I stumbled across this little yet powerful book while shelving one morning last week at work. I didn't realize before that that it was a book. I knew it was a late 90's movie with Kirsten Dunst. The timing was opportune, with Passover coming and my son and I delving into and embracing and learning more about our Jewishness. So I bought it.
Now when I was called it a little book I was being literal, it is small, 166 pages, and a little larger square than a deck of cards, it is small sized. But inside it is huge. The emotion, the fear, the vivid reminder about the importance of remembering and not letting others forget. To paraphrase Eli Wiesel when the witnesses die it is on those that were witness to the telling of the story of those who lived it to keep the memory going, to be witnesses for the witnesses. That is what Hannah learns in such an incredible and powerful way. And she has a mystical trip into the past that last weeks but yet only moments to see for herself. Memory is a powerful thing and if the memory of events like the Holocaust is allowed to slip from memory, from history lessons, we will have allowed 6 million Jews and many, many others, defenders of the Jews, Gays, just about anyone who at the time the Nazi party felt didn't meet their ideas of white, Aryan perfection, to die in vain. We honor their lives and deaths by not letting them be forgotten.
Yolen's method of telling this story, through the eyes of a 13 year old girl who isn't seeing the value of remembering, who doesn't feel connected to her heritage, and placing her in the thick of the camps, it is so very powerful.
(Finished March 21, 2019)
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