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Behind the Bedroom Wall

A Novel of Nazi Germany

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

It is 1942. Korinna, a thirteen-year-old girl in Germany, is an active member of the local Jungmadel, a Nazi youth group, along with many of her friends. She believes that Hitler is helping Germany by dealing with what he calls the “Jewish problem,” a campaign that she witnesses as her Jewish neighbors are attacked and taken from their homes.

When Korinna discovers that her parents—who are secretly members of an underground resistance group—are sheltering a family of Jewish refugees behind her bedroom wall, she is shocked. As she comes to know the family her sympathies begin to turn, and when someone tips off the Gestapo, Korinna’s loyalties are put to the test. She must decide what she really believes and whom she really trusts.

An exciting novel for middle-grade readers, Behind the Bedroom Wall teaches tolerance and understanding while exploring why Nazism held so many in its deadly thrall.

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 3, 1996
      Melodrama substitutes for conflict in this heavy-handed novel set in Nazi Germany. At 13, Korinna Rehme is just like the other members of her girls' youth group: besotted with the Fuhrer ("Hitler is the most wonderful man, Mother. Don't you think so?") and rabidly anti-Semitic. When she discovers that two Jews, a mother and young daughter, are hiding in her very own house, she is horrified at her parents' calumny. As Korinna weighs the possibility of turning her parents in, her best friend, Rita, begins to grow suspicious and starts laying a deadly trap for the Rehmes and their clandestine guests. Neither subtlety nor insight plays a part in these proceedings: Williams doesn't suggest the attractions of the Hitler youth groups or allow for the range of attitudes within these groups, described so persuasively in such memoirs as Ilse Koehn's Mischling, Second Degree or Hans Peter Richter's I Was There. Instead, the dilemmas faced by these characters come across to the reader as crystal-clear choices between good and evil. This type of simplification makes for bad history--and a flat read. Ages 9-13.

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  • Kindle Book
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  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:4.4
  • Lexile® Measure:660
  • Interest Level:4-8(MG)
  • Text Difficulty:3

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