My Real Name is Hanna
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Reviews for My Real Name is Hanna
11 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5‘’As good as life looks now to us young children, there is still a sense of always looking over your shoulder for something to hit you.’’ This is one of the most beautiful books of the year. Based on the true story of a Jewish family living in Ukraine during the darkest period in History, the Second World War, it is a story of fear and struggle for survival, a fight for dignity and hope that refuse to be persecuted and die. Through the eyes of Hanna, a 14-year-old girl, we find ourselves in the beautiful, haunting Ukrainian forests in a time, when the dark clouds of fascism have covered the world.Hanna’s land becomes a trapped, helpless animal in the hands of the worst powers in European History, the Nazis and the Soviets. Under Stalin, every religion is forbidden. A good, useful member of the ‘’community’’ is made to show obedience to the State. Exclusively. Nothing else is sacred. There is no way out for the people and strife leads them to believe that the Nazis will be able to make things better. So, on the one side, Hitler is waiting. On the other, Stalin is in power. The country is trapped between two insane tyrants.The dark atmosphere is interrupted by the beautiful descriptions of a nature that is both mesmerizing and unsettling. It will soon be destroyed by the black boots of demons. It was a relief and a joy to read about the traditions, the customs, the prayers of the Jewish community. The folktales shared by grandmothers and mothers to the new generations, tales of courage that help them stand as bravely as they can. There are also extensive references to the pagan traditions of the land, before the coming of Christianity, particularly reflected in the Easter customs. Even the nightly forest, dark and full of dangers, holds a certain appeal. Tara Lynn Masih painted a background that is menacing and fascinating.‘’Someday, someone will betray us. For money, for food, for their own lives spared.’’ The worst consequence of war is the way in which communities are torn apart. People who used to live together in peace and understanding become enemies prepared to jump at their neighbour’s throat. There is a particularly striking scene in which an old poster of Stalin is covered by a brand new poster of Hitler. For me, it was the saddest moment in the story, showing the lack of any kind of escape for the citizens. Another memorable moment -out of many- is the sequence of atrocities carried out as the immortal creations of Bach and Beethoven are echoing like a soundtrack from Hell. I don’t know whether this is historically accurate but it definitely makes you wonder how war destroys every sense of beauty and dignity and kindness in enemies and victims alike.‘’Home is where you are safe.’’ Masih does a wonderful job in creating a claustrophobic, threatening atmosphere throughout the story. The nightmare of living in constant fear, waiting for that knock on the door that will lead you to Hell. The prejudice, the deliberate spreading of hostility against innocent people, how Populism always finds the soil to grow when the economic situation is shaky and no country is immune to this vile disease.In my opinion, this novel is on par with Between Shades of Gray. Perhaps, even better. The characters are extremely well-written and the writer didn’t resort to overtly violent descriptions for shock value. There is violence and cruelty but in a way that isn’t gory. There is no need for over-the-top descriptions. We all know what happened. We all know what war brings, even the fortunate generations that had no first-hand experience of what war really means. Still, there is hope. Every war eventually ends and nations that once were enemies now work together for peace and prosperity. This is how it should be. History should help us remember so as not to repeat the wrongs of the past. It isn’t there to prolong enmities between countries for all eternity. This is the only way to create some kind of sense in this tortured world….Many thanks to Mandel Vilar Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5STRUGGLE AND SURVIVAL in the Ukraine. Due to shifting borders, Hanna and her family, have been considered, Poles, Austrisns and Ukrainians. Changing tides once again threaten as the Germans are heading their way. As a Jewish family they are close, and close to many of their non Jewish neighbors. It is time though for them to go into hiding, as their village is to become Jewish free, as news reaches them of what is happening to the Jews who are taken. Meant for. YA audience, the violence is there but tampered down a bit, not all horrors written. Enjoyed the format of this, as a grown woman and mother, Hanna tells her story of the time, the years, her family and others had to hide. Based on an actual family and their experiences makes this even more poignant. The author did a wonderful job staying true to the thoughts and feelings of a fourteen years old girl. I loved the characters Alla, a non Jewish woman who comes to their aid in many ways, as do a few other at great risk to themselves. Of course more turned away or reported than tried to help. The closeness and love, faith shown by this family was beautiful admidst horrific times.The authors note makes clear how well researched this book was, and explained more of the historic events in this region. It also tells what is fact, what it was based on, and what was fiction. All very well done. A good book for young adults to read as an important introduction to the Holocaust.ARC from Netgalley.