Love is in Da Blog: Tuesday Teaser

This  is part of  February  Love is in Da Blog at Just fooling Around With Be  said : “I dedicated Tuesdays to “Teaser Tuesday” over at “A Daily Rhythm” and books we love. Choose a book that you deeply love and read time and time again. Or actually, pick a book about love. Either follow the “Teaser Tuesday” Rules, do a book review, dedicate a sentence to the author or just write anything you please about that book you love.”
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This  week  I  am writing  about  a  book  that  truly  touched me.

A book  worth reading 

The Devil’s Arithmetic is a historical fiction novel written by American author Jane Yolen and published in 1988. The book is about Hannah Stern, a Jewish girl who lives in New Rochelle, New York. During a Passover Seder, Hannah is transported back in time to 1942 Poland, during World War II, where she is sent to a death camp thought to beAuschwitz and learns the importance of knowing about the past.

I am not   Jewish   but I know  my  history  and  this  book  tells  the  story  of  how  an entire  village  is  transported  off  to  a  death  camp. Among  them  by  magic  or  fate is  young Hannah  who  has been transported  there  from  the  future.

Hannah  is transported  from the  Passover  Seder  in her  time   to a  time  and place  during  WW2  there  believe she is Chaya Abramowicz, who is recovering from cholera, the fever that killed Chaya’s parents a few months ago. The strange remarks Hannah/Chaya makes about the future and her inability to recognize her “aunt” Gitl and “uncle” Shmuel are blamed on the fever.

At her “uncle’s” wedding, the Nazis come to transport the entire population of the village to a concentration camp near Donavin, and only Hannah knows all the terrors they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labor, and finally execution. She  has  to  live  the  life  of  an intern  in  a  death camp. Through  this  she learns  who  she is  and  why  the  Jewish  Religion is  so important  to her  and her  family.

These  are  some of  the  parts  of  the  book  that  made  me  sit  up  and  think.

 

“But as the scissors snip-snapped through her hair and the razor shaved the rest, she realized with a sudden awful panic that she could no longer recall anything from the past. I cannot remember, she whispered to herself.”

Hannah, p. 94

“Six million,” Hannah said, “but that’s not all the Jews there are. In the end, in the future, there will be Jews still. And there will be Israel, a Jewish state, where there will be a Jewish president and a Jewish senate. And in America, Jewish movie stars.”

Hannah, p. 156

“I will be brave. I am the only one who knows about the ovens, but I will be brave. I will not take away their hope, which is all they have. I will not tell them that the Nazis often lied and said people were going to take showers when they took them to be killed.”

Hannah, p. 93

“And as for running – where would we run to? God is everywhere. There will always be Nazis among us. No, my child, do not tremble before mere men. It is God before whom we must tremble. Only God. We will go ahead, just as we have planned. After all, this is our shtetl, not theirs, and there is still a wedding to be made.”

Reb Boruch, p. 64

The  Devils Arithmatic