Chil­dren’s

The Last Train: A Holo­caust Story

  • Review
By – May 13, 2013

The Aus­lan­der fam­i­ly lives in the small town of Karcag, Hun­gary. The father has been sent away by the Ger­mans but the rest of the fam­i­ly is allowed to remain in their home. In April 1944, the Ger­mans take over the town and every­thing changes. The Jews are sent to ghet­tos and then shipped off in cat­tle cars head­ed toward con­cen­tra­tion camps. In the process, six-year-old Paul is sep­a­rat­ed from his fam­i­ly. Ter­ri­fied, he tries to find them but is met by an SS man with vicious dogs. He is pushed onto the train with­out find­ing his fam­i­ly but they are lat­er reunited. 

After their arrival at the camp they face end­less roll calls, where pris­on­ers are made to stand for hours. The moth­er becomes ill and her sons prop her up so she will not be sin­gled out and sent to cer­tain death. They wit­ness a bru­tal scene when an SS offi­cer asks a child in the line­up why he is smil­ing. When the child says it is his birth­day, the SS man says that he will get a present and prompt­ly shoots him to death.

The fam­i­ly is loaded back onto a train. They are shocked when the doors open and they are met by Amer­i­can sol­diers who res­cue them. Their Ger­man jail­ers have aban­doned them. The Amer­i­cans give them food, shel­ter, and med­ical care and they are even­tu­al­ly able to return to their homes in Hungary. 

This is not a book for the faint­heart­ed but it is a pow­er­ful sto­ry worth read­ing. It is based on the war expe­ri­ences of the author’s hus­band and his fam­i­ly. Includ­ed are pic­tures of the camps, the fam­i­ly, and the man who lib­er­at­ed them. Rec­om­mend­ed for grades 6 – 8.

Marge Kaplan is a retired Eng­lish as a Sec­ond Lan­guage teacher. She is a con­sul­tant for the children’s lit­er­a­ture group for the Roseville, MN school sys­tem and is a sto­ry­teller of Jew­ish tales.

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