Year by year, insult unto outrage, the cankerous reduction of
Jewish life in Nazi Germany and the obliteration of one
indestructible boy, Friedrich. As recalled in flashes by his
downstairs neighbor and lifelong friend, laughter is tinged by what
is to come: while his playmate chafes to get out in the snow too,
four-year-old Friedrich and his mother stamp and slide and build a
snowman. . . until the landlord bellows "Will you leave my roses in
peace, you dirty little Jewboy you!" Friedrich's father is working,
his friend's isn't and the first-day-of-school outing is Herr
Schneider's treat, topped off with a larky photo of the two
families astride an endless horse. Friedrich comes to a Jungvolk
meeting, it is all glory to him, and hears a lecture on the
despicable Jews; "my father" joins the Party and gets a job and,
embarrassed, explains to Herr Schneider, who understands. Warned to
leave Germany, he demurs: he has "Reasons"; "God has given us Jews
a task. . . . We have always been persecuted - ever since we were
exiled. . . . Perhaps we'll manage to put an end to our wandering
by not seeking flight any more, by learning to suffer, by staying
where we are." But there is no reason to "The Pogrom" when "I" too
smashed glass or to "The Death" of Friedrich's mother on a pallet
of rags in the wrecked apartment. Friedrich has a brief, lyrical
encounter with an Aryan girl, a matter of "Benches" for Jew and
gentile, before, denied refuge in the air-raid shelter, he dies in
the shadow of the stoop. "His luck that he died this way," says the
landlord. A chronology correlates events with the dates of the
episodes; terse and graphic, bitterly or innocently funny, they are
as undeniable as snapshots in an album. (Kirkus Reviews)
One of a series of top-quality fiction for schools. Friedrich is a
Jewish boy growing up in pre-war Germany. This story of dramatic,
moving and tragic incidents is an indictment of racial hatred.
General
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