I REMEMBER SINGING :
A Boy Survives the Holocaust
This true life story is about a Holocaust Survivor who was
rescued when he was 11 years old.
Review:
I REMEMBER SINGING: A Boy Survives the Holocaust
"I wish this book in particular had existed when I was teaching middle school classes. When we read and discussed the Diary of Anne Frank and the events that led up to her story, many of the children, fortunate enough to have never seen the worst ugliness of this world, were unable to truly and fully comprehend how such a thing could have occurred. They understandably had great difficulty grasping how human beings could hate to this extent. They asked excellent questions like: "But why did the Nazis do this?", "Why didn't someone stop them?", "How come people let it get that bad?","Why didn't they fight back?" Such questions I will never forget and tried my best to help them answer fully. Late in the discussion, one boy said, "Some people say that that never really happened."
I am glad this book exists to add another survivor's voice, a child's voice to the evidence. At the time, the most personal evidence I could offer were a few pictures my father had saved from his service in World War II. He and his fellow soldiers were eye-witnesses to the horrors the Nazis inflicted on the people in those camps. They took pictures to document it. I had my students ask their parents’ permission to see the pictures before I showed them the next day to answer this young man's question.
The next day I showed them only some of the pictures. Among the typical photos taken by GI’s of their buddies and the places they were in, these pictures suddenly appeared. They were taken when the soldiers were able to enter and rescue the surviving victims of Buchenwald…Thus ended the questions about the Holocaust as fact.
My father just turned 85 a few weeks ago and still remembers his experiences in WWII vividly. I can only imagine the shock and horror these young men in their late teens and early twenties experienced upon witnessing such a sight. I know it must have changed them forever. And although it seems like such a long time ago, I’m afraid we aren’t really that far removed from those times; and like you and Mr. Schiller, believe we have a responsibility to never let such a thing occur again. Paris Webb, Reviewer. Southeastern Library Association
Review:
I REMEMBER SINGING: A Boy Survives the Holocaust
I Remember Singing is the result of Aaron’s meticulous research into Schiller’s life. She recounts his experiences in detail and includes a chronology of the Holocaust, a glossary of terms, and a vocabulary list, making the book ideal for teachers and students alike.
Hugo Schiller was 7 years old when Hitler’s Nazis dragged his father, the town mayor, from their home in Germany and took him to the concentration camp Dachau. Two weeks later, with no explanation, he was brought back home and forced to sell the family store. Hugo, who had grown up in a loving home, had never dreamed that there might be people in the world who hated him because he was Jewish.
While home from school on vacation, Hitler’s Nazi troops returned, storming the Schiller home and giving them one hour to pack a suitcase and leave. The family was marched to a train and deported to Gurs, a refugee camp in the south of France, where they were held behind barbed wire in cruel living conditions with little or no food. Young Hugo would sing songs for hunks of coarse brown bread to feed his starving aunt and mother.
Today, Hugo Schiller tells about the family he once had in Germany, and he tells the truth about what happened in the Holocaust. He warns that there are those bent on rewriting history to say the Holocaust did not happen. He warns that we must stay vigilant and make the world a better place, each of us in our own communities.
Arielle A. Aaron and Hugo Schiller signed copies of
I Remember Singing at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Aileen Woods, Publishing Reviewer 2008
