Resistance
Chaya Lindner says she’s lived three lives in her sixteen years. Her first life, a happy childhood in Krakow, Poland, with her parents and younger brother and sister, ends on her thirteenth birthday, when Germany invades Poland and confines Jews to the ghetto. Then her second life ends, and the third begins, when she must flee as her name appears on a Nazi list for transport. She is sent to live with her grandmother, but Chaya never makes it. Instead, she joins a small band of resistance fighters and is soon working as a “courier” smuggling food, supplies, information, and hope into the ghettos of Poland.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest and most important Jewish uprising in German-occupied Europe. Against all odds, a small band of Jewish fighters challenged the Nazi army. Nielsen’s impeccable research allows her to place her characters in the middle of the war-torn ghetto, encountering many historical heroes. She gives an honest and brutal account of the horrors endured inside the ghetto as well as the strength, bravery, and dignity with which they fought.
Readers may not identify with Chaya’s commitment to her cause, but they will understand her motivations. The story is fast-paced and, though I wondered if Chaya could really do all that she does, I was willing to suspend my belief—because who among us knows how they will truly act in the face of death? Written for ages 8 to 12, but given the subject matter, it’s suitable for older readers as well.
