HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER’S SHADOW

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. 2005. HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER’S SHADOW. New York: Scholastic. ISBN: 0439353793

2. PLOT SUMMARY
“Adolf Hitler said that person’s money and titles didn’t matter. All that mattered was whether a person contributed to the well–being of the people.” These are the principles which the Hitler Youth believed in starting in 1926 and lasting until 1945. From the organization of the group with “each boy and girl stepping forward to take the Hitler Youth oath (swearing to devote all of one’s energies and strength to the Savior of the country, Adolf Hitler, while being ready to give up one’s life for him)" to proving their racial heritage through a stamped and signed official document stating such, these young people proudly served their Fuhrer without originality or individuality.

The members of the Hitler Youth served their country as “cheap labor” working as field laborers, building roads and highways, and, during World War II, becoming the replacements for those who went to serve their country. When the sirens began for the air raids, “the Hitler Youth raced to the air-raid stations.” These young people even helped serve in concentration camps and were involved in the war effort, even being responsible for using weapons against the enemies of Germany.

Many who resisted the youth movement lost their lives in order to think freely and help others see what Hitler was truly about. One young man, Helmuth Hubener, wrote and delivered essays about the “lies of the Nazi party”. This sixteen year old was captured, tortured, and beheaded by the Germans. Hans and Sophie Scholl, siblings at a German university, were also beheaded by the Gestapo when they were discovered to be printing and distributing leaflets against the Nazis and Adolph Hitler.

This book ends with a question for young people “What are you willing to do to prevent such a shadow (someone like Hitler rising to power on the shoulders of young people) from falling over you and others?”

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Susan Bartoletti does not shy away from the actual events of the Holocaust in this children’s social history book. The reader experiences the horror of the Nazi regime from euthanasia of the elderly and handicapped ("the doctor administered a lethal drug, and the baby was put sleep"), massacre of Jews (“It’s estimated that the commandos murdered two million people, lining them up, shooting them, and shoving them into mass graves”), to the horror of the concentration camps ("infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled, the weak, and the sick were sent to the left in a line that ended at the gas chambers”).

Although this book can be used to find specific facts with a table of contents, titled chapters (“Fanatical Fighters”/Hitler’s Boy Soldiers), and user friendly index with bolded pages being photographs, this book is meant to be read from beginning to end. At the beginning of the book are two pages of photographs called “The Young People in this Book” which also tell about each youngster and their part. The epilogue of the book tells what became of each one. One example is Alfons Heck, a former member of Hitler’s Youth who is alive in California and is considered to be an authority on the Third Reich. There is also a time line of the Hitler Youth located after the epilogue.

The black and white photographs used in the book came from family albums, Nazi publicity shots, United States historical news media, soldiers, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz (in Berlin, Germany). The author a used the online photograph collections from the Library of Congress and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. These pictures, along with their explicit captions, haunted me long after I finished the book.

This book contains quote sources sequenced by chapter (FOREWARD/”I begin with the young…”Rausching 246-47. (81)) with 81 being the page of the corresponding bibliography entry. The bibliography is organized by topic or person involved with a book symbol placed by those entries considered pertinent to young readers.

4. REVIEW EXCERPTS
Newbery Honor Book
The Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL starred review
BOOKLIST starred review
KIRKUS REVIEWS starred review
School Library Journal:”Hitler’s plans for the future of Germany relied significantly on its young people, and this excellent history shows how he attempted to carry out his mission with the establishment of the Hitler Youth, or Hitlerjugend, in 1926. With a focus on the years between 1933 and the end of the war in 1945, Bartoletti explains the roles that millions of boys and girls unwittingly played in the horrors of the Third Reich. The book is structured around 12 young individuals and their experiences, which clearly demonstrated how they were victims of leaders who took advantage of their innocence and enthusiasm for evil means. Their stories evolve from patriotic devotion to Hitler and zeal to join, to doubt, confusion and disillusion. (An epilogue adds a powerful what-became-of-them relevance.) The large period photographs are a primary component and they include Nazi propaganda showing happy and healthy teens as well as the reality of concentration camps and young people with large guns. The final chapter superbly summarizes the weighty significance of this part of the 20Th century and challenges young readers to prevent history from repeating itself. Bartoletti lets many of the subjects’ words, emotions, and deeds speak for themselves, bringing them together clearly to tell this story unlike anyone else has."

Booklist:” What was it like to be a teenager in Germany under Hitler? Bartoletti draws on oral histories, diaries, letters, and her own extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors, Hitler Youth, resisters, and bystanders to tell the history from the viewpoints of people who were there. Most of the accounts and photos bring close the experiences of those who followed Hitler and fought for the Nazis, revealing why they joined, how Hitler used them, what it was like. Henry Mentelmann, for example, talks about Kristallnacht, when Hitler Youth and Storm Troopers wrecked Jewish homes and stores, and remembers thinking that the victims deserved what they got. The stirring photos tell more of the story. One particularly moving picture shows young Germans undergoing de-Nazification by watching images of people in the camps. The handsome book design, with black-and-white historical photos on every double-page spread will draw in readers and help spark deep discussion, which will extend beyond the Holocaust curriculum. The extensive back matter is a part of the gripping narrative.”

Kirkus Reviews:”Case studies…root the work…, and clear prose, thorough documentation and an attractive format…make this nonfiction writing at its best.”

5. CONNECTIONS

After reading this book, older students may want to learn more about the Holocaust:
Gluck, Angela. HOLOCAUST. ISBN 0756625351
Zullo, Allan. SURVIVORS: TRUE STORIES OF CHILDREN IN THE HOLOCAUST. ISBN 0439663360
Dvorson, Alexa. THE HTILER YOUTH: MARCHING TOWARDS MADNESS (TEEN WITNESSES TO THE HOLOCAUST). ISBN 1562544624
Frank, Anne. THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. ISBN 0553296981
Ten Boome, Corrie. THE HIDING PLACE. ISBN 0553256696
Axelrod, Toby. HANS AND SOPHIE SCHOLL: GERMAN RESISTERS OF THE WHITE ROSE. ISBN 1562544519

Websites to use:
http://loc.gov/ (Library of Congress)
http://ushmm.org/ (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

This book could also open a discussion about the right to think and speak freely. The importance of thinking critically and true examples from the text could be used.