The impact of the illustrations certainly contributes to the effectiveness of the storytelling in what deserves to become as much of a classic as Ann Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. My conversation with Jeremy Dronfield was about an hour in total, so some parts I have had to leave out. It was, however, wonderful to hear him speak so passionately and sincerely. You have to keep reminding yourself that the characters in this book are real people. The conversations are real. What happened is real. But at the same time, also unthinkable. Thanks to Jeremy, the Kleinmann’s story is one which will stay with me. Fritz and Kurt deserves to be a fixture in classrooms, and I hope it is. It will stay with readers for years.

Fritz and Kurt – Books For Keeps Fritz and Kurt – Books For Keeps

Careful consideration and due diligence are parts of the good practice of anyone doing their job properly. This applies to choosing texts for the classroom – it is one of the main reasons Just Imagine exists. When it comes to the well-being of individual children in the classroom, the teacher will ultimately know what is suitable. When it comes to factual and accurate information, we place trust in the authors (including illustrators), editors and publishers to carry out due diligence.

Fritz’s story was really interesting because in some ways if you didn’t know the source of the book them I don’t think it would be completely believable but because you know it’s based as much as possible on a boy’s true story it makes you wonder what else happened that we don’t know about. It was also interesting to hear about the different times of the war for him and how he managed to survive. Classrooms have to ultimately be places of hope. So, can reading about an event like the Holocaust be a positive experience? The feeling Jeremy has is “positive in the sense that it is a story of survival, hope, love and courage.” Although, one thing that perhaps does not come across so explicitly in this version, because of the child’s viewpoint, is “their father’s determination to survive. How firmly he believed he was going to survive.” Even when the worst things are happening around him, Gustav was writing “I will not let these SS murderers grind me down.” Which Jeremy thinks “was a big part in what enabled Gustav and Fritz to survive.” Gustav never lost his faith or devotion to his son. It’s part of the positivity that comes through. Determination, courage, faith, belief, hope. Knowing these exist, Jeremy continues, through all of life’s challenges and difficulties, is inspiring. It is not my place to give more importance to one historical event than another. There are those, however, that have caused more trauma, pain and suffering than anyone can possibly imagine. Talking about these in a classroom to young learners is a challenge. We need the combination of trust and due diligence more than ever.

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield (Paperback) Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield (Paperback)

Although the subject matter is harrowing, the story has been specially adapted for young readers and is a testament to love and the strength of the human spirit, as well as a warning to future generations. The ironies continue. Gustav’s new ally at Monowitz was an ex-soldier and co-worker who simply couldn’t credit that Hitler would imprison Jews without cause. But neither could Gustav credit the number of closed trains he saw carrying thousands of Hungarian Jews to their deaths. “And all this in the 20th century,” he wrote with disbelief. A year later, starving at Mauthausen, a camp in Upper Austria, Gustav barely escaped being massacred by ferociously antisemitic Hungarian guards. (The Russians, by contrast, treated all camp inmates with respect.) After that book came out, many people who had been moved and inspired by the Kleinmann family’s story told me that they wished their children could read my book. At its core, it’s a story about children living through one of history’s greatest tragedies; it’s about children’s courage, love, and resilience. Young readers should be able to read it for themselves.

I haven't read Dronfield's book about the Jewish family split by the second world war, but I was fascinated to hear that the author has retold it for a young audience. It wouldn't be the first book out there telling of Holocaust atrocities. While we try to protect our children from some of the worst of humanity, it is also important that they learn history, what intolerance and hatred can become, or how can we ever hope to stop it happening again? Fritz revisiting Auschwitz concentration camp around 1980. Photograph: Reinhold Gärtner Language barrier But what information needs to be told, and what are young readers not ready to learn about? Unsurprisingly, “anything essential to the story” is the short answer. Although, how do we decide what is essential? Jeremy explained that a lot was left out, especially those things which “would be too upsetting”. For example, Jeremy did learn of the fate of the mother and eldest daughter, actually discovering this in his research. Jeremy also had to find ways to tell essential events in a way that weren’t too graphic and “age appropriate”. A process which included the “writing, rewriting and scrapping and rewriting” of one scene in particular. Other scenes were left in because they had been “imprinted” in the memories of those involved.

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield | Goodreads

The reader sees the close bond between Fritz and his father as they try to help each other and keep hope alive that there will be better days ahead. Fritz And Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield is a powerful historical novel for children aged ten years and over. Returning to my original research, I made new discoveries and found important new insights, unique to the telling of the story in Fritz and Kurt. Fritz’s experiences at the hands of the Vienna Gestapo; the Nazi race scientists who studied the Jewish prisoners, the whole truth about the friends and neighbours who betrayed Fritz and Kurt’s family to the Nazis, Kurt’s struggle to adapt to life in wartime America without his brother and family – these and other details are new in this telling of the story. Hitler and the Nazis marched into Austria with very little opposition. Any that they encountered was swiftly put down. We see how daily life altered rapidly for the brothers who lived with their parents and two sisters. Friends soon became informants to the Nazis. Avenues were sought to send the children to safety but it came too late for Fritz. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing -

Brothers Fritz and Kurt Kleinmann were fifteen and eight respectively when Nazi Germany invaded Austria. In a very short time, the life they had known in Vienna, the ‘before Hitler came’ in Kurt’s words, was destroyed. With so many of their Jewish neighbours, Fritz and his father were taken prisoner and transported to Nazi prison camps, first Buchenwald, then Auschwitz. The family managed to send two of their children abroad – Edith went to England, and Kurt to America, making the long, dangerous journey on his own aged just ten. The greater part of the book however describes what happened to Fritz and his papa, who managed to stay together, Fritz choosing to go with his father to Auschwitz even when he could have stayed in the relatively safer Buchenwald.