TEACHER NOTES
for
My Holocaust Story: Hanna
Published March 2015
ISBN 978 1 74362 967 3
Paperback; 198 x 128 mm
Ages 9+; RRP $16.99
A Scholastic Australia book
Brief Synopsis:
HANNA KAMINSKY loves gymnastics, her best friend Eva, Elza’s chicken soup with
dumplings, and reading. But in September 1939 the happy life that Hanna has always
known disappears.
The Nazis have invaded Poland and are herding all Jews into ghettos in the cities.
Hanna’s family are forced into hiding in the countryside. For a while it seems they are
safe. But hiding from the Germans means trusting others.
Rounded up by the SS, Hanna and her family are sent to the Warsaw Ghetto where they
must use whatever skills they have to survive.
Opening :
Huddled in the rear of the German truck as we lurched over rough roads, my baby sister
Ryzia kept up a constant grizzle.
My brother Adam crouched on the floor, his eyes closed.
Mama and Papa did the same.
I nestled in beside them.
There was nothing else we could do. We knew we were going to be shot. What we
didn’t understand was why it hadn’t happened already. Where were those soldiers taking
us? Why were we being treated differently from Elza and Anya, the women who had
hidden us these last two years? They were certainly dead.
What were these soldiers planning?
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Through a crack in the canvas, I peered outside as the truck sped to Otwock. The
truck didn’t stop there. Instead we drove through the town and out the other side, only
pulling up in a forest.
It was so cold, the mist so thick, and there was so much snow, I could just make out
leafless silver birch trees pointing accusing fingers at a stagnant grey sky.
The soldiers ordered us out of the truck.
We were told to line up.
This was it.
This was where we would die.
We stood there, our knees knocking in fright.
I closed my eyes and waited.
When nothing happened, I opened them again.
To our astonishment, the officer got out of the front cabin and strode towards us.
He was tall, slim, blonde haired, small featured and blue eyed. He had the classic
Aryan look and his uniform was impeccable.
But those ice blue eyes regarded us as if we were rats, cockroaches or lice. There
would be no pity from that pitiless gaze. It finally settled on my father.
The owner gave Papa the Nazi salute. ‘Josef Kaminsky?’
Papa nodded. There seemed no point in denying this.
The officer looked through some papers and said in German, ‘I have orders to bring
you to the Warsaw Ghetto.’
Papa’s mouth dropped before he replied in the same language. ‘How come?’
‘It seems you are needed there.’
With this he ordered us to climb back into the truck.
We did. Then sat there, too stunned to speak, too bewildered to do anything but
nestle into each other.
We had been hiding these last two years in a loft in a farmhouse, and it hadn’t done
us the least bit of good.
Historical Background
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The Holocaust occurred during the Second World War when Hitler was leader of Germany. It
is thought that the Nazis murdered as many as 17 million innocent people they considered
‘unworthy of life’. This was a time of devastation, corruption and cruelty.
After Germany lost the First World War, it was left almost destitute. People were looking for
someone to blame. Adolf Hitler was an aspiring Austrian artist who had fought for Germany
in the war. In the early 1920s he became involved in German politics, and in 1923 his
fledgling fascist party attempted a coup, know as the Beer Hall Putsch. It failed and Hitler
was sent to jail for treason. There, he wrote down his political beliefs in a book he title Mein
Kampf, ‘My Struggle’.
Hitler’s beliefs were divisive and destructive. He believed that the Germans were a ‘master
race’, that he labelled ‘Aryans’. He blamed the Jews for everything that had gone wrong,
although this was completely untrue. He considered Jewish people, and also gypsies and
others, to be less than human. He promised that when he became ruler of Germany that he
would rid the country of all Jews.
Hitler was released from prison, on the eve of the Great Depression. The terrible poverty that
was running rife in the country, and Hitler’s gifts as a speaker, combined to convince the
German people that they were a great race who had been wronged.
Hitler became Reich Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and Fuhrer of Germany in 1934.
As soon as Hitler became Chancellor he began to make laws that removed rights from the
Jewish population. Attacks were made on Jewish businesses and homes. On 9 November
1938 many Jewish homes and businesses were burnt down or vandalized. This night was
called the Kristallnacht or ‘Night of Broken Glass’.
Other countries, including Britain and France, were very unhappy about the direction that
Germany was taking. There were diplomatic talks, but to no avail. In September 1939, Hitler
invaded Poland.
In 1939 to 1940, the German army conquered much of northern Europe. When they took over
