Making bombs for Hitler by Marsha Skrypuch
Scholastic Australia, 2015. ISBN 9781760157234
(Age: 12+) Highly recommended. Captured by the Nazis during the
Second World War, two orphaned sisters are forced to take divergent
paths. Larissa's story was documented by Marsha Skrypuch in Stolen
Child (2010). In Making Bombs for Hitler (2015), the
author details the experiences of Larissa's older sister, Lida. This
companion novel is a testament to the legions of young Ostarbeiters,
mostly Ukrainian; who were captured, worked and starved, during the
war.
We learn in the Author's Note that adolescents abducted during raids
across the Soviet Union, were forced to work long hours in
laundries, hospitals, road works and munitions factories for the war
effort. At first, Lida's sewing skills gain her a position in the
camp laundry. Unfortunately, for the remainder of the war, her deft
hands are utilized in making explosive devices.
Eventually, as the Allies gain the upper hand, Lida & her fellow
prisoners become emboldened and sabotage the German bombs. But with
the Allied bombs raining down with increasing regularity, the
friends are forced to take different paths in order to weather their
liberation and its aftermath.
Riveting despite the horrors, Skrypuch has written convincingly in a
detached style - much like the mental state these children may have
employed to survive. This is an important piece of juvenile
literature given that few historians have told the story of these
enumerable Eastern European children, whose struggles and deaths
were hitherto largely unacknowledged during the darkest years in
human history. Though the subject matter breaks new ground, both
academic and public libraries have a duty to expound totalitarianism
of any kind for the improvement of mankind. Accordingly, Marsha
Skrypuch's factional history, describing the incarceration of
millions of young slave labourers, is highly recommended for
potential teaching moments or as a discussion starter.
Deborah Robins