Hostage to War: A True Story - Hardcover

Wassiljewa, Tatjana

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590134469 ISBN 13: 9780590134460

Publisher: Scholastic, 1997

Synopsis

A young person's wartime account in the tradition of The Diary of Anne Frank follows the experiences of thirteen-year-old Russian Tatjana, who is taken to Germany as a captive laborer after Nazi Germany declares war on her country.

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Reviews

Grade 7 Up. Written in the form of a diary, this memoir relates the struggle of a Russian adolescent to survive during World War II. Wassiljewa was barely 14 and living close to starvation in a small, German-occupied town 60 kilometers from Leningrad when she was sent to do forced labor in Germany. Her story is gripping and a grim reminder of the horrors war imposes on civilian populations. While frankly describing the brutality of the living and working conditions, she does not neglect to note the kindnesses of individuals, including Germans who on occasion alleviated her suffering, sometimes at great personal risk. The greatest irony of her story is the suspicion with which those young people who had struggled so valiantly to survive in the enemy's land were treated when they returned to their homeland. Too young to have a passport before the war, Wassiljewa was denied an identity certificate that would allow her to continue her schooling after her return. Serendipity resolved her situation but not of many others like her who were sent to Soviet prison camps. The book was published in the Soviet Union in 1990, but this edition was done from a German translation published in 1994. This double translation and the use of the German transliteration of Russian names may account for some awkwardness. The writing is not always as engaging as the story itself, and the historical endnote has some errors. Nonetheless, Hostage is a welcome addition to the literature about World War II because of its unique viewpoint.?Elizabeth Talbot, University of Illinois, Champaign
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As a young Russian girl during WW II, Wassiljewa endured starvation, illness, and back-breaking labor at the hands of the Nazis. Her memories, recounted in journal form, make for an awkwardly engrossing, heart-wrenching tale. Living in Wyritza at the time, a small vacation town only 60 kilometers from Leningrad, Wassiljewa recalls the Nazis' black tanks grinding down the dirt road. No food was available; her family and their neighbors were left by the invaders to starve. As a 13-year-old, she traveled many miles on foot and traded what was left of her family's possessions for corn. They fended off hunger for awhile, but were powerless to prevent the death of Wassiljewa's ill father, or her deportation to Germany as a ``forced laborer.'' The picture of German society during wartime is chilling: German citizens accepted slave labor as their due, and most ignored the hunger that kept Wassiljewa and her fellow prisoners weak and sick. After the antiseptic, televised images of Desert Storm, readers will be shocked by the cruelty and inhumanity Wassiljewa endured. Throughout the entire nightmare, however, her heart remained a young girl's, and she tenderly recounts the friendships and first love that she found in the work camps. Vivid prose makes palpable the euphoria at the war's end, as well as the overwhelming love she felt when she was reunited with her mother and sister. A harrowing, uplifting story. (Memoir. 10+) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 7^-10. The suffering of millions of Russian civilians during World War II is personalized in this diary narrative of one survivor, who was 13 when the Nazis invaded Leningrad in 1941. She tells it quietly. First, there are the German occupation and her experience at home of hunger, cold, disease, brutality. Then she spends years in forced labor camps and factories in Germany. Finally, when the war is over, she records the wrenching homecoming scenes ("Mama is unrecognizable") and her determination to go back to school. Always, even in the worst times, there are a few people who help her. The English translation is from a German translation of the original Russian, but it reads smoothly. The diary format is contrived; it is just a way for her to write in the first person and the present tense, but it works fine, and readers will accept that what sustained her in those wartime years was to imagine she was writing personal letters telling her mother what was happening. An afterword fills in the historical background. This is a strong voice to add to the eyewitness accounts of what it was like to be a teenager in wartime. Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0590134469
• ISBN 13: 9780590134460
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192