a city they forced all the Jews of that city into an area called a ghetto. These were fenced in
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with barbed wire and heavily guarded. There was never enough food, water or medicine.
Many families were forced to share a single room. But the Nazis’ major aim was to place all
Jews, plus all gypsies and any mentally and physically handicapped people, into
concentration camps where they would die. Concentration camps were prison camps where
people were forced to do hard labour. The weak were quickly killed or starved to death. Some
concentration camps also had gas chambers. Large groups of people were led into these
chambers and poisoned.
If families escaped being rounded up and were able to hide, they and their rescuers faced
many challenges. Some children could pass as non-Jews. Others hid, often in attics or cellars.
Children posing as Christians had to carefully conceal their Jewish identity from neighbours,
classmates, informers, blackmailers, and the police.
Living as a non-Jew required false identity papers which were hard to obtain. Over the course
of the war, children were often moved from one refuge to another. The children who had to
leave parents behind suffered dreadful pangs of separation.
For Jews to pass as ‘Aryans’ - those that didn’t ‘look Jewish’, it was essential to have false
identity papers which were often gained through contacts with the anti-Nazi resistance forces.
Using these papers Jews took on another name. But these papers were risky since Germans
and police examined everyone’s identity documents as they searched for Jews and resistance
members.
However, children who looked Jewish, or did not speak the local language, or whose
presence in a rescuer’s family raised too many questions, were forced to hide in cellars and
attics where they had to keep quiet for hours on end. In rural areas, children lived in barns,
chicken coops, and forest huts. Any conversation or footsteps could start a police raid. During
bombings, Jewish children had to remain hidden unable to reach the safety of shelters. Under
these conditions, the children were bored, frightened and often killed.
Some Jewish children did survive because they were protected by kind people. Some
Catholic convents in German-occupied Poland took in Jewish youngsters. Some Belgian
Catholics hid children in their homes, schools, and orphanages. Some French Protestant
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townspeople sheltered several thousand Jews. In Albania and Yugoslavia, some Muslim
families concealed youngsters.
Children quickly learned to master the prayers and rituals of their ‘adopted’ religion. Many
Jewish youngsters were baptized into Christianity, mostly without their parents’ knowledge.
Finding a rescuer was difficult, particularly one who would take care of his or her charges for
a period of years. Some people took advantage of a persecuted family’s desperation by
demanding money, then reneging on their promise of aid. Or worse, turning them over to the
authorities for bigger rewards. More commonly, stress, anguish, and fear drove these
benefactors to force Jewish children away from their homes.
Organised rescue groups frequently moved youngsters from one family or institution to
another. In the German-occupied Netherlands, Jewish children stayed in an average of more
than four different places; some changed hiding places more than a dozen times.
Among the most painful memories for hidden children was their separation from parents,
grandparents, and siblings. For a variety of reasons—the lack of space, the inability or
unwillingness of a rescuer to take in an entire family, or parents deciding not to abandon
other family members in the ghetto, many Jewish children went into hiding alone. Separation
tormented both parents and children. Each feared for the other’s safety but they were
powerless. For many hidden children, the wartime separation became permanent.
A hidden child’s safety and security demanded strict secrecy. Foster families claimed the
child was a distant relative, or a friend, or the surviving member of a bombed-out household.
Convents and orphanages hid youngsters’ Jewish identities. In some rescue networks, parents
were not permitted to contact their children or know their whereabouts.
The children themselves understood the need for secrecy. They kept away from situations
where their true identity might be exposed, held fast to their false names and religion, and
avoided mannerisms or language that might be construed as ‘Jewish’ or ‘foreign’. Jewish
children who lived in hiding generally were treated well by their rescuers. But not always.
For ‘Aryan’ looking school-age children that were being hidden, the routines of going to
class and studying helped to restore some sense of normality in their lives, and perhaps their
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new-made friends helped. Children who were physically concealed had few opportunities for
