Stories of Righteous Upstanders: Holocaust Heroes

The two titles featured today offer profiles of very different young men, neither of whom were  Jewish, but both recognized the rightness and the necessity of taking actions in the face of threatening and overwhelming power.  

Quill Tree Publishing, 2021

BARTALI'S BICYCLE: The True Story of Gino Bartali, Italy's Secret Hero is written by Megan Hoyt and Illustrated by Iacopo Bruno. I wrote  a trilogy involving the Holocaust years, taught this topic throughout my career, and now serve as a volunteer Holocaust Outreach Educator. What has always astonished me is the seemingly infinite stories of heroism during that horrific era that are little known. Despite my relatively deep background in the subject, this picture book featured someone entirely new to my information about the subject. 

Gino Bartali was a lifelong biker on his hometown cobbled streets of Florence, Italy when he decided to launch into training as a competitive cyclist. His progress was impressive and in 1938 he won the TOUR de FRANCE. When he lauded as a hero, he protested,"Heroes are those who have suffered. I am just a cyclist."

That year, 1938, marked the shift in political tyranny in Germany and Italy from carefully orchestrated and oppressive laws against Jewish people to outright attacks, invasions, and concentration/work camps, leading to the death camps and intentional murders of more than six million Jews and millions of others, too. The story of his heroic, risk-taking efforts to save lives of Jewish friends and strangers in the following years involved using his bike-riding identity and skill to deliver secret documents, exchange messages, communicate information needed for escapes, and even hide Jewish friends in his own home. 

Once the war ended, he avoided attention to his role, saying, "Good is something you do, not something you talk about." Over time, though, his heroic and humane choices were revealed and now his story is available to young readers. The vibrant and action-packed illustrations make a dramatic story even more compelling, with tension rising throughout. A timeline on back pages indicates other markers before and after his resistance life as well as some highlight dates/events during the war years. I'll be using this book in my outreach work and have recommended it to many others, adults and kids alike. 

Norton Young Readers, 2021

NICKY and VERA: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued is written and illustrated by Peter Sis. In this case the author/illustrator is world-renowned, and the featured Holocaust hero has gained considerable attention in recent decades. After his war efforts, he, like Bartali, never spoke of his rescue efforts. Only as the children he saved grew to adulthood and shared their individual stories did some investigative efforts reveal the man at the center of saving so many lives. 

The long view, from present time, is breathtaking and inspiring. But this picture book takes young readers right back to the start of his story. Nicky grew up in schools and with a family that encouraged curiosity, exploration, and travel. As a young man from England Nicky toured many European countries and learned about cultures and history along the way, becoming  fluent in many languages and an Olympic fencer.  In the same pivotal year as Bartoli's Tour De France, Nicky was invited to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in the heart of Europe where German Nazi forces were intent on conquering the world and establishing White/Aryan Supremacy. That growing threat would attempt to eliminate every Jewish person in the process, and followed through on their orchestrated effort that destroyed uncounted lives. 

That same year, Vera (from the title) was just ten years old, living a contented life in a village near Prague. When Nicky noted the advance of German troops, the malicious threats and assaults on innocent people, he returned to England to hatch a plan that might assist young people in escaping the assault. At that time, children under seventeen could receive visas to live their country. Before departing, he launched his own mission, to collect photos, names, and passports for as many children as possible, taking those details with him to England. 

At first, he worked alone and then found others to support his work, advertising for sponsoring families and safe homes, leading to trainloads of refugees on the KINDERTRANSPORT, 1938-1940.  Thousands eventually escaped and survived, but Nicky is personally credited with 669 children saved. Vera was among them.

It is important to acknowledge the bravery of Vera and her family and all of those others who left or were left behind. They had to separate from the ones they loved the most, knowing they might never see each other again, knowing that a choice was made from desperation and love, knowing that being courageous in departure would ease the pain of the others. 

When the iron grip of German forces ended the efforts, Nicky returned to England and spent his very long life doing good, quietly, but not sharing his story with others. He, like Bartali, believed that doing good is a choice, an action, not a ticket to fame. By pairing and paralleling the lives of 

Nicky and Vera, with informative but childlike illustrations, side text, and back matter, the lives of a young man and a child feel immediate and present in our lives.

Nicholas Winton is a widely recognized name in Holocaust history now, and you can learn more by viewing a 60 Minutes segment on Youtube, HERE (bring tissues).Watching it may be the best fifteen minutes you'll spend this year. You can see that he, too, was a young man at the time, barely ten to fifteen years older than the children whose lives he saved. 

Here's an image of Nicky with some of his rescued "children".

These two heroes are important subjects across time and at any time of year, but it is thrilling to share them here, together, among other outstanding nonfiction elementary nominees for this year's CYBILS AWARDS. I hope you will make time to read these, to learn more about their stories, and to stay tuned for reviews of even more wonderful nominees as nonfiction November ticks away.