To read pile

 I finally started on my summer to-read-pile of books.  Sophomores at my school read Elie Wiesel's Night and I was looking for a companion novel to go along with it.  The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti works perfectly as a parallel.  Although the story is historical fiction, it is based on actual people and events.  The story is told in flashback from Helmuth Hubener's, a German schoolboy, point-of-view as he awaits execution for crimes again German and Hitler during the years of World War II.  Helmuth's story begins with recollections from 1928 when he was three, growing up with his grandparents, Oma and Opa, his mother, Mutti, and his two older brothers Gerhard and Hans in Hamburg, Germany.  Hitler's political ambitions have begun with the growing patriotism and fanatical promises of a pure Germany where no Jews belong.  Initially, Hitler's promises draw Helmuth into this world of hope and a better life but gradually he sees the rights of people around him threatened and destroyed.  The truth about the war is censored through media propaganda and danger exists all around him.  Anyone can turn him in for his beliefs.  With his strong Mormon faith, Helmuth attempts to spread the truth about the German war machine through his words.

By listening to uncensored radio from the BBC London and spreading the truth in pamphlets secretly placed in telephone booths, on bulletin boards, and even in coat pockets in closets, Helmuth stands up to the Nazi propaganda machine.  All the while, he tries to protect his Mutti, grandparents, and friends from the watchful eyes of loyal Nazi sympathizers.  He is finally betrayed and taken away for interrogation, trial, and imprisonment.  The descriptions of torture and the trial itself take your breath away.  How one seventeen-year-old boy stands up for his beliefs when everyone around him hides in fear is inspiring and yet he is very believable, describing his days in prison leading up to his execution with it's interminable wait for the words, "Come with us. It is time."

The author pulled her story from interviews with Helmuth's childhood friends, brothers, and official records from the time.  In addition, she includes pictures taken during Helmuth's years growing up in Hamburg, his Gestapo pictures, and the room where he was executed by guillotine.  Also included is a timeline of Hitler's rise to power and the war years until Germany's surrender in 1945 with additional resources for further study.

This book, along with Night, is an excellent parallel of the lives of a Jewish boy and a German boy both caught up in the madness of Nazi Germany.  Both are caught in a net of lies and denial, ultimately leading them to examine their belief in God.

Additional works include:
Escape: Children of the Holocaust by Allan Zullo
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy

Bartoletti, S.C. (2008). The boy who dared. New York City, NY: Scholastic.

Book image. The boy who dared. image retrieved from
    http://www.scbartoletti.com/