formal study, but when possible, they too tried to educate themselves through reading and
writing.
Life in hiding was always scary. German officials and their friends punished anyone who
helped Jews and offered rewards to anyone willing to turn in them in. Beginning in March
1943, the Gestapo (the German secret state police) protected some Jews in Germany in
exchange for tracking down Jews who had gone underground. By spring 1945, when the Nazi
government fell, as many as 2,000 Jews had been turned in. In other countries, neighbours
betrayed Jews in order to gain their money and property.
Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the world learned of the staggering human toll of the
Holocaust. Few Jewish children survived. In ghettos and concentration camps right across
Europe, systematic murder, abuse, disease, and medical experiments took many lives. Of the
estimated 216,000 Jewish youngsters deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, only 6,700
teenagers were selected for forced labour. Nearly all the others died in the gas chambers.
When the camp was liberated on 27 January 1945, Soviet troops found just 451 Jewish
children among the 9,000 surviving prisoners.
In September 1939 approximately 1.6 million Jewish children were living in areas that the
Germans or their allies would occupy. By the end of the war, at least 1.5 million Jewish
children were dead. Soon after, Jewish agencies throughout Europe began tracing survivors
and measuring losses. In the Low Countries, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg,
only 9,000 Jewish children survived. Of the almost 1 million Jewish children living in 1939,
Poland only about 5,000 survived, mostly by hiding.
As a result of the Holocaust, the Nazi party leaders were convicted and confirmed guilty of
crimes against peace and humanity. Even though justice was served in some cases, they never
really got what they deserved.
Glossary:
Nazi: The Nazi Party was founded as the anti-Semitic ‘German Workers’ Party’ in January
1919. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler had become leader and assumed all control. He
renamed this party as the ‘National Socialist German Workers’ Party’.
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Aryan: During the 19th century it was proposed that "Aryan" was the first home of
Europeans and located in northern Europe. It took on racial meanings now debunked. A
typical ‘Aryan’ had to be tall, blue eyed, with straight fair hair. Few of Hitler’s closest friends
and officials looked like that.
Gestapo: The Gestapo was Nazi Germany’s feared secret police force. The Gestapo had its
own courts and effectively acted as judge, jury and frequently executioner.
Storm Troopers: Part of the German Nazi Party they were a paramilitary organization
whose methods of violent intimidation played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power
Rosh Hashanah: Jewish New Year and a time of celebration. The Jewish Calendar (Sp) is
based on cycles of the moon and dates back over five thousand years.
Yom Kippur: Jewish Day of Atonement when religious Jews fast and pray to God for
forgiveness for the year’s sins.
Yiddish: For nearly a thousand years, Yiddish was the primary language that Ashkanazi (SP)
(European) Jews spoke. Unlike most languages, which are spoken by the residents of a
particular area or by members of a particular nationality, Yiddish - at the height of its usage was spoken by millions of Jews of different nationalities all over the globe.
Mensch: Yiddish for ‘a good person’.
Warsaw Ghetto: Smuggling began at the very moment that the Ghetto was established. It
was calculated that the officially supplied rations did not cover 10 per cent of normal
requirements. If you were restricted to official rations you would die of hunger. The German
authorities did everything to not to allow in a single extra gram of food. A wall was put up
around the ghetto on all sides with barbed wire and broken glass on top of the wall.
When that failed to help, the Judenrat, or Jewish Council, was ordered to make the wall
higher. These walls were guarded by the gendarmerie post, Polish police and Jewish police.
Several times smugglers were shot at the central lock-up on Gesiowka Street. Among the
Jewish victims of the smuggling were many Jewish children between 5 and 6 years old,
whom the Germans shot in great numbers. Despite that, the smuggling never stopped.
Bar-Mitzvah: When Jewish boys turn 13, they become accountable for their actions and
become a bar mitzvah. Prior to reaching bar mitzvah, a child’s parents is responsibility for
the child’s actions. After, boys are responsible for their own actions and should participate
in all areas of Jewish community life.
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RATIONALE:
The concept behind MY HOLOCAUST STORY: HANNA is to present history in an
accessible and interesting format.
In a fiction based on history, the trend is that it

