Yarn Along

Well, I started over the Rhubarb cardigan.  I don’t really want to talk about that.  The short explanation is I was trying to figure out why the fabric was so loose and realized I was knitting with a size 5, not size 4 needle.

I finished my impulse library book The Boy on the Wooden Box.  I haven’t read a book this amazing in ages.  It’s meant for kids aged 9-14 or so, which I didn’t realize when I checked it out.  So it made it a pretty fast read, which I needed right now.  It’s a true story…a memoir from a boy who was on Schindler’s List.  The Nazi “Schindler,” saved him and most of his family during the Holocaust.  He then moved with his parents to California, became a shop teacher at a public school, and no one ever knew he was a Holocaust survivor besides his family, and it wasn’t until the 1980s when stories of Schindler’s List and then in the famous movie that reporters started seeking him and his story out because his name was on the famous list.

It was then that he started telling his story.  I get chills running down my spine just thinking about it.  I have always loved reading stories like this.  It’s something about the will to survive and destiny and heroism, and a basic study of the human condition.  I have read several biographies from this time period, and many of them are the same horrific story over and over again.

Yet each story reveals one more aspect that the other left out.  In stories like The Diary of Anne Frank it does not end well, and the reader experiences loss.  So there isn’t as much of an afterward besides her family picking up the pieces afterwards.  In this memoir, there are 2 things that I never really thought about before when it comes to after the war.  First, after they were released from the labor camp where Schindler was doing his best to keep them safe (he sent them off with a bottle of vodka each and a bolt of fabric so that they would have something to barter with for food) they got back to their neighborhood…and no one was glad to see them.  Everyone was annoyed and acted like, but never said, “Oh, you again?  Ugh.  We thought the Nazis had killed you all.  Sigh.  Now what do we do with you?”

Can you even imagine?  60,000 Jewish people were rounded up from that city, and only about 4,000 returned.  They returned half-starved, in threadbare clothes, and desperate for help.  They found none.  Well, this author’s father used to have a prominent job, and one man who worked for them took in his family, reluctantly, for about 2 weeks and then he said they needed to be on their way.  They had family in America and the UN helped them get there, but it took a few years.  The author’s living siblings were now adults, and decided to move to the newly founded Israel, and he went with his parents to live in California.

The second thing that struck me was their welcome in California.  He was about 19 by the time he got there, and as he started making friends, he tried to tell them what living through the war was like.  The first conversation started by his friend asking him what it was like living in a labor camp.  He told his friend he was very, very hungry there.  All he thought about was food.  His friend nodded, in empathy saying, “Yeah, we had rationing here in the States too.  My mom had an awful time finding sugar.”

At that instance, he realized none of his friends in America could ever remotely understand what he went through, and decided not to bring it up again.  So he didn’t for decades.

We will most certainly be reading this book in our homeschool when studying World War II.  All of my children will read it when they are old enough.  It’s told in such a simple voice that is full of honesty yet gentleness.  There’s so many talking points, so many things to discuss, so many messages that just need to be heard.  I highly recommend.

Linking up with Ginny for her weekly Yarn Along.  It’s a lovely place to hang out for those who love to knit and read.