Boy from Buchenwald

by Robbie Waisman, Susan McClelland

Overview

It was 1945 and Romek Wajsman had just been liberated from Buchenwald, a brutal concentration camp where more than 60,000 people were killed. He was starving, tortured, and had no idea where his family was—let alone if they were alive. Along with 472 other boys, including Elie Wiesel, these teens were dubbed “The Buchenwald Boys.” They were angry at the world for their abuse, and turned to violence: stealing, fighting, and struggling for power. Everything changed for Romek and the other boys when Albert Einstein and Rabbi Herschel Schacter brought them to a home for rehabilitation

Romek Wajsman, now Robbie Waisman, humanitarian and Canadian governor general award recipient, shares his remarkable story of transforming pain into resiliency and overcoming incredible loss to find incredible joy.

Finalist for the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction

Winner of the 2022 the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781547606009
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.87(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	9 - 11 Years

About the Author

Susan McClelland is a freelance magazine journalist based in Toronto. She has won and been nominated for numerous investigative reporting and feature-writing awards, and is the recipient of the 2005 Amnesty International Media Award. www.susanmcclelland.com

Editorial Reviews

04/19/2021

One of 427 boys transported by a Jewish children’s relief agency to France from the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Weimar, Germany, Polish-Canadian humanitarian Waisman recounts his harrowing youth during and immediately following WWII. Waisman’s early childhood in a loving family living in a shtetl in south-central Poland was destroyed by the 1939 Nazi invasion, as he and his family and were moved to a Jewish Quarter in 1941. Forced to become a child laborer in a German munitions factory, Waisman was eventually taken by cattle car to Buchenwald. The primary narrative focuses on his experiences following the 1945 liberation of Buchenwald, but frequently flashes back to the years in the camp as well as to his time working in the factory, watching sick and weak workers being killed, and to memories of his prewar childhood. Frequent shifts in time and place can be confusing, and though his descriptions of his Buchenwald companion Elie Wiesel prove intriguing, the number of significant characters can be difficult to track. But Waisman’s resistance to—and eventual acceptance of—help and healing makes for a compelling story of recovery from extreme trauma. Ages 9 –11. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Painfully lovely. . . . a vital, underaddressed aspect of survivor stories.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“This powerful, life-affirming memoir is essential reading.” —Booklist, starred review

“Waisman's resistance to—and eventual acceptance of—help and healing makes for a compelling story of recovery from extreme trauma.” —Publishers Weekly

" —The total disorientation and alone-ness of his newly liberated period provoke a chilling “What if it were me?” focus . . . . [A] moving personal narrative." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

From the Publisher

★ 2021-03-25
Following his liberation from the Buchenwald death camp, Romek didn’t know how to reclaim his humanity.

Romek’s childhood in his Polish shtetl of Skarżysko-Kamienna, where he was the youngest of six loving siblings, wasn’t wealthy, but it was idyllic. Skarżysko-Kamienna was “forests and birdsong,” with “the night sky stretching from one end of the horizon to the other.” His family was destroyed and their way of life obliterated with the Nazi invasion of Poland, and Romek lost not just memories, but the accompanying love. Unlike many Holocaust memoirs, this painfully lovely story begins in earnest after the liberation, when Romek was among 1,000 Jewish orphans, the Buchenwald Boys, in need of rehabilitation. Having suffered years of starvation, disease, and being treated as animals, the boys were nearly feral: They fought constantly, had forgotten how to use forks, and set fire to their French relief camp dormitory. Some adults thought they were irredeemable. With endless patience, care, and love, the mentors and social workers around them—themselves traumatized Holocaust survivors—brought Romek back from the brink. Even in a loving and protective environment, in a France where the boys were treated overwhelmingly kindly by the populace, it took time to remember goodness. Parallels between anti-Semitism and racism in the U.S. and Canada are gentle but explicit.

Lyrical writing focuses on the aftermath of the Holocaust, a vital, underaddressed aspect of survivor stories. (historical note, timeline) (Memoir. 12-14)

Kirkus Reviews