The Cat With the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin Susan Goldman Rubin, Ela Weissberger Holiday House, 2006 ISBN : 0823418316 |
Ela Stein was eleven years old in February of 1942 when
she was sent to the Terezin concentration camp with other Czech Jews. By the
time she was liberated in 1945, she was fifteen. Somehow during those
horrendous three-and-a-half years of sickness, terror, separation from loved
ones, and loss, Ela managed to grow up. Although conditions were wretched,
Ela forged lifelong friendships with other girls from Room 28 of her
barracks. Adults working with the children tried their best to keep up the
youngest prisoners' spirits. A children's opera called Brundibar was even
performed, and Ela was chosen to play the pivotal role of the cat. Yet
amidst all of this, the feared transports to death camps and death itself
were a part of daily life. Full of sorrow, yet persistent in its belief that
humans can triumph over evil; this unusual memoir tells the story of an
unimaginable coming of age. Ela Stein-Weissberger was liberated from Terezin in May of 1945. |