Auslander

by Paul Dowswell

Overview

Cuando sus padres mueren, Peter es enviado a un orfanato de Varsovia. Pero Peter es un "Volksdeutscher": de sangre alemana. Gracias a sus cabellos rubios y sus ojos azules, parece un perfecto espécimen de las Juventudes Hitlerianas. Alguien importante querrá adoptarlo y así es: lo adoptan. El profesor Kaltenbach y su mujer están encantados de acoger a un ario tan estupendo en su hogar. Serán la envidia de los demás. Pero Peter no es exactamente el espécimen que creyeron. Empieza a desarrollar ideas propias. Peter no quiere ser un nazi, así que correrá un riesgo. El riesgo más peligroso que podía correr en Berlín en 1943.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599907741
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/16/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 - 15 Years

About the Author

PAUL DOWSWELL is a former researcher and editor who now writes full-time. He has written more than fifty highly acclaimed books, many of them award winning.
www.pauldowswell.co.uk

Editorial Reviews

Dowswell presents a familiar portrait of Nazi Germany, but it stands out from a crowded field because of its inclusion of less-familiar elements… The characters are rich and nuanced, flawed people caught up in a terrible time; the action is swift and suspenseful; and the juxtaposition of wartime nobility and wartime cruelty is timeless.” —The Horn Book Magazine

“What it was like to grow up in war-torn Berlin is the core drama here… this is a strong addition to the WWII curriculum.” —Booklist

“This is a different view of Germany during World War II than that usually found in young adult fiction and would provide many discussion points. Highly Recommended.” —Library Media Connection

“An unflinching account of a rarely told side of the Holocaust.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Gr 7 Up—Orphaned when the Soviets invade Poland in 1941, Piotr finds himself in a lice-infested orphanage in Warsaw. Discovered there by the Nazi Race and Settlement Office, the 13-year-old is introduced to a whole new world of possibilities. His classic Nordic features and German heritage make him a prime candidate for adoption into a German family. However, once settled into his new home in Berlin, Peter, as he is now called, begins to realize that the Nazi party wants much more from him than he is willing to give. The ausländer, the foreigner or outsider, must make his own way. Dowswell takes readers on a thrilling, well-researched adventure through assimilation, resistance, and escape in Nazi Germany, weaving in threads of history that Holocaust literature, to this point, has seldom touched upon. Similar to Susan Campbell Bartoletti's Hitler Youth (2005) and The Boy Who Dared (2008, both Scholastic), The Ausländer provides a German teen perspective and delves into the history of the Nazi scientific research programs, particularly eugenics and the race reclamation program. This novel is a superb addition to all collections, combining action-packed adventure with blood-chilling history.—Sara Saxton, Wasilla Meta-Rose Public Library, Wasilla, AK

School Library Journal

When his parents are killed in the 1941 Nazi invasion of Poland, 13-year-old Piotr's life takes an unimaginable turn.

As an ethnic German with Nordic features, he's "racially valuable" to the Nazis, so he is sent by the Race and Settlement Office to Berlin to be raised by a German family. Piotr, renamed Peter, is adopted by a professor whose work with the Genealogical Office of the Reich determines the degree of racial purity of individuals. Peter is required to join the Hitler Youth, where he is as much an outsider as he was at school in Poland. He falls in love with Anna, eventually joining her progressive family's efforts to deliver food to Berlin's remaining Jews. Peter discovers disturbing truths about the Nazi's treatment of children deemed "life unworthy of life" from his sister, just as the professor discovers that his adopted Aryan son had a Jewish grandmother. Fearing forced sterilization, Peter attempts a harrowing escape to Sweden with Anna and her mother. Dowswell's skilled narrative weaves its way through flashbacks and several points of view, building in intensity as Peter grows from a child whose life as an "ausländer," or foreigner, is dictated by chance and circumstance, to a young man whose growing awareness sparks his final, willful act.

An unflinching account of a rarely told side of the Holocaust. (resources, teacher's guide)(Historical fiction. 10–14)

Kirkus Reviews