Educator and Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor recounts her brutal imprisonment, struggle for survival and journey to forgiveness in the grim but ultimately hopeful middle-grade memoir I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who Survived Auschwitz, written with Danica Davidson.
Eva's childhood was marred by antisemitism and torment that culminated in their Jewish family's transfer to Auschwitz. Ten-year-old Eva and her identical twin sister, Miriam, were plucked from the crowd at the death camp and subjected to medical experimentation. Eva, fueled by a desire to protect Miriam, committed herself to surviving dehumanizing conditions and the suffering inflicted upon them by the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele. Against overwhelming odds, the sisters lived. Eva spent subsequent years of her life educating children on atrocities of the Holocaust and eventually found that forgiveness unburdened her from the weight of her memories: "I did not forgive Mengele and the other Nazis because they deserve it. I forgave them because I deserve it."
Davidson interviewed Eva, and Eva's clear voice provides an edifying lesson most welcome among Holocaust narratives. Davidson relates young Eva's experiences at Auschwitz with pragmatic and accessible prose that neither shies away from nor sensationalizes the horrors she suffered. Eva contextualizes historical trends of antisemitism with helpful background knowledge and offers her own post-liberation dalliance with Communism for nuance about the persuasive danger of nationalism. Backmatter includes a timeline and glossary, as well as eight pages of photographs.
A powerful testimony to survival and forgiveness, Eva's story should find quick purchase among collections of witness literature. --Kit Ballenger, youth librarian, Help Your Shelf