Prisoner B-3087 in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 08, 2014 Kirsten Barber rated it really liked it

Shelves: own, genre-fiction, genre-historical-fiction, mood-tear-jerker, mood-disturbing, level-middle-grade, setting-europe, award-sc-ban-junior, setting-poland, time-period-wwii

"We are alive, and that is all that matters. We cannot let them tear us from the pages of the world."

I know, I know what you're thinking - not another Holocaust book. I'm somewhat ashamed now to admit that those were my feelings about Prisoner B-3087 when I saw this year's list of South Carolina Junior Book Award Nominees. If you enjoy historical fiction or non-fiction, you've probably lost count of how many Holocaust books you've read. After a while, they might all start to run together - a "We are alive, and that is all that matters. We cannot let them tear us from the pages of the world."

I know, I know what you're thinking - not another Holocaust book. I'm somewhat ashamed now to admit that those were my feelings about Prisoner B-3087 when I saw this year's list of South Carolina Junior Book Award Nominees. If you enjoy historical fiction or non-fiction, you've probably lost count of how many Holocaust books you've read. After a while, they might all start to run together - and yet, you pick up the newest one because people keep telling you how great and different it is, only to disappoint yourself because really, it is only just another Holocaust book.

Well, I'm going to be that person now and tell you that Prisoner B-3087 is not just another Holocaust book.

I decided to give Prisoner B-3087 a chance after I won an autographed copy of the book as a door prize at the South Carolina Association of School Librarians Annual Conference. I was lucky enough to be at the SCJBAN session where Alan Gratz just popped in to hang out. (On a side note, he was the most friendly, down-to-earth author at the conference this year.) After winning the book and hearing Alan Gratz talk about his inspiration for the story, I was hooked.

Ten-year-old Yanek has lived with his family in Krakow all his life. But one day during a normal family dinner, a special broadcast interrupts the music on the radio, telling them that the Nazis have invaded Poland. Before the broadcast ends, explosions outside confirm its story - the Germans have arrived and taken over their city. They wall off Yanek's neighborhood and pack it full of Jewish residents, until Yanek's family shares their flat with three other families. The Nazis burn their synagogue to the ground, seize all their valuables, limit them to meager rations, and shoot them if they fail to disobey the slightest order. Then, as if things weren't bad enough, the Nazis start to round up Jews for work details, where some are taken out of the city never to return.

Yanek loses everything, separated from his family and friends. The Nazis pack him into a cattle car with other Jews until their is no room to move and ship him to first one concentration camp, then another, then another. Yanek's suffering seems as if it cannot grow any deeper, and yet it does. Through it all, he pushes himself to survive another day. He refuses to succumb to starvation, thirst, physical or mental abuse, fear, or depression. But can Yanek truly survive what many call the worst atrocities the world has ever seen? Will he ever be reunited with his family? And will he ever be free again?

The things that Yanek does to survive are both amazing and horrifying. From taking a crust of bread from a recently deceased prisoner, to drinking dirty snow in the ventilation grate of the cattle car, to carrying heavy rocks back and forth across camp on his back, to praying for mercy as bombs fall around his barracks, Yanek gets through it all by focusing on surviving just a little longer. What's even more amazing is that this book is based on the true experiences of a Holocaust survivor. At SCASL, Gratz talked about how he had gotten to meet the man behind the story and how he imagined other elements to create this fictional account. All of the parts of this book that you will never forget are completely real, from Yanek's family living in a pigeon coop on top of their building in Krakow to hiding under the floorboards of a concentration camp.

This book can be very graphic in the details of the Jews' suffering, and as an adult I found myself disturbed to the point of tears at several passages. Sensitive readers may want to choose another of the many wonderful Holocaust stories out there. If you're looking for a gritty, nothing-held-back account of the Holocaust, Prisoner B-3087 is a story that will stick with you forever.

Ages 11-14 ...more

Like · see review

Feb 11, 2014 Lindsay rated it liked it

Shelves: 2016-sequoyah, ya-historical-fiction

This is an incredibly brutal holocaust survival story based on the life of Yanek Gruener. It's a quick read that includes a lot of detail about life in Krakow after the Jewish ghetto was formed, but then moves at lightening pace as he is shipped to TEN different concentration camps over the next 5 years. This is definitely a plot driven story. ...more

Like · see review