28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto

by David Safier

Overview

Inspired by true events, David Safier's 28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto is a harrowing historical YA that chronicles the brutality of the Holocaust.

Warsaw, 1942. Sixteen-year old Mira smuggles food into the Ghetto to keep herself and her family alive. When she discovers that the entire Ghetto is to be "liquidated"—killed or "resettled" to concentration camps—she desperately tries to find a way to save her family.

She meets a group of young people who are planning the unthinkable: an uprising against the occupying forces. Mira joins the resistance fighters who, with minimal supplies and weapons, end up holding out for twenty-eight days, longer than anyone had thought possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250821256
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	01/03/2023
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	307,797
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 5.30(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

David Safier is a bestselling German novelist and television writer whose credits include the TV series Berlin, Berlin, for which he was awarded the Adolf Grimme Award and an International Emmy Award for best comedy. He is the author of numerous books published in Germany, but 28 Days is his first young adult novel, and his first novel published in the US. He lives in Berlin.

Editorial Reviews

"Throughout this complex novel, rich in evocative detail, Mira's view evolves from a narrow focus on herself and her family to consideration of the larger community around her, reflected in her first-person narrative."—Booklist, starred review

"The story Safier shares of the 28 days of Jewish resistance after the Aktion in the Warsaw Ghetto is powerful indeed."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

03/01/2020

Gr 9 Up—Mira, a young Jewish woman surviving in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, does whatever she can to keep what's left of her family alive. Her father jumped to his death and her brother secured a spot among the hated Jewish police force, so Mira has only her grief-stricken mother and young sister, Hannah, to care for. After a bold young man saves her life while she's smuggling food from the Polish side of the wall, Mira can't seem to shake him from her mind. Happening upon him again and realizing he's part of the Jewish underground resistance, she refuses his invitation to join the group. But then the Ghetto is liquidated and all its inhabitants are sent to concentration camps. Mira, Hannah, and their mother are able to avoid capture, but how long can they live in the walls? And what will Mira do if she loses those she loves most? The brutality of the Nazi regime is starkly portrayed: Orphans march to their deaths, parents choose to give their children cyanide rather than watch them be murdered by their captors, and there is a particularly triggering scene of attempted rape. Safier also explores the power of stories in buoying people's hopes. Hannah's young sister weaves a tale about the 777 Islands that holds its own narrative thread throughout the novel. Though translations can sometimes lose a little beauty of the original language, the story Safier shares of the 28 days of Jewish resistance after the Aktion in the Warsaw Ghetto is powerful indeed. VERDICT A strong first purchase where historical fiction is in demand.—Abby Bussen, Muskego Public Library, WI

School Library Journal