starts with the premise ‘what if you were there at the time’

describes a society which is based on fact

is set in the past

has total internal logic
Themes and Issues.
History is the narrative of mankind. It provides answers as to how people lived in the past as
well as provides for us the roots of certain ideas concerning laws, customs, and political
ideas.
The old adage, “you can’t know where you are going unless you know where you have been”
is accurate. A true scholar of history realizes history does repeat itself. This repetition has
importance in all societies. It teaches the value of certain social changes and governmental
policies. A good example is the Aborigines of Australia who managed to hang onto their
history for 40,000 years by word of mouth. A knowledge of history clearly proves early
man’s love of the arts and demonstrates that once a civilization is able to maintain a steady
food supply. That their creative ideas flowed whether it appeared on rock walls, papyrus, or
cedar bark.
Young readers might like to find Warsaw on a map and discover what has happened to the
places mentioned in this novel since 1945. They could delve into the Second World War and
what happened to Europe at the end of it. How did Russia and the allies divide that continent
up? What happened to the few survivors and why did the country that became known as
Israel become so important to them?
There’s lots of other research, such as the climate and vegetation of Poland which is so very
different to Australia and what happens to that land in winter. I would like to think that this
book can be used as forays into geography and history as well as literature.
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RESEARCH:
1. Any newspapers of the 1930’s and 1940’s and the growth of Nazism. A lot of
information can be found on the Internet. Some can be viewed in public libraries
on microfiche news-papers.
2. Research the Warsaw Ghetto. How many occupants managed to survive?
3. Research what has since happened to the few survivors of the Holocaust now
living in Australia.
4. Find out something about Jewish cuisine.
5. How did these events speed up the creation of Israel?
6. Perhaps your teacher will help you look up WW2 Concentration Camps. There
were over 40 in Europe.
7. Which countries fought with Germany? Which countries fought against them?
8. Look up some of the major WW2 battles.
9. Many tourists visit WW2 ghettos and concentration camps and then write about
what they experience being there. You can look up these up on the net.
10. Major genocides or holocausts don’t only happen in Europe. They are a world
wide unhappy phenomenon. For example, look up the history of Cambodia,
Rwanda, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Chili, even present day Nigeria.
11. There is a lot of information on the net about the Holocaust and many other books
you might like to read and research. Another book you might enjoy is ‘The Boy in
the Striped Pyjamas’. There are many, many more: such as the story picture book
‘Let the Celebrations Begin.’ Advanced readers could try ‘The Diary of Ann
Frank’ and Marcus Zusak’s ‘The Book Thief.’ Many adult fictions and nonfictions describe conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto.
TALKING POINTS:
Imagine that it is 1939.

Describe an Australian city in 1939. How might it differ from a town or village in
Poland?

Hanna talks about the Jews and Christians. You might like to find out more about their
similar beliefs. Where do they differ?

School in Poland in the first half of the Twentieth Century differed widely from school in
Australia today. Can you find some of these differences?
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
There are maps of the Warsaw Ghetto on the net. Readers might to track some of Hanna’s
wanderings.

Readers can delve into how Hitler’s armies behaved when they came across any Jews and
give their reasons as to why they were so cruel.

You can research old ghettos and concentration camps as attracting present day tourists.
Why might future generations want to visit these sites?

What is a ghetto? Are there any unofficial ghettos in our present world?
ACTIVITIES:

Make a story-board or collage to convey COURAGE.

Find out more about gymnastics. It is an Olympic sport. What do you have to do to
become a prize gymnast?

Read ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’. Hanna got great courage from this book. Why?

Mock up an interview with Hanna with you as the interviewer.

Then change roles.

Illustrate a cover for this story.

You are a TV producer who has just bought the rights to this novel. Your budget only
allows for three settings. What are they?
WRITING EXERCISES:

Research and write a non-fiction piece called EVENTS LEADING TO THE WARSAW
GHETTO.

Choose a second cover for this story.

Find another title.

As Hanna, write a letter to your family in Australia describing the farm where you are
hiding with Elza and her mother.

Now describe life in the Ghetto.

Write a letter to a newspaper pleading that all people be shown more tolerance.
WHAT INSPIRED THIS STORY
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When I was approached to write Hanna, I did so with some trepidation. I was a small child
from Jewish Polish parents who had migrated to Australia in the early 1930’s. But when news
of what had happened to all our extended family back in Poland, I found it hard to believe
that through a strange stroke of fate, my parents and sisters were alive and prospering. Not
that Australia was sympathetic to the plight of European Jews. In 1938 we only allowed 400
Jews to settle here. That out of six million who would die.
Then came photos and films of those murdered in villages, towns, ghettos and concentration
camps. One little girl looked so much like me, she could have been my twin. Even though I
was so very young, I found it difficult to believe that except through a stroke of enormous
luck, that I was alive, that I hadn’t had to go through that horrid journey. What if my parents
hadn’t migrated? What then? Would I have ended up like Hanna? So even though I am now
quite old, it took all my courage to write this story, and in many ways it has been the hardest
novel I have ever written.
***
My previous published novels for young readers based on history include:

Mavis Road Medley. Margaret Hamilton Books 1991.(Melbourne in the Depression
1933) CBC Notable Book. Listed by Victorian State library as one of their best 150
Young Adult books.

My Australian Story: Surviving Sydney Cove. Scholastic Australia. 2000 (Our First Fleet.
Sydney 1790) CBC Notable Book

Body and Soul. Indra Publishing 2003 (Melbourne before the outbreak of WW2. 1938

Gallipoli Medals Anzac Society, 2011.

The Youngest Cameleer, (The non-indigenous finding of Uluru) 2010

That Stranger Next Door (Melbourne in 1954 at the time of the Petrov Affair.) 2014
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