Connecting to Literature

Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf

Eleven-year-old Milada remembers the night. The night when there was pounding on the door and Nazis in her Czechoslovakian home. The night when her grandmother pressed a garnet pin into her hand and told her to never forget who she was. But since that time Milada had a difficult time keeping that promise. Having been forcibly removed from her family and taken to a bizarre Nazi-run girl's school, Milada quickly learns the reason for her presence in the Lebensborn center; her shiny golden hair and bright blue eyes. Renamed Eva, Milada is part of a system intent upon turning her into a "good" German citizen. The kind of place where she can be taught the evils of the Jews, the glory of Hitler, and the joys of being adopted into a real German family's home. Based on events following the destruction of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, author Joan Wolf tells of the real Lebensborn center in Poland, the crimes it committed against an untold number of girls during WWII, and what it takes to stay true to your heritage.
(excerpt from :http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/310013631.html)

Kids are going to have questions about this book:

Why did they take the families away?
Why were the men and women separated?
Why did Jewish people have to wear yellow stars on their clothing?
Why did they take Milada's family if she was not a jew?
Why were the Nazi soldiers and the doctors interested only in the children that looked a particular way?
What does that word Aryan mean?
Why did they change Milada's name to Eva?
Where is the place where the story took place? (Lidice, Czechoslovakia)
Is this a true story?



Who was Adolf Hitler?

Click on the image of Hitler to view a slide show.














Visit the Lidice memorial web site and learn more about the tragedy of these families.