The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi

Bascomb, Neal. The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi . Scholastic, 2013. 256pp. Lexile 1000.

 In 1960, six agents from Israel's Mossad intelligence operations tracked down and captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who had orchestrated the deaths of millions of Jews.  This adaptation of Hunting Eichmann, the author's book for adults, conveys the story in context with intriguing details and well-chosen quotations from primary sources.  Eichmann was living in Argentina, a country not likely to facilitate the capture, so the agents worked secretly.  After verifying the identity of Eichmann, who was working in a factory, the Mossad agents carefully put their plan into action.  Each of the agents on the team had a strength--languages, falsifying documents, building secret compartments.  Most of them had relatives killed in the Holocaust, which gave the mission an unusual level of meaning, knowing they'd meet one of the men responsible for their loss.  Without fictionalizing, this reads like a spy novel but one with a deep emotional impact. 

Reading Std #3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.  The author does a good job of building suspense throughout the story, even for the reader who knows at the beginning what will happen to Eichmann.  Have students analyze the text to see how the author creates tension in the reader through the pacing.  How does he use structure and language to speed up and slow down the pace?  How does this compare to techniques used to create suspense in fiction?

His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg: Courage, Rescue, and Mystery During World War II

 Borden, Louise. His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg: Courage, Rescue, and Mystery During World War II. Houghton, 2012. 136pp. Lexile 1080.

As a Swedish diplomat in Hungary during World War II, Raoul Wallenberg saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews with documents that he and his staff printed. This accessible biography, which uses a verse format, starts with Wallenberg's childhood, goes on to his student days at the University of Michigan and then his career as an international businessman. Many aspects of his life, such as his facility with languages and his business experience with Germans, worked to make him remarkably effective in his dangerous mission. His enormous courage and desire to do something meaningful were key as well, making it all the more heartbreaking that he disappeared when the Russians entered Hungary and his life ended in a Russian prison. Borden discusses the attempts of family members to uncover the mystery of what happened to him. An attractive, open design makes the most of photographs and artifacts from the life and work of this hero. Bibliography, resources, and index.

Reading Std #5: Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and/or larger portions of the text relate to each other and the whole. Biographies in verse are unusual.  Have students analyze why the author used verse, what it added, and its overall effect on the story.

Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust

Thomson, Ruth. Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust. 2011. 64pp. Lexile: 980.

In this powerful, heartbreaking book, Thomson brings together short quotes from children, teens, and adults who were prisoners at Terezin (also called Theresienstadt), a Nazi concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.  Of the 15,000 children held there over the years, fewer than 100 survived.  The author draws on memoirs and oral histories of survivors, and journals from the time that were hidden.  An extensive cache of artwork was smuggled out, some of which is reproduced here to great effect.  Many scholars, artists, musicians, and writers were at Terezin, where they managed to teach children and organize performances.  One of the horrors is that the Nazis used Terezin as an example of how humanely they treated prisoners, “beautifying” it for Red Cross visitors and making a propaganda film about it.  The excellent book design offers short chapters, many quotes, and remarkable art.  Back matter includes a timeline, glossary, sources, and recommended websites.

Speech/drama tie-in   This presents many short first-person excerpts of children, teens, and children, which would lend themselves to oral presentation with students taking on the different voices.