Someone Named Eva Author:Joan M. Wolf A Nazi led us into a small room at the end of a hall. Two boys younger than me and a girl closer to Jaro's age followed me, and we joined about a dozen other Lidice children already standing in what looked like a science classroom. I stopped in the doorway, amazed by what I saw. — It wasn't who was there that surprised me. I recognized most ev... more »eryone from school. But all of us had one thing in common, something I would not have noticed had we not been put together in one room. Each of us had blond hair and light-colored eyes.« less
A previous reviewer states that all people from Lidice were massacred and that none of the people that had lived there ever returned. Here is this article published by the Smithsonian Magazine - attached to The Smithsonian, an institution well known for its impeccable research. I post this link here for a look at additional information.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-lidice-massacre-180970242/
This book deals with tough issues of WWII and treatment of Jews in an age appropriate way. I never felt the content was too graphic when I read it with my 9 year old daughter.
The story is beautifully written and compelling fiction.
But as it is set in actual historical setting, using actual events, places and documented atrocities, the author should DO HER RESEARCH, before she creates such Hollywood Frankenstein.
Lidice and Lezaky were small towns falling victims of Nazzi anger, after the attempted assassination of Himler. Gestapo KILLED every man woman and child in retaliation. On the very ground they were standing. Despite the so called "comprehensive information" Wiki states. There were NO SURVIVERS. The cities were emptied of all human life and then leveled. As in not a single brick remained in place. Bombed and bulldozed to NOTHING. Flat land in the middle of hilly country.
Now even if I disregard what they taught me in school for caa 10 years (in the Czech Republic) and the girl was somehow saved and sent for germanization, there is absolutely no possibility she would have been reunited with her mother and granny both. It would have been one freeking miracle if she found one of them... And considering that out of 100 children only 1 remembered coming from slavic family, only 1 in a thousand would know which country to look for her/his relatives. The math is that out of all the stolen children only a handful were ever reunited DECADES later. After the Berlin Wall fell (with the end of Communism). There are NO KNOWN SURVIVORS OF LIDICE/LEZAKY MASKAR to this day. NONE!
There are other inaccuracies:
The children were stripped of all possessions, so no pin as a heirloom would be in the girls possession.
The re-education camp was a horrible place full of abuse, training and discipline. Failing to graduate was death. All children adopted were sent to Germany. It was the official policy, to prevent incidental contact with natives and further ingrate the re-education. The kids would not have ended up near an extermination camp.
CONCLUSION
Though I admire the author for brining up these important events in history and creating a story to remind everyone of the horrors fanatic people following leftist ideologies visited on the free world, it should be done properly and follow the history. Otherwise she ends up with this Frankenstein that erases whole history of people, merges them with other histories and mock them ALL by false data from single untrustworthy database (Wiki), written by ummmm "self appointed fact checkers" who base their knowledge on such novels as she produced. It is a mockery to the people of Lidice and Lezaky. Mockery of Czech history and the evil visited upon them by the Germans. It is mockery of the victims of the massacre.
People should do their research before reviewing a book about its Historical aspects. The Nazis were not " left". Communism is considered a " leftist " ideology. The nazis put communists, socialists and socialist democrats in concentratpion camps.
Reading dinesh d'Souzas version of history doesnt qualify one for historical interpretation
Good story. Age appropriate.
