reveal to the world the then-hidden Nazi atrocities occurring in Auschwitz. Both prisoners who witnessed firsthand the "death on an industrial scale," the two made a perilous escape from the camp, determined to alert the public. Sheinkin entwines Vrba's story escaping Slovakia and enduring hardships in a labor camp with that of his slightly younger Jewish friend Gerta Sidonová, whose family fled to Hungary in spring 1942, where they lived in privilege, posing as Catholics for more than a year until they were caught and sent to a detention camp. Expertly threaded throughout in smooth and accessible prose is the history of Hitler, the Nazi party, and antisemitism. Sympathetic Vrba's compassion, resourcefulness, and steadfast integrity, and Sidonová's adaptability and quiet determination, fortify them through their arduous experiences. These noteworthy subjects, combined with Sheinkin's extensive research, proffer an important, highly readable addition to the library of Holocaust literature for young people. Includes an author's note, maps, source notes, and a bibliography. Ages 12--up. (Aug.)
Horn Book Review
In his latest masterful work of narrative nonfiction, Sheinkin's (Most Dangerous, rev. 9/15; Fallout, rev. 11/21) tale of suspense is tinged with the physical and psychological horrors of the Holocaust. When Hitler invades Czechoslovakia, Rudi Vrba, a seventeen-year-old Slovakian Jew, flees to Hungary hoping to get ahead of the ominous changes to his world, but to no avail. He is captured and imprisoned in Majdanek and then in Auschwitz, where he gradually comes to understand the Nazis' systematic method of exterminating the Jewish population of German-occupied territories. Through a combination of determination, intelligence, and fortune, Rudi survives for two years -- an eternity in Auschwitz -- before he and a friend, Fred Wetzler, manage the impossible: escape. Their journey back to Slovakia is fraught with peril, but when they do arrive, they deliver harrowing testimony that lays bare to the outside world the depth of Nazi depravity. Sheinkin artfully balances Rudi's story with expository information about the progression of World War II and the Holocaust. A subplot follows Gerta Sidonova, Rudi's schoolmate and future wife, during this time frame; the juxtaposition adds depth, texture, and context. The epilogue is fittingly ruminative and poignant. An author's note, source notes, a bibliography, and an index are appended. Jonathan HuntSeptember/October 2023 p.101 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The dramatic stories of two Jewish teenagers who beat the odds by surviving the Holocaust and went on to bear witness. Challenging his readers to understand that it's up to them to keep what happened then from happening again--or, as he puts it in his final line: "You read the story. You know what to do"--Sheinkin recounts the experiences of two seemingly ordinary young Slovaks under the Nazi regime. Readers meet Gerta Sidonová, who joined a resistance group and, in a gut-wrenching moment, was forced to make a quick choice between staying with her mother or seizing a chance to escape when they were captured together, and Rudi Vrba, who spent nearly two harrowing years in Auschwitz and other prison camps before escaping to deliver one of the first widely distributed eyewitness accounts of what was going on. Along with adding historical context with testimony from other captives, postwar Nazi trial transcripts, and hefty loads of other documentary evidence, and carrying on to the deaths of Rudi in 2006 and Gerta in 2020, the author concludes with a gripping report of a later courtroom exchange between Vrba and a Canadian Holocaust denier. This is a moving tale of luck, pluck, and stubborn endurance with a strong message about where the slippery slopes of hatred and prejudice still, and ever do, lead. Passionate, absorbing, and, unfortunately, more than a little relevant to current events. (author's note, source notes, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
This account of two Jewish teens from Slovakia and their efforts to survive the Holocaust brings fresh relevance to the unimaginable horrors of WWII. Rudi thought himself an invincible 17-year-old when he fled Slovakia, only to be almost immediately arrested and shipped to Auschwitz. His blond-haired, blue-eyed classmate Gerta secretly harbored a crush on Rudi, although he dismissed her as a silly girl who wore knit hats with pompoms. Alternating chapters tell of Gerta's displacements and harrowing fears of betrayal, first as a refugee and then as a member of the Slovakian underground; Rudi's increasingly desperate circumstances as he faces the monstrosities of death camp reality; and accessible background updates that fill in developing military and political context. The most compelling parts are when Rudi actually escapes and is able to share his carefully memorized facts, numbers, and maps, leading to the first eyewitness testimony to ever come out of Auschwitz (the 1944 Vrba-Wetzler report, which reached an international audience and hastened Allied action, saving over 200,000 lives). Award-winning author Sheinkin (Bomb, 2012; Fallout, 2021) writes with immediacy and urgency, compelling attention from the first pages to the postwar epilogue; copious source notes and an extensive bibliography validate Rudi's accounts. This is an absorbing and important addition to the Holocaust canon. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: National Book Award finalist, Newbery Honoree, and Sibert Medalist Sheinkin is a tried-and-true nonfiction expert whose books make big events, like WWII, accessible for younger readers. This latest, which draws on his own family history, is no exception.