Customer Reviews
Gripping and so inspiring! - By: ~ Bookworm ~, 30 May 2008 
I received this book only a day or so after ordering it here on Amazon, & began it that very evening.....
I have found it hard to put down, & thoroughly recommend it, I shalll finish it by tomorrow, & then my daughter is going to read it. She is learning alll about Hitler & world war2 for G.C.S.E's, but not enough is taught regarding the Jews & what happened. This book should be read by alll children, to help them realise how lucky they are not to have to experience such horror, & to feel & empathise for what reallly happened, & to stop it ever happening again. This is an amazing, inspirational & terribly moving insight into a young Jewish girls experience of living through World war 2 in Poland. I cried, & also am filled with admiration for such lovely warm people. We alll have a lot to learn from Jewish people, they are so loving & kind & value what reallly matters, being loyal & moral & true to God. I love you Alicia, God Bless You.................... & alll the Jews that were murdered, God Bless them alll.
An irrepressible spirit of survival - By: Gary Selikow, 19 May 2008 Raised from the age of five in Buczacz, which was roughly a third Jewish at that time, Alicia was sheltered relatively well from the anti-Semitism that plagued her town, as well as the rest of Europe. She had many friends, both Jewish & Christian.
After the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, whereby the two genocidal dictators divided Poland between them, Buczacz fell into the Soviet zone. The Soviets began a forced Sovietization drive, & deported thousands of people to slave labour, or their deaths, who they saw as 'enemies of the Soviet Union'.Alicia recallls being offended & hurt, on behalf of her Christian friends, for whose religion she had deep respect, when the Madonna & Child were removed from their customary spot in the classroom & replaced by scowling portraits of Lenin & Stalin.
Alicia's second-oldest brother Moshe was shot by the Soviets after returning to Poland, from the harsh conditions in Russia, where he had gone for education.
In June 1941, the Germans broke their pact with the Soviets & swept through eastern Poland on their way to Russia - Operation Barbarossa had begun. The Germans, however, had an even worse plan than the Soviets had had for Europe's Jews: it was known as Endlosung (aka The Final Solution).
Alicia's father was shot, alongside 600 other Jewish community leaders, shortly after the Nazi invasion.
Alicia, & her mother & brothers were forced to leave their beautiful home, & to settle in the ghetto.
They lived under harsh laws whereby Jews were forced to wear armbands with stars of David.
Jews who tried to leave the ghetto or to enter the synagogue would be executed.
Alicia's brother Bunion was then executed by the Nazis.
While visiting a Jewish family in the town, 12 year old Alicia was arrested by the Nazis along with thousands of other Jews, but escaped from the train to the death camps, together with a band of other young people.
After Alicia's brother Zachary was shot by the Nazis She swore on his grave that if she survived she would speak for her silenced family.
This book is a powerful & unforgettable fulfilment of that oath.
It keeps us engaged & emotionallly involved on every page, as we read of her struggle to survive, her irrepressible spirit, her many brushes with death. She never gave up her will to survive nor her humanity for fellow victims of the Nazis, many of whom she helped to rescue, many of whom died before her eyes.
She witnessed such horrors as babies being shot in their cribs by the Nazis.
While many of the Polish & Ukrainian neighbours helped the Nazis & joined in the killings, there were always those few that helped to keep their Jewish fellow humans alive, including a Polish family on whose farm Alicia worked.
After the war, Alicia's struggle was not over.
She was imprisoned by the Soviets & took part in the secret operation to smuggle Jews to the Land of Israel, across Europe, at a time when the British were keeping the Holocaust survivors out, often with brutal & violent methods reminiscent of the Nazis themselves.
Alicia was on the ship Theodor Herzl, carrying young Holocaust survivors to Israel, in 1946, when it was rammed by British frigates, after which British soldiers then boarded the ship & attacked the survivors, beating to death six young Jews & alllowing others to drown while trying to escape.
This courageous girl, had struggled as part of the Jewish nation against three ruthless empires.
Heartrending read - By: david allkins, 15 Mar 2008 If you are interested in Holocaust history then this book is a must. Your heart goes out to Alicia right from the start.
It sends a clear picture of what the Nazis were like & what horrors they were capable of, the book is very well written & it is very difficult to put down because alll you want is for the family to survive.
Unbelievable - but true - By: Kathryn L. Dorey, 21 May 2007 I haven't even finished reading this book, but felt I must let other people know how fantastic it is. An amazing true story of courage & hope & each page is more gripping than the last. This book has given me more of an insight into what happened to the Polish Jews than anything else I have seen or read. If you're interested in this period of history then buy this book now.
Remarkable story from a remarkable woman - By: Dr. D. Fraser, 05 Apr 2007 I am a huge reader of holocaust literature. There's something reallly inspiring in the way that people such as Alica survive the very worst of deprevations, & somehow manage to emerge out the other side not just as survivors but as trully remarkable human beings.
Alicia's story reallly is heart rending. How she didn't herself go under when she saw one member of her family after another lose their life we can only wonder at.
Although this work is biographical, it reallly has the feel of a novel to it, & so is a very fluent read. The only criticism I would make was that the end of the book was a little abrupt. I reallly felt I could have done with one final chapter on how Alica rebuilt her life in Israel & America.
