Product Description

On 21 July, 1942, the Nazis took control of the small Polish town of Zolkiew, life for Jewish 15-year-old Clara Kramer was never to be the same again. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, Clara and her family hid perilously in a hand-dug bunker. Living in the house above and protecting them were the Becks. Mr. Beck was a womaniser, a drunkard and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life throughout the war to keep his charges safe.Nevertheless, life with Mr. Beck was far from predictable. From the house catching fire, to Beck's affair with Clara's cousin, to the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room just above, Clara's War transports you into the dark, cramped bunker, and sits you next to the families as they hold their breath time and again. Sixty years later, Clara Kramer has created a memoir that is lyrical, dramatic and heartbreakingly compelling. Despite the worst of circumstances, this is a story full of hope and survival, courage and love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46818 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Clara Kramer is now 81 years old. Based in New Jersey, she founded a Holocaust and Prejudice Reduction Center at Kean University which trains 1200 teachers annually. She still gives talks about her experiences regularly.

Customer Reviews

A heart wrenching account of one girls second world war struggle
I started this book on the bus on the way to work and nearly missed my stop as I was so engrossed! Having said that I was so touched and taken aback by what I was reading that I had to put it down for a few hours to have a bit of an emotional rest!! I finished it last night and I really think that's its incredible. Its so beautifully written, in particular I loved the description, this part - "Their lives had been reduced to what could be held in their suitcases. Their faces were blank. They dared not look at the uniformed soldiers with the death's head on their collars who seemed to be everywhere." really stood out to me. The depth of description gives the book such a richness.

It feels like a rollercoaster when you're reading, you really feel like you're living with them in that hell hole of a bunker and celebrating their good fortunes and literally holding your breath when the SS are above them. I started the book preparing to hate Beck but I think that he's almost the most humanised character in the whole book.

This is a really fantastic book and I can not recommend it highly enough, its going to be an important read for my generation to keep the horrors of the war in our consciousness.

A Different Perspective
I've read a lot of books about the Holocaust, but this is the first one I've read that is not centered on a concentration camp. In this case, a young girl, her family, and others from their town are trying to survive in a hidden bunker.

I can't believe that they lived like that for nearly two years, but -- thankfully -- they did survive. This is not like The Diary of Anne Frank...we learn a lot about the family that lives in the house above the bunker, and how they were just as fearful in the end because of the Russians, even though they had saved 18 Jews.

Also, the story doesn't end with the day the family comes out of hiding; the book includes how the following generations of the families were affected. Clara's story was so intense that I actually had nightmares about being in the bunker, while I was reading this book.

Another interesting story of survival is Those Who Save Us.

A dramatic Holocaust testimony
This book contains the true story of a girl and her family as they struggle to survive the Holocaust in Poland. Hidden in a bunker underneath the floorboards of a neighbouring house, the book describes how Clara, her family and friends exist in a tiny cell literally dug from the earth.

The main body of the book follows the period where the group are living within the bunker. There is a short section at the beginning and at the end which describes life for Clara both before and after the war.

Words cannot describe the feelings and emotions these people must have experienced whilst spending so much time beneath the ground depending on the volatile `Beck' and his wife. The presence of diehard Nazis living mere centimetres above their heads must have added a hundred times to the agony and trauma the families lived through.

As one would expect of a Holocaust testimony it is heart rendering and beyond belief. If you usually read such testimonies and experiences from first hand witnesses from the Holocaust period, then this book definitely needs to be in your library.

If you buy this book be prepared for an emotional read.