Author – Susan Campbell Bartoletti.
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Below is a summary of this book. It is about the German children who lived during Hitler’s time that led to World War II.
It started in Germany when Hitler was elected as Fuhrer (kind of like president or leader) of Germany. He decided to create an organization called the Hitler Youth Program. There are two divisions of the Hitler Youth – One for boys and one for girls. The children who attended the Hitler Youth had meetings with a host, usually a teenager hired by Hitler. They held meetings in abandoned buildings, or other remote places. At the meetings, they would listen to recordings, read leaflets, go on walks, discuss reasons why the Nazis are good leaders, and other things to give the kids a good impression of the Nazis and Hitler.
Soon they started doing athletics like sports, hikes, and fitness. Hitler even arranged an Olympics tournament for the Hitler youth where they competed in all kinds of sports.
Hitler wanted everyone to like him, and you might already know that he hated the Jewish people. So, he banned anyone from reading books by Jewish authors, buying from stores with Jewish owners, and any other thing associated with Jewish people. Hitler believed that people from the Aryan race (blond hair, blue eyes) were superior. Another thing the Nazis did was rewrite the entire curriculum and replaced most schoolteachers with ones hired by them.
Not all parents wanted to send their children to Hitler Youth, so Hitler made it a law that it was necessary for all kids to go there. Some kids still refused to join and made their own little groups and had their own meetings. Hitler created a division made up of teenagers to figure out a way to shut the other groups down.
It was around this time when Germany started attacking Austria. There was a big part of Austria that was inhabited by Germans. And Hitler said falsely that Austria was treating them harshly. So, the Germans started attacking them. The Nazis took over a large part of Austria’s land. The Germans began attacking other countries too. They would invade people’s homes and kick out who ever lived in there. Then the Nazis would have a family from Germany move into the invaded house. A member of the female division of Hitler Youth would help them move in.
Hitler wanted all Jewish people to be gone from Germany. He had a bunch of bodyguards that were known as the SS. Sometimes the SS would do other things besides protect him. He had the SS go to the homes of Jewish people and tell them they were to bring one cart of stuff, and they would take them to somewhere else to live.
The truth is, they put all the Jewish people into a line, and they took all their valuable items. Then the Jewish people were taken to a part where the line split. If anyone had any sort of engineering talent, then they would be taken to work in factories. The others would be taken to a poison gas chamber and well, you know what happens after that. One time a Jewish boy was taken along with his father and little brother. When the line split the SS found out that the boy had good metalworking skills (good at making things out of metal.) So, he was taken to the factory line. His family, on the other hand, were taken to the gas chambers. The boy asked an SS man where his family was taken and the man pointed to the giant chimney puking smoke from the gas chamber and said, “up there.” That is one of the many cruel ways the Nazis treated the Jewish.
The war was going on and Britain was making highly successful air raids on German cities. Whenever an air raid happened, everyone would go to a bunker or shelter. The Hitler youth would help by passing out toys and taking care of the children. After a raid, the German boys would go out and collect little pieces of the bomb shells to trade with each other.
Soon, more and more Jewish people were being murdered and sent to the concentration camps. Some kids weren’t happy with how Hitler was ruling. For example, there was a teenage girl named Sophie Scholl. She and her brother Hans made a group of people that made leaflets that convince people that Hitler was bad. They could not try to convince people personally, or they would have been sent to jail or beheaded. They were doing very well until unfortunately, they were caught by another person loyal to Hitler. They were trialed and then beheaded. During the trial, Sophie said that she didn’t care if they killed her because of what she did, now that many more people know about what they are trying to do.
Hitler also started battle training for the Hitler Youth. They had a few months of learning about the different kinds of weapons and how to use them, and some also learned about medical skills. Soon, they were ready to go. They would fight in battles against Europe. The children selected for the army were nervous, but they actually were very successful.
Soon, the allied forces attacked the Germans from the coast of France. This attack is now known as the D-Day. Troops from Europe, Canada, and the U.S. were winning against the Germans. Soon most of the Germans knew that it was over. They lost. Many people were surrendering. Some people continued to fight and were captured. The allied forces found Hitler’s secret bunker and found him lying on the floor, dead. As soon as he knew they lost, Hitler shot himself.
Many, many people were taken for trial. Most people don’t know, but a few of the major Nazi leaders shot themselves too. Since the Germans lost, the other country leaders had to decide what to do with Germany. They didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes they made previously after WW1 when they made a treaty that was very harsh on Germany. They feared it might lead to another war, so they decided to rebuild Germany this time. At first, Germany was split into two parts – East Germany and West Germany. West Germany treated people very harshly and would not allow anyone to rebuild any factories. But in East Germany, they started fresh to rebuild everything and established new and better political leaders. Eventually, the two parts of Germany became whole again, and have been till this day.
The End
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