The story begins on January 1942 in Leningrad. Leningrad is under attack and their people are weak and starving. Their food and clean water supply has dwindled to just about nothing. A 17-year-old boy named Lev Beniov lives in Leningrad in which he tries to help and defend the city even though he is not old enough to join the army he wants to help out as much as he can. While Lev and his friends are up guarding the roof of their apartment, they notice a body of a German solider falling from the sky who is attached to a parachute. Not knowing whether the man is dead or not, abandoning their posts to investigate. Lev and his friends run to where they assume the body has landed. They find the German soldiers dead body and they helped themselves
The protagonists are Rudi Kaplan; a Jewish Christian with a Swedish appearance as his mother was Swedish. Jakob Kaplan, Rudi’s father, who was faithful, kind and very helpful in many ways. Rudi’s best friend, Salek Serdusek, his father, Eryk, and Salek’s mother, Sara were the Kaplans closes friends. Ingrid, was a little girl that doesn’t speak, and who Rudi named after his mother. There’s also Oscar, a resistance fighter who was brave, slightly prideful and warm-hearted. The last few protagonists are the Kaminsky family, who lived in an apartment building, below the Kaplans, Anna, who is patient, brave and hygienic, and Josef. The two main antagonists are Frank and Mende who are both German soldiers.
The Serb peasants risked their lives by helping the downed airmen. They welcomed the airmen and loved them as their own people. If Germans found Serbs helping these men, they would destroy a whole village and take all the people prisoner. The author portrayed this by describing the extremes the villagers took to hide the men. General Mihailovic made sure that his guerilla forces always protected the Serbs and the airmen. They followed the men
Lina Vilkas is a fifteen year old girl who is the protagonist of this story. She was taken, by the NKVD, from her house with her mother and brother to exile. Later in the story she meets Andrius and falls in love with him. She marries him after the war while moving from place to place. Andrius uses his misfortune as a fortune to help others. He takes care of Lina and her family as best he can. Nikolai Kretzsky is a young NKVD officer who helps Lina and her mother even after Lina insulted him. Mr Stalas is a Jew who is deported with the other people. He wanted to die with dignity. He is often referred to as The Bald Man. He confesses that he was liable for the deportation. Janina is a starry-eyed young girl who likes to help others and to talk to her "dead" doll. When few selected people are brought to the North Pole for more suffering, dozens of people die from cholera and pneumonia. Lina however, survives and manages to save Jonas and Janina with the help of Nikolai Kretzsky.
The story takes place through the eyes of a German infantryman named Paul Baumer. He is nineteen and just joined up with the German army after high school with the persuasion of one of his schoolteachers, Mr. Kantorek. Paul recalls how he would use all class period lecturing the students, peering through his spectacles and saying: "Won't you join up comrades?"(10). Here was a man who loved war. He loved the "glory" of war. He loved it so much as to persuade every boy in his class to join up with the army. He must have thought how proud they would be marching out onto that field in their military attire.
They realize that the Germans have arrested many Jewish people in the recent past and they think it would be smart to go back to their hometown. When they got to their hometown, Germans then came and made them leave their family and go to labor camps. Once all the young man had left the village the Nazis took over the town taking the people and putting them in the camps also where they would be put to death. Alec and Ben than escaped their camp and went back to their hometown where they and nobody was there. They realize how bad this was, so they set off to find their family. Alec then goes and disguises himself as a Nazi SS officer and not only finds out the whereabouts of his family but also a lot
Others weep for the ones lost. They then got prison clothes that were ridiculously fitted. They made exchanges and went to a new barracks in the “gypsies’ camp.” They waited in the mud for a long time. They were permitted to another barracks, with a gypsy in charge of them.
Karl Stern is an artistic, lanky, beat up, Jewish fourteen year-old boy whose only refuge is drawing cartoons for his younger sister and himself. All that changes in an instant when he meets the boxer, Max Schmeling in his father’s art gallery. In exchange for a painting, Karl will receive lessons from the world renowned fighter and national German hero. Suddenly he has a purpose: train to become a boxing legend. As the years go by and he gets stronger, both physically and emotionally, so does the hatred for the Jews in Germany. This new generation of anti-Semitism starts when Karl gets expelled from school and grows until his family is forced to live in Mr. Stern’s gallery. Though the Stern’s have never set foot into a synagogue and do not consider themselves “Jewish”, they are still subjects to this kind of anti-Semitism. They try to make the best of it, but Karl can see how much it affects his family. His mother is getting moodier by the day, his sister, Hildy, hates herself because of her dark hair and “Jewish” nose and his father is printing illegal documents for some secret buyers. On Kristallnacht the gallery is broken into and the family is torn apart. Karl must now comfort his sister and search for his injured father and his mother. With the help of some of exceptional people, he manages to get over these many obstacles and make his way to America.
