#4 General Non-Fiction: Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow

Bartoletti, Susan Campbell.  Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow. New York: Scholastic, Inc, 2005. Print.

Annotation:

Take a look inside the devastating impact Hitler had on Germany’s youth. Roughly 7 million boys and girls participated in Hitler’s organized youth club where they unwittingly played a significant role in Hitler’s plight for domination and the massacre of millions of innocent lives.

Justification for Non-Nomination:

Almost everyone has heard of Hitler and the Holocaust, but what they may not know is the role that Germany’s youth played in that devastating event in history. Bartoletti gives an inside look at Hitler’s youth organization that diligently worked to spread the political ideals of Hitler’s propaganda and also worked to enforce the strict rules and guidelines imposed on Germany by Hitler himself.

This is an incredible look into one of the worst events in history.  The difference in this recounting of the Holocaust, however, is that this book focuses on the contribution of Germany’s youth in Hitler’s plan rather than on Hitler and his own actions during the Holocaust.   

Bartoletti makes this a must read for YAs and adults. The first person interviews of grown Hitler youth and the ominous photographs she includes, take the reader back to a time that gives the reader a better understanding of what life was like for the children and young adults that were living in Germany during Hitler’s rule.

This book is informational and includes many of the known facts about the Holocaust, however, it can be very disturbing to read how young adults worked together to harm others and actively targeted other human beings, even their friends and their parents, because they were directed to do so by a supposed leader. The book, at times is very descriptive about the murders of young children that rebelled against Hitler’s rule and also of the Jewish population that was so viciously targeted.

Though I find this book to be incredibly worthwhile and believe it should be read by YAs, I am hesitant to think it would spark much interest for adolescent reading. I think that most YAs, unless they had a specific interest in the world history and the Holocaust, would likely look past this book on the shelf unless it was an assigned book for them. 

Genre: General Non-Fiction, Histiorical Fact