This heart-stopping story of a young girl hiding from the Nazis is based on Clara Kramer’s diary of her years surviving in an underground bunker with seventeen other people.
Clara Kramer was a typical Polish-Jewish teenager from a small town at the outbreak of the Second World War. When the Germans invaded, Clara’s family was taken in by the Becks, a Volksdeutsche (ethnically German) family from … German) family from their town. Mrs. Beck worked as Clara’s family’s housekeeper. Mr. Beck was known to be an alcoholic, a womanizer, and a vocal anti-Semite. But on hearing that Jewish families were being led into the woods and shot, Beck sheltered the Kramers and two other Jewish families.
Eighteen people in all lived in a bunker dug out of the Becks’ basement. Fifteen-year-old Clara kept a diary during the twenty terrifying months she spent in hiding, writing down details of their unpredictable life—from the house’s catching fire to Mr. Beck’s affair with Clara’s neighbor; from the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room above to the small pleasure of a shared Christmas carp.
Against all odds, Clara lived to tell her story, and her diary is now part of the permanent col-lection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
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When reading the description, I thought this would be a very interesting book. The story itself was interesting & informative. The author’s writing much less so. She would take 5 paragraphs to describe something that could be told in a few sentences. She was very repetitive & a dramatic type of person (hand wringing & dramatics over the simplest things). I just did not like her personality or writing style at all.
We can not let the truth die
This is a compelling story of tragedy, terror, and unbelievable courage of both Gentiles and Jews. This is a day to day recounting of life in a crawlspace for 18 months. The fear of death was present every moment for the large group of Jews living in the cramped space, and the book recounts the daily battles with heat , cold, hunger, fleas—and the ever present threat of discovery that would lead to the murder of both the group and their benefactors . And yet there is never a sense of self pity in the recounting. It is very disturbing to be reminded that the Nazis seemed eager to murder any Jew they encountered, whether a baby or an elderly person—just for sport, just because they could. And yet there were Gentiles who risked the lives of their families to save Jewish strangers from certain death. Excellent book!
A true story of a 15 year old girl in Nazi-occupied Poland. Better than A Diary of Ann Frank. A wonderful book!
Amazing and a true story.
Another Holocaust survivor tells her tale. Eighteen Jews who lived for months in a bunker in horrible conditions, and lived to tell the tale. Man’s inhumanity to mankind, and yet the bravery of the volksdeutche Polish family who saved them all.
Very good read. Heartbreaking at times. Knowing this was a true story made it difficult but it’s a story that needed to be told.
Great story that details the horror of war and illustrates the resistancy of human spirit and faith. Every you ng adult should read
This book is another haunting tale of the effects of Nazi Germany during WW2 against the Jewish in Poland. It is a story of survival and the good works of flawed but righteous people who risked their own lives to save others.
Very well written. .very realistic.
So very sad, but true….. Great book!
Unbelievable! Everyone should read it.
This book should be required reading in schools so we as a nation never ever forget the horrors of war.
A great testimony of the perserverance of a young girl and her family in a terrible situation.
It reminded me that I need to be grateful for all I have!
Very good book.
The story is about “survival” and hiding from the Nazis in WWII. Many people live in a bunker underneath a home owned by really good Polish people who are against the killing of non-Aryan people. Really great story and it is true.
IT WAS A TRUE STORY.
An A+ read for those few of us who can appreciate the horrors of genocide.
Excellent