A Deaf Holocaust Experience
Signs of Survival is a memoir of the Holocaust by Renee Hartman and Joshua M. Greene. The book is about two sisters, one deaf, one hearing, and how they survive Hitler’s Final Solution.
Renee Hartman was the hearing daughter of a deaf Jewish couple living in 1940s Czechoslovakia. As the only hearing person in her family, Renee had the responsibility to alert her parents and sister whenever Nazi boots approached their home, so they could hide.
Eventually the Nazis arrested the deaf couple, and their daughters went on the run. However, in time the sisters were captured and sent to Bergen-Belsen, a German concentration/death camp.
Author Joshua M. Green transcribes Renee and Herta’s video interviews from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University. He writes a tender, but frightening story of a sister’s bond during the most horrible event to face the Jewish people. Written for elementary school children, Signs of Survival is an insightful introduction to the horrors of the Holocaust children can understand.
If I was still teaching sixth grade, I’d make sure Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust was in my classroom library.
About the Author:
JOSHUA M. GREENE (Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor) is a renowned Holocaust scholar and filmmaker whose biographies have sold more than a half-million copies worldwide. Greene is a popular lecturer who has spoken at the Pentagon and before the Judge Advocate General’s College, and his documentaries on Holocaust history have aired on PBS and Discovery. He has appeared on national media outlets from NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross to FOX News, CNN, and more. Greene earned his degrees at Hofstra University, where he taught Hinduism and Holocaust history.
