Holocaust Child Lalechka by Amira Keidar

 Holocaust Child Lalechka by Amira Keidar is a fantastic book that is all a true story (to my surprise after reading some of it). This book looks at a part of the Holocaust which in my experience is not widely documented or written about and instead it is often the Concentration camps like Auschwitz which get all the publicity. This book is written on many people's accounts and diary entries about their friendships together before the war, what happened to Shedlitz during the war including the ghetto and what happened to the holocaust child, Rachel, who was ultimately saved from death. This book to an extent is also a message of how you should not treat children.

I like this book first of all because of how it is actually completely true. Many of these holocaust stories are only based on true stories with large parts of fiction in them so it has been incredible to read a book which to my knowledge is non-fiction in its entirety. I like the honesty of the people involved in this story who have told us readers about what things were like when Jews were being killed by the Germans and being imprisoned for no good reason. But ultimately it was great to read about how these friends came together in one of the hardest times in history to help keep the child alive and provide her with an under-the-radar childhood.

There is not much I can say I really disliked about this story. The one thing which did hurt me and which I disliked was the way the poor child, Rachel was treated towards the end of the book. I will acknowledge that people may not have had the freedom to provide her with a better life but I fear that Rachels best interests were not always at the heart of the people who made decisions about her. I thought it was awful how she was removed from her home in Shedlitz just to migrate to Palestine where for many years she was stuck in orphanages because the English were not letting Jews into Palestine. I would say it would have been better for Rachel to stay in Shedlitz until she could go to Palestine without long waits in a number of orphanages. Secondly, although both her Uncle and deceased Mother wanted her to be with the uncle, she should not have gone to live with her Uncle if he was to later decide he could not look after her and send her to two more orphanages.

 Altogether, I rate this book 4 stars because it is a very good true-life account of the horrors and achievements of the Holocaust. This shows that many Jews were killed but some Jews also survived thanks to the care of the brave Poles and others who risked death if found to be helping these Jews. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the holocaust, world war two or anyone studying the former or the latter. I would like to thank Net Galley and Ad Lib Publishers for giving me access to an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in return for an honest book review.