We Had to Be Brave

Starred review from November 1, 2019
A vital collection of vignettes from the Kindertransport, the World War II rescue effort that brought about 10,000 child refugees from Nazi-controlled countries into Britain. Years before the Nazis ramped up to genocide, the anti-Semitic laws of the Third Reich convinced some parents that their children were unsafe. Emigration, however, was quite difficult. Even for those prepared to move somewhere they didn't speak the language, it was shockingly difficult to get a visa. England and the United States had strict immigration quotas. Nevertheless, refugee advocates and the British Home Office hatched a plan to bring child refugees into Britain and settle them with foster families. (A similar attempt in the U.S. died in Congress.) The voices of myriad Kindertransport survivors are used to tell of this harrowing time, recalling in oral histories and published and unpublished memoirs their prewar lives, the journey, their foster families. Sidebars provide more resources about the people in each section; it's startlingly powerful to read a survivor's story and then go to a YouTube video or BBC recording featuring that same survivor, speaking as an adult or recorded as a child more than 80 years ago. Historical context, personal stories, and letters are seamlessly integrated in this history of frightened refugee children in a new land and their brave parents' making "the heart-wrenching decision" to send their children away with strangers to a foreign country. Well-crafted, accessible, and essential. (timeline, glossary, resources, index, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

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February 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-This captivating narrative of assembled memoirs uses historical details of the Nazis' rise to power and its consequences for European Jews to convey the danger, the emotional cost, and the significance of the Kindertransport (Children's Transport). Hopkinson chronicles the rescue missions that saved young Jewish children from the Holocaust just before the start of World War II and describes the Nazis' systematic and relentless persecution of European Jews that made those rescues necessary. Background information regarding Hitler's rise to power is included, with special attention given to the Kristallnacht violence throughout Germany and the ways that the lives of Jewish families changed in the wake of these riots. Hopkinson's faithful commitment to preserving and broadcasting the voices of as many Kindertransport survivors as possible makes for a rich, dense, and sometimes confusingly detailed narrative. An index, time lines, and source notes will help to orient the reader in the individual stories and provide connections to the broader scope of history. VERDICT This moving account of an important and lesser-known aspect of 20th-century history is recommended for high school and junior high school nonfiction collections.-Kelly Kingrey-Edwards, Blinn Junior College, Brenham, TX

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November 15, 2019
Grades 4-7 It is common knowledge that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust of WWII. What might be less well known is that 10,000 Jewish children were spared that fate, being rescued by the Kindertransport Program which, in 1938 and 1939, took them by train and then boat from Germany to England for new lives with foster families. In her fascinating book about this vital project, Hopkinson shares the stories of many of these children but focuses primarily on three: Ruth Oppenheimer David, Leslie Baruch Brent, and Marianne Josephy Elsley, following the course of their lives from child- to adulthood. Hopkinson divides her book into four chronological sections dealing, respectively, with the rise of Hitler, the momentous Kristalnacht of 1938, the flight of the children, and their subsequent lives in England. Her book is a moving tribute to the organizers of the Kindertransport and to the courage of the children involved. Generously illustrated with black-and-white photographs, the book is extremely well researched and a valuable contribution to Holocaust literature.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)