"Alex longed to return to Poland and to find his mother and his sister, Nikkita. He wanted to feel the sun shining on his face and the grass under his feet again."
 |
Tears in the Rain by Dina Andrews Trafford Publishing
book review by Dylan Ward
In the year 1944, young Alex is taken out of hiding from the British island of Jersey and smuggled across the borders back to Poland. Aided by his friend, Heiniek, their lives are in great danger as they traverse through war-torn Europe. They meet and join with a rebel group known as the Batalony Cholopske, where Alex befriends a young girl named, Ania. Both have lost their families and encourage one another with the hope that they will find their families again. But it is in Aushwitz that terrible truths come to light and everyone faces the horrific scars of the war.
As Alex experiences hardships and heartache, he holds steadfastly to the memory of his mother and sister as a means of survival while traveling to find them. Gradually the stories emerge of the survivors and the victims of the war, but it is not until Aushwitz that Alex has an awakening, recognizing that the will to survive was far greater for the Jews imprisoned there. The reader senses Alex's despair when he sees Auwshitz for the first time at the gates of the ghetto, his hope of finding his family nearly lost.
Alex gasped as Ania led him to the gates, "What is that?" he asked, pointing to the wall. "But it's shaped like gravestones!"
"Yes, built to remind those of us trapped behind it that the only way out is death."
While Dina Andrews' novel is intended for a younger audience, adult readers will appreciate her effort to tackle a difficult subject in such a way that young readers can understand the enormity of the Holocaust. One can also appreciate Andrews' own struggle with a brain tumor, while researching and writing her second novel, and she managed to travel to Germany to see and experience first hand the concentration camps. And it is through Alex's eyes that her insight of the Holocaust is revealed as he experiences a time in history that can never, and should never, be repeated.