I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who ­Survived Auschwitz

Gr 3-7–In 1941, at the ages of seven, Eva Mozes Kor and her twin Miriam were already experiencing antisemitism. The small village of Portz on the border between Hungary and Romania was not beyond the grasp of the Third Reich. Kor remembers going to the picture show and watching a movie called, “How to Kill a Jew” where a Jewish father and son were running away from Germans with guns, hunting them for sport. In schools, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a fabricated document about the evils of the Jewish race, was being taught as truth. In 1943, the girls’ father tried to take the family and flee into the night, but it was too late. They were made to be prisoners in their own home. The following year, the Nazis invaded Hungary, and the family was forced to wear the Star of David patches on their clothes. Later, they were transported to Auschwitz. The family was immediately separated, and the twins were taken to Dr. Mengele for experimentation. Eva and Miriam endured starvation, medical experiments, and countless other atrocities. They made it out of Auschwitz when the Soviets liberated their camp, but their lives would never be the same. Many Holocaust books make a passing reference to these twin experiments, but Kor gives readers a firsthand and disturbing account. The narrative flows well and is accessible for middle schoolers. Even though the memoirist is between the ages of seven and ten during most of the work, this is more appropriate for older readers. The gripping story and fast-paced chapters make this a valuable purchase for reluctant readers.