BOOK REVIEW
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bartoletti, Susan Campbell, Hitler Youth Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow Scholastic Nonfiction New York 2005
PLOT SUMMARY
This book won two Awards, the Newbery Honor Award for the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature, and the Siebert Honor Award for its documentation. This is a book for youth and adults that show how one man preys on the young to carry his plan against humanity against Jewish people in the Holocaust. This well written book is bound to be an eye-opener particularly to the young to be mindful and cautious about leader’s agendas. It is beyond belief how Germany invaded and almost took over all of Europe by mainly using the young to carry out someone’s agenda. Young and old are euphoric about the promises of a better future for Germany. This plan is too registered as many young boys and girls to join Hitler’s Youth Army. These youngsters are to meet the criteria of both parents being Arian ethnicity and write an essay to ensure their belief in Hitler’s Socialist Party philosophy. This book sends chills through readers back to see how the youth flock to join this party and how they are manipulated by turning anyone in, including parents that disagree with Hitler’s philosophy. Girls train in strenuous endurance exercises to make them stronger physically and mentally. Soon youngsters begin to close down Jewish businesses and raiding their homes. The government is in total control and schools teach Hitler’s philosophy of a Germany of all Arian but do not teach German Jewish students. Some of the youth question themselves about the political philosophy that separates families, closes Jewish business, and the inability to have freedom of speech. Hitler’s Youth forms a group the “White Rose” to inform others about the party’s deceit on its citizens and about the crimes against humanity.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Ms. Bartolitti extensive research, interviews of survivors, bystanders, and photo media tells and shows how an evil dictator as Adolph Hitler, played on the innocence, sense of belonging, and patriotism on the youth to indoctrinated them to commit the worse crimes ever committed against humanity in the Holocaust or killing of Jewish people. HITLER’S YOUTH foreword cites the words coming from Hitler’s mouth to show that his plan was to use the youth to carry out his sinister plan –I begin with the young, said Hitler. “We older ones are used up….But my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at all these men boys! What material! With them I can make a new world.”
Statements like the one just mentioned above, stories of individual youth, and the pictures makes this book hard to put down because it adds to the truth about the manipulation of young people to serve a murderer. This book is different than most books about Nazi crimes because it focuses on the youth and how they were used in WWII and became Hitler’s weapons to rid of anyone of Jewish dissent. The youngsters joined as young as seven years old. It was a crime to contradict Hitler’s beliefs and people were asked to report anyone who spoke against any of these political beliefs.
The youth’s party organization demanded loyalty when joining one had to bring birth certificates showing that they were full blood Germans. They had to go an extensive evaluation as well as to write an essay about their loyalty to Hitler’s party. Schools soon got rid of anyone who was not a full blood German, taught Hitler’s political philosophy, and the Jewish children were not allowed to attend school.
Ms. Bartolleti, does not make excuses for the youth that were brainwashed and indoctrinated in committing these crimes. Rather, she has all of these black and white pictures of individuals telling the story about them. She connects the text to the pictures brilliantly by keeping the reader fully engaged wanting to learn more about this topic of Hitler’s youth.
Bartoletti tells and shows how disagreeing with Hitler’s philosophy would get you killed. The author shares the story of individuals such as Sophie Scholl, who moved away from Nazi ideas as a teen and in college joined the "White Rose" group that published pamphlets detailing Nazi evils and urging people to put up a resistance. This was a crime a crime for which she and others were executed.
The majority of the pictures show Nazi propaganda showing euphoric, happy, and healthy teenagers as well as the sad reality of the concentration camps, and Nazis overtaken of Jewish people businesses and homes. This well documented book is written chronologically and it speaks as a challenge to all readers to keep on guard and not let anyone take over the young minds so that this will not ever be repeated again.
REVIEWS
2006 Newbery Honor Award
"How could the Holocaust have happened? Bartoletti delivers a chilling answer by exploring Hitler's rise to power through the first-hand experiences of young followers whose adolescent zeal he so successfully exploited and the more extraordinary few who risked certain death in resisting. The meticulously researched volume traces the Hitler Youth movement from the time it formally gathered strength in the early 1930s through the defeat of the Third Reich. The grace and clarity of the writing make Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow a powerful addition to Holocaust literature for children."
2006 Newbery Committee
American Library Association
2006 Sibert Honor Award
"Readers will be riveted by the chilling history meticulously documented in Susan Campbell Bartoletti's Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow. By weaving the personal stories of twelve young Germans into the larger fabric of Nazism and World War II, Bartoletti elevates understanding of Hitler's strategic plans of manipulation to a new level and offers contemporary youth the opportunity to question the choices they might have made in the same situation."
2006 Sibert Committee
American Library Association
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