Fritz and Kurt

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Edith, the eldest, secures a position as a maid in England while her sister, Herta, stays in Vienna with her mother until both are transported to the Ostland. Biography: Jeremy Dronfield (Author) Jeremy Dronfield is a biographer, historian, novelist and former archaeologist. Adults may remember the first time this biographical story was published, back in 2019, under the title ‘ The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz’.

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield – The Federation of Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield – The Federation of

One thing I would have liked would have been teachers' notes, as I suspect this may be well read in school classrooms studying WWII, and discussion questions would have been one useful addition. Anyone new to Auschwitz history may be unaware, as I was, that one of its objectives was to set up a local camp at Monowitz that would harbour a workforce to speed up the building (for the flagging war effort) of a nearby chemical factory. The way every detail about the Nazi history and their camps gets mentioned at least twice aside, the book really works as a suitable eye-opening narrative.The snowball effect of the ensuing hate propaganda spread from the USA to Europe, and the election of Adolf Hitler as leader of the German Reich in the 1930s became the anacrusis of the Holocaust. Fritz and Kurt is a story about a Jewish family, The Kleinman's, living in Austria during the 1930s; a time when their world was seemingly changed overnight and ripped apart. Gustav alone was selected for transfer to Auschwitz, but Fritz refused to be parted from his father and begged to be transferred to Auschwitz himself. Fritz gets sent to a Nazi concentrarion camp and Kurt goes to America to live with extended family as a refugee.

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For Kurt the trauma of leaving all his family behind to travel halfway across the world to a country with a different language and customs is considerable but the main focus of the story is on the plight of Fritz and his father. Under Nazi rule, though, Fritz and his father are imprisoned, while Kurt eventually finds refuge with a family in America. Kurt's oldest sister, Edith, fled to England in 1939 to work as a maid, while their mother, Tini, had managed, via a well-connected associate, to acquire a permit for Kurt to escape to the US. What makes this book more accessible and captivating for children than its predecessors or perhaps other books they might normally read? I felt strongly that it had to be a new book, written specially for children – not just an abridged or simplified edition of the original.

That year Fritz and Gustav were arrested by the SS and sent to Buchenwald, where the concentration camp was under construction. Syria and Ukraine are just two places where the UK and many other countries have accepted those fleeing their homes.

Fritz and Kurt | BookTrust

I haven't read Dronfield's book about the Jewish family split by the second world war, but I was fascinated to hear that the author has retold it for a young audience. And yet he has every good reason to want to forget, for his own family’s story is as tragic as it is miraculous.Hence my ability to read this junior retelling of The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz in full ignorance of the original, adult version. In 1938, during what Austrian Jews would later bitterly name “the November pogrom” – it began with Kristallnacht – peace-loving Gustav, a decorated war veteran, and his son Fritz, 15, were rounded up on the eager testimony of their non-Jewish neighbours. You may have heard of this program by its name ‘Kristallnacht’, but it known also as ‘The Night of the Broken Glass’. Another kid injured me so badly that I ended up in hospital, but when we went to the police, I had to apologise to him as he was Aryan.

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield (Paperback) Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield (Paperback)

There are lots of first person accounts of the Holocaust but this is an important addition, with lessons to apply to the world today.It's based on the true story of the Kleinmanns, a working class Jewish family from Vienna, that was told for adults as 'The Boy Who Followed his Father into Auschwitz'. At the start of the story, Austria 1938, readers are invited to observe kids playing after school with a football made of old rags, sneaking off to the market for scraps of tasty cakes from a kind stall holder, rushing back to make sure they’re not late for supper. The feeling Jeremy has is “positive in the sense that it is a story of survival, hope, love and courage. And while some harrowing events would have to be either omitted or written in a way children could cope with, it mustn’t downplay the realities of the Holocaust.