A Family Secret [Paperback]

While searching his grandmother's attic for likely items to sell at a yard sale, Jeroen finds a photo album that brings back hard memories for his grandmother, Helena. Helena tells Jeroen for the first time about her experiences during the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War, and mourns the loss of her Jewish best friend, Esther. Helena believes that her own father, a policeman and Nazi sympathizer, delivered Esther to the Nazis and that she died in a concentration camp. But after hearing her story, Jeroen makes a discovery and Helena realizes that her father kept an important secret from her.

1. Helena's narrative begins with the meeting of her

new neighbor Esther, a Jewish girl from Germany

who gives a brief history of the Nazi rise to power.

What was Kristallnacht? How did it affect the average

German? How was it portrayed outside of Germany?

Find newspaper accounts of that time using

http://news.google.com/archivesearch

2. The Nazis needed collaborators to carry out their

goals. What would have influenced someone to become

a Nazi collaborator? What factors would have

encouraged someone to join the Resistance?

3. After the Nazi takeover of Holland, there were

deep divisions in Helena's family regarding resistance

and collaboration. What was Helena's father's

decision, as depicted on page 16? Would you have

been supportive of such a decision?

4. What actions did the Dutch people take to resist

the Nazi occupation? What was the price of resistance

during the war? Was it worth the risk? Imagine

your school principal has just established a new policy

that everyone must attend Saturday morning

classes. Discuss with your classmates the likelihood

of everyone going along with it. Break into groups

to determine the actions to take.

5. The Nazis abolished some human rights in every

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