Lucy McElroy - Prisoner B-3087 & Adolescents' Holocaust Education

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“It made me cry” pretty much sums up my experience with Prisoner B-3087. I felt such a strong connection with Yanek throughout the novel, which is due mainly to its fast-paced style keeping me enticed. By page five, the German army had reached Kraków, Yanek’s city in Poland, and I was hooked from there. It’s the epitome of a page-turner. The way it’s written makes the situations straightforward and easy to understand, which is something that will draw young readers’ attentions.

Alan Gratz does a wonderful job of writing so that an adolescent audience can become educated on the Holocaust. Adolescent readers can empathize with an adolescent victim. It seems that he establishes a strong connection with American adolescents specifically, as Yanek frequently says things at the beginning of the novel like, “Maybe one day I would go to America and work in the movies” (5). I questioned this when I began reading – why is Yanek so interested in the American culture? My question was answered at the end of the novel, when the Americans free Yanek from the Dachau camp. It’s then that he cries, “It’s the Americans!”, relieved that he will regain his humanity that he’d lost for six years (243-244).

It’s still hard to imagine the horrors of concentration camps and the inhumane treatment of so many groups of people, even after years and years of education and readings on the Holocaust. It’s even harder for adolescents who haven’t had as much insight into the brutalities of the Nazi reign to fully grasp that this was a real event in our history. Each piece of Holocaust literature contains new experiences. Yanek asks, “Would anyone who hadn’t survived what we had survived understand?”, and answers himself in the same thought, “…no one who had not been there would ever truly understand” (250-251). While we’ll never feel what the millions of Jewish Holocaust victims endured, it’s important to try and to be educated on the topic. I feel that Prisoner B-3087 will pique young readers’ interest in the Holocaust, provide a foundation for their education on the Holocaust, and perhaps even encourage further research on their own.

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Photo in graphic is "Child Survivors of Auschwitz" from Wikimedia Commons - Creative Commons Licensed for Adaptation; 
Graphic quote from Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz, page 250.

Comments

  1. Ms LopezOctober 24, 2016 at 8:04 PM

    I have to agree with Yanek that anyone who hasn't been through something similar will never understand. They suffered so intensely and trying to wrap my head around it is almost impossible. But there are so many images and so many stories behind them that will always stay with me.
    I do think Yanek's story is a valuable starting point for students to learn about the holocaust

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 24, 2016 at 8:06 PM

    I like the use of the image in your post. It is very powerful.

    ReplyDelete

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