Biography

Angel Girl

By Laurie Friedman

Illustrated by Ofra Amit

Grade: 5-8

Genre: Biography

Have you ever been to a place you did not want to go to? Have you ever missed you mother, father, brother, sister or family pet? What if you were stuck in a place that made you so sad that you wished and wished for your mother to return? Can you imagine what it’s like to be forced into a prison camp and to work with little sleep or food? Would you hold onto you last hope like Herman did?

As an 11 year old Jewish boy living during World War II, Herman was separated from his family when they were sent to a concentration camp in Germany. Staying with his brothers, Herman had to pretend he was 16 so he would live and work in the camps. Still being a young boy, Herman missed his mother everyday; He would wish for her to return each night. Each day was monotonous, with barely any food and no protection from the harsh elements of the concentration camp. Herman pretended he was doing other things to help get through the day; when he was hungry, he would think of his mother’s cooking or when he was working, he would pretend to be in the park near his old home. One night, Herman’s mother came to him in a dream and said an angel would save him. Sure enough, that angel appeared a few days later when a young German girl approached the barbed wire fence near Herman. Quietly and cautiously, the young girl passed Herman an apple through the face and she continued to do this each day. Both Herman and the young girl knew that their lives were at risk if they were caught by the guards of the concentration camp, but still the young girl came. Finally, when the camp was liberated, Herman met the girl at the fence one last time and called her his “angel girl.” Years later, when Herman became a young man, he moved to New York, a place that was completely unfamiliar to him. Again, he thought back to his life before the war began and of his mother. His mother told Herman that an angel would come to him. One night, Herman’s friend set him up on a blind date with a young woman named Roma. Something about Roma seemed familiar to Herman, but he could not quite place it. When she spoke of her past years living in a small village in Germany, Herman realized that the camp he was sent to was in that same village. This blind date turned out to be his angel girl! Herman and Roma ended up marrying and having 2 children together and they are still living happily with each other.

While writing this biography about Herman and Roma, the author uses accurate description to portray the feelings and thoughts of Herman while he was living in the concentration camp. He used real events to help the reader understand what life was truly like as a Jewish prisoner living in a concentration camp. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine what it must have been like to live in a concentration camp during World War II, but the author uses dialogue and character development to help us see the distress and unhappiness of Herman while he was forced to stay at the camp. We can see that Herman had such little hope until he met his angel girl through the barbed wire surrounding the camp. Laurie Friedman does an excellent job developing the setting for the reader. The setting in this biography is extremely important because it lends itself to the character and future plot development. The illustrator, Ofra Amit, also does an excellent job portraying the grim, hopeless atmosphere in the concentration camp. The illustrations help us connect to the story because we can feel what Herman felt, see what he sees.

I think that this biography is an exceptional choice for a classroom library because it shows us a side of World War II that we do not get to hear a lot about. We get to hear the story of a young boy that survived his years in the harsh, cruel environments of the concentration camps and we see that there is hope that can come out of despair and tragedy. When we hear stories of the concentration camps, most do not end in happiness and love, but the story of Roma and Herman being some light and happiness to such a dark time in history. I think this book would be a superb book to use during a history lesson of World War II and the concentration camps because it shows us the individual human side; it brings humanity back to social studies.

The ELA standards that would apply to this book during a lesson include: RI 9 (integration of knowledge and ideas), W 2 (texts types and purposes), SL 1 (comprehension and collaboration).