Loading ...
Title: Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow
Author: Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Publishing: Scholastic Nonfiction (April 1, 2005)
ISBN: 978-0439353793
Grade Level: 5-8
Awards: 2008 Sibert Medal Winner, 2006 ALA Notable Children’s Book
Summary: 12 portraits of what it was like to be and grow in the Third Reich as a member of the Hitler Youth during World War II.
Comments: Bartoletti offers insight into an oft-neglected population of history – the perpetrators. Much is written from the perspective of victims of atrocities, but it is rare to get a good, in-depth glimpse into what drives people to commit them. Recently there has been an effort to tell these stories, an example would be Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.
Social Studies and History teachers will rejoice when this is added to their school library collections, as it offers balance to the stories of Anne Frank and other notable Jewish children who survived the Holocaust. Hitler Youth details the lives of 12 young Nazi children and how they came to support the regime that was responsible for mass genocide and how they were convinced, encouraged, and rewarded for their patriotic zeal and blind faith, and how that faith was misplaced.
The saying goes ” If we don’t remember history we are doomed to repeat it”. The most wonderful result of reading this book is the honest knowledge of how not to repeat what happened during World War II by recognizing the tactics that were used to blind a Nation.
Georgia Performance Standards:
ELA5R2 The student consistently reads at least twenty-five books or book equivalents (approximately 1,000,000 words) each year. The materials should include traditional and contemporary literature (both fiction and non-fiction) as well as magazines, newspapers, textbooks, and electronic material. Such reading should represent a diverse collection of material from at least three different literary forms and from at least five different writers.
SS5H6 The student will explain the reasons for America’s involvement in World war II.
ELA6RC1 The student reads a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books or book equivalents (approximately 1,000,000 words) per year from a variety of subject disciplines. The student reads both informational and fictional texts in a variety of genres and modes of discourse, including technical texts related to various subject areas.
ELA7RC1 The student reads a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books or book equivalents (approximately 1,000,000 words) per year from a variety of subject disciplines. The student reads both informational and fictional texts in a variety of genres and modes of discourse, including technical texts related to various subject areas.
ELA8RC1 The student reads a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books or book equivalents (approximately 1,000,000 words) per year from a variety of subject disciplines. The student reads both informational and fictional texts in a variety of genres and modes of discourse, including technical texts related to various subject areas.
Extensions:
- Have compare the stories of the Hitler Youth to that of Anne Frank.
- Have students create a timeline that details the events of a member of the Hitler Youth with that of significant events in the War and events in the life of a prominent Jewish person surviving at the same time in either Poland, Germany or France.
- Have students discuss what tactics were used to blind the Youth to what was happening on the war front. Are some of those tactics used today?
Just thinking out loud… Does the fact that this book is told from the point of view of children make it more acceptable than, say, others who might have been considered on the periphery of the Third Reich? Would we find the same level of acceptance from adults involved at lesser levels of evil?