Playing for the Commandant by Suzy ZailMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is an odd book. The main character is 15, yet acts like a naive 10-year-old. It reads like the book is for tweens--nothing is too explicit. I just don't understand how Hanna could be in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps and NOT know that the Nazis were killing Jews. Her friends and family were disappearing. She smelled the smoke. And people talked. EVERYONE knew what was going on inside the camp! Right?
(And now I want to research this a bit more to find out)
In the author's afterword, she explains that she found out that her father moved to Australia after his experience in the camps. Heartbreaking. And so I'm glad she's keeping Holocaust literature alive by writing historical fiction.
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