For any middle school or even high school teacher who has to teach about the Holocaust, may I recommend a book from 2008, This very short book would help answer students who ask “How could this happen?” T4: A NOVEL takes today’s reader back to Germany in 1939. Hitler has issued T4 order to kill any mentally or disabled person. The government soon realizes the populace will not allow simply massacring these people. So, they get medical doctors to vouch that the disabled with be compassionately housed in institutions.
This order affects Paula Becker and family. Paula is deaf and thus condemned to die. Her family priest urges her to flee first to a friendly farm where she learns German Sign Language. After several near captures Paula and another escapee, Kurt, flee to the forest. As the war winds down Paula makes it back home, and Kurt, having no family left, joins her.
This is a novel in verse making the reading very very quick. But no matter how fast it is consumed, the emotional effect is outstanding. The reader develops keen hearing as he/she awaits the sounds of the Gestapo trying to capture Paula. Remarkable in its simplicity and brevity and a glimpse at the lives of the German people during this horrific period of history.
Novel, hardcover, available now.