By the time WW II ended in Europe, the Blumenthal family— Marion, her brother Albert, and their parents—had lived in a succession of refugee, transit, and prison camps for more than six years, not only surviving but staying together, a phenomenon that Marion attributes to the power of her four lucky stones. After trying on several occasions to leave Europe, and after being shunted from camp to camp, they arrived in Bergen-Belsen, where conditions were so bad that nearly half the camp's population died of disease, starvation, exposure, exhaustion, and brutal beatings. Two weeks before the advancing Russian army reaches the camp, the Blumenthals suffered another terrible blow; they were bundled onto a train bound for Auschwitz. Only because the train was unaccountably delayed were its passengers found by the Russians and freed. This gripping memoir is written in spare, powerful prose that vividly depicts the endless degradation and humiliation suffered by the Holocaust's innocent victims, as well as the unending horror of life in the camps. It's also an ennobling account of the triumph of the human spirit, as seen through a child's eyes. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10+)"

Starred Review Perl weaves the history of the Holocaust with a survivor's personal memories of what happened to her family. The writing is direct and devastating, with no rhetoric or sensationalizing. The truth is in what's said and in what's left out. On the night of the Nazi rampage of Krystallnacht the Gestapo came for Marion Blumenthal's father: "Get dressed and come with us," they told him. He returned home from prison 11 days later; "not that evening, nor at any future time did he speak of what his life in Buchenwald had been like." Marion (and also her mother) tells of how the family escaped from Germany to Holland, where they spent four years in the deportation camp of Westerbork. Then they were sent back to Germany to Bergen-Belsen, where the crematoriums could no longer keep up with the body count, and the dead were strewn around or burned in open pits. Finally, the Blumenthals were crowded onto a "death train" that wound its way across Germany. Marion's father died of typhus soon after the war. The rest of the family finally got their visas to the U.S., and the last part of the book is about Marion's teenage years in the Midwest. The personal facts bring it home: at age 10 at the time of liberation, Marion weighed 35 pounds; at 13 after three years of frenzied eating, she had put on 100 pounds. The several black-and-white photos include personal family pictures as well as views of the camps and the Hitler youth.

Perl collaborates with the three surviving members of the Blumenthal family to tell their moving story. In 1939, four-year-old Marion was interned with her family at the Westerbork camp in Holland; five years later they were imprisoned in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs, the narrative is interspersed with facts about the rise of Hitler and the progress of the war. Bib.

Gr 6-10--A harrowing and often moving account of the co-author's family's struggle to survive the Holocaust. Opening in Bergen-Belsen, the story retraces the events leading up to the Blumenthals' imprisonment there. After Marion's grandparents died, she, her brother, and parents left Germany for Holland to wait for a visa that would allow them to come to the U.S. Their papers came, but sailing was delayed and Hitler invaded Holland. The Blumenthals then applied to join a group that was to be sent to Israel in exchange for German POWs. Soon after arriving in Bergen-Belsen, however, they realized that they would not be exchanged. They survived the camp and their family remained intact. Ironically, Mr. Blumenthal died of typhus shortly after liberation. After three years as displaced persons, Marion and her mother and brother finally arrived in the U.S., where there were new adjustments to be faced. The story is told only partly from Marion's point of view. More often, it is told by an omniscient narrator. This tends to remove readers somewhat from the emotional impact of the story. Chilling facts and statistics, such as a description of the poison gas "showers," read like a textbook rather than a memoir. The information is solid and well presented, however, and through its personal-narrative format the book should reach readers who might not be willing to read such titles as Milton Meltzer's Never to Forget (HarperCollins, 1976).--Louise L. Sherman, Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