Poet Janeczko (Worlds Afire) imagines life inside a Czech concentration camp in this collection of grim but forceful poems, written from the perspectives of fictionalized prisoners (with the exception of one "found” poem from a real-life inmate's journal), as well as their persecutors. Actual b&w sketches by prisoners that were recovered from the camp are also woven throughout. Janeczko allows his subjects to express their despair, confusion, and rage with unvarnished clarity. A musician, Anna Teller, acerbically describes how the Nazis permitted the prisoners to play music, wanting "the world to see/ the civilized and charming ghetto/ Hitler gave the Jews.” Another prisoner envisions seeking revenge for the murder of a loved one: "I would like to feed him my Sarah's ashes/ one spoonful after another/ without pause/ until he could no longer breathe.” Janeczko offers no easy explanations or closure where none can be found, but his powerful collection points to the troubling dual role that the arts played at Terezín—both as a chilling form of propaganda used by Nazis and an undeniable source of respite for their victims. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)
Nakedly stark accounts of circumstances unimaginable to most people today outside the pages of powerful writing like Janeczko's. Somewhat disturbing imagery makes this book most suitable for mature readers, but its intimate glimpses of life inside the Holocaust will likely rank it among the most worthwhile teen reads for years to come.
—Library Media Connection (starred review)
Janeczko draws on factual records to imagine fictional characters, who narrate each poem in this searing collection. The inmates speak in spare, accessible free verse, and the plain words contrast with the enormity of their personal heartbreak, cruelty, and loss. ...Together, the images and the poems capture unforgettable truths
—Booklist
The tragedy and inhumanity of the Terezín ghetto come to life in this powerful collection.The vivid poems, all but one written by fictional inmates, their Nazi oppressors, and local residents, reverberate with suffering, fear, resignation, despair, courage, and unspeakable brutality.
—School Library Journal
Verses are spare and accessible, filled with crushing historical weight; the first-person approach will make the entries particularly compelling as readers theater or readalouds.
—Bulletin of the Center of Children's Books
Grim but forceful poems....Janeczko offers no easy explanations or closure where none can be found, but his powerful collection points to the troubling dual role that the arts played at Terezín—both as a chilling form of propaganda used by Nazis and an undeniable source of respite for their victims.
—Publishers Weekly
REQUIEM depicts life in the Czechoslovakian concentration camp from 1941 to its liberation... In thirty-six sparse, free-verse poems, Janeczko uses different characters to tell the same stories... Putting these poems next to each other makes each more powerful.
—VOYA
In haunting poems, Janeczko lays bare the strength, hope, and despair of those imprisoned at Terezin during the Holocaust... Readers are filled with a growing sense of sadness and anger; yet the works sing of the humanity and bravery of those who lived and died at Terezin.
—Horn Book
Janeczko's poetry makes us feel what should not be forgotten.
—Chicago Tribune
Gr 8 Up—The tragedy and inhumanity of the Terezín ghetto come to life in this powerful collection. The vivid poems, all but one written by fictional inmates, their Nazi oppressors, and local residents, reverberate with suffering, fear, resignation, despair, courage, and unspeakable brutality. In 1941 the ghetto was created as a collection and transport camp for Jews and was later touted as an arts facility to fool the Red Cross inspectors into believing that this was a benign setting to nurture artistic expression. In the one found poem, Valter Eisinger/11956 asks his wife to find another companion if he were to be killed. He died in Buchenwald in 1945. Children's fears of separation and the indignities of daily life spent in filthy and unhealthy conditions cry out from these sensitively written poems, which are given depth and veracity by Janezcko's research. There are even glimpses of suppressed compassion toward the inmates felt by the Nazis. Illustrations discovered after the war and done by actual inmates are interspersed with the poetry. Some are chilling renditions of the horrific prison life while others recall aspects of the life left behind. The faces in one illustration seem to scream out in terror, reminiscent of The Scream by Edvard Munch. An afterword, author's notes, translations of foreign words, an extensive bibliography, and a list of websites are appended. Reading this along with Hana Volavkova's I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terezín Concentration Camp (Schocken, 1978) creates an in-depth picture of the perversity of the Nazi's Final Solution.—Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ
A harrowing poetic evocation of the infamous concentration camp.
Though this award-winning poet has combed the bright expanse of the poetic spectrum, dabbling in lighter subjects and forms (A Foot in the Mouth, 2009, etc.), here Janeczko returns to a dark historic moment where artists met unspeakable tragedy, not unlike his poetic exploration of the 1944 Hartford, Conn., circus fire that claimed over 150 lives (Worlds Afire, 2007). He tells the grim tale of Terezín, the Czechoslovakian town transformed by the Nazis in 1941 into Ghetto Theresienstadt, a temporary way station for Jewish artists and intellectuals herded from Prague en route to the gas chambers. Estimating 35,000 perished in Terezín, Janeczko creates over 30 poems loosely representative of the experience of the 140,000-some European Jews who passed through the camp prior to its liberation by Russia in 1945. Drawing on research and haunting illustrations from Terezín inmates, Janeczko effectively portrays the graphic horror of such twisted incarceration from the perspective of both captive and captor. For example, imprisoned young Miklos' admission, "I am fragile / with fear," starkly contrasts that of SS Captain Bruno Krueger, who seems to savor describing an execution: "I ordered my Jews closer. / Close enough to hear / the twig snap of his neck."
Moving and brutal, a poetic remembrance of a tragedy too vast to forget. (Poetry. 14 & up)
