Customer Reviews: Read 59 more reviews...
 Gripping and so inspiring! May 30, 2008
~ Bookworm ~ (U.K)
I received this book only a day or so after ordering it here on Amazon, and began it that very evening.....
I have found it hard to put down, and thoroughly recommend it, I shall finish it by tomorrow, and then my daughter is going to read it. She is learning all about Hitler and world war2 for G.C.S.E's, but not enough is taught regarding the Jews and what happened. This book should be read by all children, to help them realise how lucky they are not to have to experience such horror, and to feel and empathise for what really happened, and to stop it ever happening again. This is an amazing, inspirational and terribly moving insight into a young Jewish girls experience of living through World war 2 in Poland. I cried, and also am filled with admiration for such lovely warm people. We all have a lot to learn from Jewish people, they are so loving and kind and value what really matters, being loyal and moral and true to God. I love you Alicia, God Bless You.................... and all the Jews that were murdered, God Bless them all.
An irrepressible spirit of survival May 19, 2008
Gary Selikow (Great Kush)
Raised from the age of five in Buczacz, which was roughly a third Jewish at that time, Alicia was sheltered relatively well from the anti-Semitism that plagued her town, as well as the rest of Europe. She had many friends, both Jewish and Christian.
After the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, whereby the two genocidal dictators divided Poland between them, Buczacz fell into the Soviet zone. The Soviets began a forced Sovietization drive, and deported thousands of people to slave labour, or their deaths, who they saw as 'enemies of the Soviet Union'.Alicia recalls being offended and hurt, on behalf of her Christian friends, for whose religion she had deep respect, when the Madonna and Child were removed from their customary spot in the classroom and replaced by scowling portraits of Lenin and Stalin.
Alicia's second-oldest brother Moshe was shot by the Soviets after returning to Poland, from the harsh conditions in Russia, where he had gone for education.
In June 1941, the Germans broke their pact with the Soviets and swept through eastern Poland on their way to Russia - Operation Barbarossa had begun. The Germans, however, had an even worse plan than the Soviets had had for Europe's Jews: it was known as Endlosung (aka The Final Solution).
Alicia's father was shot, alongside 600 other Jewish community leaders, shortly after the Nazi invasion.
Alicia, and her mother and brothers were forced to leave their beautiful home, and to settle in the ghetto.
They lived under harsh laws whereby Jews were forced to wear armbands with stars of David.
Jews who tried to leave the ghetto or to enter the synagogue would be executed.
Alicia's brother Bunion was then executed by the Nazis.
While visiting a Jewish family in the town, 12 year old Alicia was arrested by the Nazis along with thousands of other Jews, but escaped from the train to the death camps, together with a band of other young people.
After Alicia's brother Zachary was shot by the Nazis She swore on his grave that if she survived she would speak for her silenced family.
This book is a powerful and unforgettable fulfilment of that oath.
It keeps us engaged and emotionally involved on every page, as we read of her struggle to survive, her irrepressible spirit, her many brushes with death. She never gave up her will to survive nor her humanity for fellow victims of the Nazis, many of whom she helped to rescue, many of whom died before her eyes.
She witnessed such horrors as babies being shot in their cribs by the Nazis.
While many of the Polish and Ukrainian neighbours helped the Nazis and joined in the killings, there were always those few that helped to keep their Jewish fellow humans alive, including a Polish family on whose farm Alicia worked.
After the war, Alicia's struggle was not over.
She was imprisoned by the Soviets and took part in the secret operation to smuggle Jews to the Land of Israel, across Europe, at a time when the British were keeping the Holocaust survivors out, often with brutal and violent methods reminiscent of the Nazis themselves.
Alicia was on the ship Theodor Herzl, carrying young Holocaust survivors to Israel, in 1946, when it was rammed by British frigates, after which British soldiers then boarded the ship and attacked the survivors, beating to death six young Jews and allowing others to drown while trying to escape.
This courageous girl, had struggled as part of the Jewish nation against three ruthless empires.
Heartrending read March 15, 2008
david allkins
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are interested in Holocaust history then this book is a must. Your heart goes out to Alicia right from the start.
It sends a clear picture of what the Nazis were like and what horrors they were capable of, the book is very well written and it is very difficult to put down because all you want is for the family to survive.
Unbelievable - but true May 21, 2007
Kathryn L. Dorey (Croydon)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I haven't even finished reading this book, but felt I must let other people know how fantastic it is. An amazing true story of courage and hope and each page is more gripping than the last. This book has given me more of an insight into what happened to the Polish Jews than anything else I have seen or read. If you're interested in this period of history then buy this book now.
Remarkable story from a remarkable woman April 5, 2007
Dr. D. Fraser (Scotland)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I am a huge reader of holocaust literature. There's something really inspiring in the way that people such as Alica survive the very worst of deprevations, and somehow manage to emerge out the other side not just as survivors but as trully remarkable human beings.
Alicia's story really is heart rending. How she didn't herself go under when she saw one member of her family after another lose their life we can only wonder at.
Although this work is biographical, it really has the feel of a novel to it, and so is a very fluent read. The only criticism I would make was that the end of the book was a little abrupt. I really felt I could have done with one final chapter on how Alica rebuilt her life in Israel and America.
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