Milton J. Nieuwsma. [editor]. Kinderlager: An Oral History of Young Holocaust Survivors. New York: Holiday House, 1998, 161 pp. $18.95. ISBN 0-8234-1358-6.

Kinderlager: An Oral History of Young Holocaust Survivors offers a tragic vision from within the barbed-wire fences and through the eyes of children. Kinderlager also provides a glimpse of daily living for Jewish families before and after the death camps.

Each chapter of Kinderlager (meaning "children's camp") traces the life of one of three young Jewish girls through the war and death camp system. Tova, Frieda, and Rachel tell their stories from the perspective of their childhood memory and a lifetime of reflection and healing. Each life's story helps the reader to gain in understanding of the events and circumstances and of the three families' relationships to each other and their struggle to survive. This technique of layering the stories serves to effectively display the varied responses and perceptions of Jews and gentiles toward one another during and after these horrible events.

My attention to these oral histories was particularly drawn to the Jewish communities' rationalization of the situation. In response to rumors of people being gassed, Tova's father - even while already living in the ghetto - assures his family that these stories are false. "Nonsense," he says. "They're not gassing anybody. We live in a civilized world." The assurance and rationality of his statement later proves to be the `demon' that haunts each of these three girls and is reflected in their stories. The unsuccessful search for this supposed civilized world of rationality becomes the reason for their need to tell the world of their own experience. The assurance, so confidently uttered prior to the experience of the Shoah become rephrased as a question. "How could the evil and mass murder of the Holocaust have been allowed to happen in a civilized country located in the middle of the European community?" The reader is left with finding her or his own answer.

Seth Reinheimer, HGPS 400 Student