War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.
During WWII, when Jakob Beer is seven, his parents are murdered by Nazi soldiers who invade their Polish village, and his beloved, musically talented 15-year-old sister, Bella, is abducted. Fleeing from the blood-drenched scene, he is magically saved by Greek geologist Athos Roussos, who secretly transports the traumatized boy to his home on the island of Zakynthos, where they live through the Nazi occupation, suffering privations but escaping the atrocities that decimate Greece's Jewish community. Jakob is haunted by the moment of his parents' death the burst door, buttons spilling out of a saucer onto the floor, darkness and his spirit remains sorrowfully linked with that of his lost sister, whose fate anguishes him. But he travels in his imagination to the places that Athos describes and the books that this kindly scholar provides. At war's end, Athos accepts a university post in Toronto, and Jakob begins a new life.
Elli talks about daily life in her neighborhood. Her mother does not show any compassion for her. When Elli complains of this, her mother brings up excuses that are unconvincing. Elli believes her mother does not care for her and that her brother is the favorite. Hilter’s reoccurring radio broadcast give nightmares to Elli, whos family is Jewish. The nights when the Hungarian military police would come and stir trouble did not provide anymore comfort for Elli. One night, her brother, Bubi, comes home with news that Germany invaded Budapest, the town where he goes to school. But the next morning, there is no news in the headlines. The father sends him back to school. He learns the next day that a neighbor’s son who goes to school with Bubi has said the same. The day after, the newspapers scream the news of the invasion. Bubi arrives home, and the terror begins.
Set in Adano Italy, 1943, toward the closing of World War II, a man named Major Victor Joppolo is positioned to impact the people in a positive way. When major Joppolo arrives he is part of the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (AMGOT) team to restore peace and order back to a town in travesty, in this case, Adano. He gathered all the people and asked what they thought should be fixed first, many people said the lack of food, but the majority of
The novel tells the story, in a fictional account, of the author's experiences as a young boy in Shanghai at the outbreak of the Second World War. Jim, the third person narrator of the novel, is separated from his parents when the Japanese invade Shanghai at the end of 1941. The first part of the novel tells of his adventures on the streets of Shanghai, trying first of all to find his parents, then to give himself up to the Japanese. When even that fails, Jim's life becomes a simple battle for survival, first of all in Shanghai and then at the hands of the Japanese in a staging camp, where he is effectively sent to die.
Two young boys Andrej and Tomas are forced to live their life traveling from town to town scavenging for things to keep them alive whilst caring for their baby sister Wilma after soldiers tore them away from their family. Experiencing their family being ripped apart and loved ones murdered before their eyes the boys are left questioning what did they do to deserve this? The boys have learned to live
Lev doesn’t identify as a patriot or a defender of the city. He strives to become a hero, to triumph. Almost immediately, Lev and Kolya are thrown into a battle with a giant cannibal. Kolya represents what Lev aspires to be, a mature man. Lev is not yet mature enough to fight the giant like a man. He runs away as Kolya fights of the cannibals, even though he aspires to help. Immideatley after Lev escapes he thinks he “was betraying Kolya, deserting him when he was weaponless and [Lev] has a good knife,” (Benioff 60). Lev wishes to be the person that fights. He aspires to be the patriot he claims to be, but is reminded in this encounter that he is not mature. “I’m not a coward I know I looked like one back there, but I’m not,” said Lev as they continued their journey (Benioff 64). Lev wants to be brave. He doesn’t want to be a coward and is trying to convince himself that he isn’t. Lev repeatedly claims to be something he is not, in the hope that someday he will become it. The journey continues to be difficult as they struggle to find shelter in the cold, fail to travel in the right direction, get shot at in the house, and join the other captives in the Einsatzgruppe labor camp. He is still viewed as an outsider by the german as he questions Lev, “you’re young still. We all had our awkward years,” (Benioff 195). Benioff reminds the reader that through all the challenges of Lev’s journey, Lev is still young. He has not become a man.
The story begins in Berlin, Germany, March 1933, where Anna is living with her parents and her older brother, Max. At the time of Hitler’s election, her father, a well known Jewish journalist, is told that his passport may soon be taken away as he is known for his articles written against the Nazis and Hitler. Upon hearing this, He secretly leaves for Prague. Anna is distraught when she sees that her father is gone, but is reassured that he will come back...