Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust
Renee Hartman with Joshua M. Greene
Scholastic

This is a true story of two sisters, Renee (age ten) and Herta (age eight). It’s based on video testimonies of the Jewish siblings born and living in Bratislava, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, during World War II. Both the girls’ parents and Herta are deaf, so they all communicate by means of sign language with Renee acting as the family’s ears. The book opens in 1943 with Renee’s voice and then alternates between hers and Herta’s.

By then, so adept has Renee become at recognising the sound of soldiers’ boots beneath the windows of their apartment that she’s able to warn other family members of danger, ie Nazi soldiers rounding up fellow Jews in the town.

Having been sent to a farm for safekeeping by their parents, the sisters eventually find themselves the last Jews in Bratislava and they give themselves up to the Slovak police. The police put the girls on a train bound for Bergen-Belsen, to join their parents so they were told. However what the girls didn’t know was that their parents had been sent to Auschwitz.

We read vivid accounts of the horrors the siblings witnessed, but what stands out is the power of the relationship between the sisters and Renee’s protectiveness that sustained them through horrendous ordeals.

When the war ends, the sisters are sent to Sweden where they learn their parents are dead; there they spend three years. The final part tells of the girls’ post war lives in the USA, where with the help of the Red Cross, they arrived to live with American relatives residing in New York in 1948.

Then follows a poem written by Renee, an epilogue written by Joshua M.Greene giving historical background relating to the Holocaust, and some photographs.

Simply told, this compelling, enormously moving story will linger with you long after you close the book.
It’s a must read for primary children especially those learning about World War Two in their history lessons.