Heroes of the Holocaust: True Stories of Rescues by Teens,

By Allen Zullo

Heroes of the Holocaust is a set of stories about six teens experiencing first-hand the dangers of World War II.

Maria and her family decided to take in two Jewish men and feed them for two dangerous years.  Then, while her father is trying to sneak them out of the bombing, he gets shot and killed.  Thankfully, the two men get away safely.  Then her family takes to the woods and they find an elderly woman who offers them food and shelter if they help manage her farm.  They took that opportunity to get away from the war.  Her family decides to look for shelter, and they decide that Maria will stay back and come when they find a place.  She stayed there for a month and then her family sends for her.  She finds out that they are to be staying with one of the men they helped save.  The man and Maria end up getting married.

Henri is a Jew living in Belgium.  He and his friend Marcel decide to start a Jewish Student Group for the Jews that were banned from going to the public schools.  Then when the Nazis started the deportations of the Jews, they were forced to disband the group and go into hiding.  His parents were hidden with a Catholic family, his youngest brother, Paul, was hidden in a monastery, and he and his other younger brother, Jack, decided to fend for themselves.  Every week they learned of another deportation or death of a member of the group.  Out of the hundred original members of the group, only eleven survived the war.

Hilde is a German-Jew living in Nazi occupied Amsterdam.  She worked at the Creche, a child care center.  She helped Jewish children escape from the deadly clutches of the Nazis.  One day, she fell ill with diphtheria and had to return home to her parents.  Then one night, Nazis came and tried to take her away, but there was a sign on the door reading:  QUARANTINE DIPHTHERIA, so the Nazis ran.  When she was better she went to town, and when she came back the apartment was empty.  She ran to the neighbor and asked what happened to her parents.  The neighbor said “the Nazis came and took your parents and they closed down the Creche.”  She then feared for all of the children and nurses.

Eighteen year old Ference “Feri” Schatz was a Jew that was captured by the Nazis.  When he and the other workers were working on the railroad, he escaped during an air-raid.  He met his brother-in-law and started working for the Underground Resistance.  Many times he was almost killed, but he survived the many incidents.  His job was to issue fake ID’s to the Jews.

Liliane was a girl living in Nazi occupied La Louviere, Belgium.  She, her brother, and their mother were hoping to get to England, away from the war.  Liliane’s father had been captured by the Nazis months before.  In the end of the summer of 1942, her father had returned and had signed her up to work for the Resistance.  Her job was to carry ammunition in her book bag to the check points.  She continued this until the end of the war.

Preben was a sixteen year old Resistance worker.  He distributed illegal Danish newspapers and helped get Jews across the sea and to Sweden.  He also helped hide Jews in Catholic homes until it was safe for them to sail to Sweden.  He continued this until the end of the war.

All of the people in this book were honored by Yad Vashem as the Righteous Among the Nations. 

Taylor, Age 10, Forts Ferry Elementary