I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust

by Inge Auerbacher

Overview

Inga Auerbacher's childhood was as happy and peaceful as any other German child's--until 1942. By then, the Nazis were in power, and she and her parents were rounded up and sent to a concentration camp. The Auerbachers defied death for three years until they were freed. This story allows even the youngest middle reader to understand the Holocaust.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140364019
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/28/1993
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.13(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

This account of one girl's Holocaust experience is rich for its interweaving of autobiography and historical data. At age six, Auerbacher was forced to wear the yellow star that set her apart. Then she was sent to the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Fifteen thousand children entered that camp, but only a hundred exited alive. And of more than 1000 people who arrived with Auerbacher, only 15 survived. It's a moving story supported by well-preserved wartime photographs and Bernbaum's harsh, spare drawings. The author's ability to survive is linked to her later capacity to translate hardship and tragedy into poetry of hope and perseverance. Her perspective, while chilling, pierces the heart with memorable imagery, such as envying the birds, which are free to fly away from the camp. Ages 11-up. (April)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 4-6 Of the 15,000 children imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp, only about 100 survived. Auerbacher was one of them, and she tells of her experiences in this brief memoir. Auerbacher's poems, incorporated into the text, are reminiscent of the writings in I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944 (Schocken, 1977). Both books give a child's perspective on the horrendous conditions in Theresienstadt without bitterness or pessimism. It isn't clear, though, whether Auerbacher's poems were written as a child or as an adult, and they are often awkwardly placed, interrupting the narrative. Bold roughly lined charcoal drawings and numerous black-and-white photographs are included. Bernbaum's drawings are neither as complex nor as symbolic as his oil paintings in My Brother's Keeper: the Holocaust Through the Eyes of an Artist (Putnam, 1985) but they do communicate the incidents described in the text and the poetry with emotional expression. In general, the illustrative material is not well reproduced. In spite of its flaws, this is a readable account that could be useful to children who have read Abells' The Children We Remember (Greenwillow, 1986), which is written on an easier level. Lorraine Douglas, Winnipeg Public Library, Manitoba, Canada

School Library Journal