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is filled with adventure. It is really interesting and I highly recommend reading it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/54.5 starsI found this story harrowing from close to the start, even though some of the descriptions of the worst atrocities were left out, as this is primarily a book for young adults. I see no reasons why the vast majority of adults interested in this type of story wouldn’t thoroughly enjoy it as much as teens will. It’s for both adults and young adults.Characters came vividly to life and I loved them, Hanna in particular. But others too. Alla was also particularly wonderful. It surprised me by how little I was annoyed by the characters’ superstitions and how much religion held a place in their lives. Jewish and Christian. Superstitions usually drive me nuts, particularly when they are unthinkingly accepted as they are here, but in this particular story they fit the characters in this time and place and cultures and backgrounds and I could enjoy the narrative without it bothering me at all, and I even found the details interesting. Fascinating actually and I learned a lot. I loved how so attuned to nature/the natural world Hanna and Alla and some others are. And the descriptions of the natural world are marvelous.The chapters are incredibly long and there are only a few. There were some good stopping points within chapters though and I did often stop at them. There is a personal note from the author at the end: “A Historical Note” that is wonderful, and informative. I’ve already reserved the DVD of the documentary No Place on Earth which was a main inspiration for this book and plan to read some books to read from the ones mentioned in this note. I see that at least four of the books from the notes & the acknowledgments section are already on my to read shelf. Anyway, this author’s historical note and also her acknowledgments section made me really like the author and appreciate even more how she brought this story to light.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Many thanks to Netgalley, Mandel Vilar Press and Tara Lynn Masih for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advanced copy.First and foremost, I want to say that for the subject matter alone, this should get 5 stars. This is an account of a fictional character’s experience during the Holocaust. It is loosely based on the story of a real person, Esther Stermer, her extended family and four other families. If interested, there is a documentary film called “No Place on Earth” that relates the true story of what happened. I believe reading, hearing, listening to Holocaust stories are of the utmost importance. Documenting these first hand accounts are crucial as these survivors will soon no longer be with us to tell their stories. Masih relates this story in a way that is an appropriate entry point for children, or young adults, because it doesn’t get into the horrific details of what happened during that time. There are no concentration camps in this story. You do, however, get to know Hanna as a child, see how her life was like before the war contrasted against what she had to endure over years.It was difficult to read this copy of the book because of the state I received it in. That can sometimes happen with ARC’s, there can be grammatical errors, certain parts may be rewritten, it is in an unfinished state. I had not yet received one in the condition this book was in, so it affected the reading for me. There were sentences that were dropped, left unfinished, paragraphs weren’t split where they should have been and extra text was inserted in each paragraph that didn’t belong there. Regardless, I believe it will be outstanding, once the completed version is released.The story is told from 14 yr. old. Hanna’s perspective, from what I can tell it has an almost testimonial feel, an admission of what happened to her as a child. You can feel the raw emotion underneath her words and how difficult it is for her to talk about her experience. This is a matter of fact telling from a little girl who had to be so brave, with no drama. But because of the stark way the story is told, it juxtaposes how horrible it must have been. There is no way you can not be moved by what happened. You can feel her hunger pangs. You will wonder how people could do this to each other? You can appreciate how much the smallest kindness can mean to people who are fighting for their lives. As a teacher, this story is rich in lessons for students to learn from, many entry points for the child in to this story. This is something I will use and I strongly recommend.Hanna lives in a rural town in the Ukraine, on a farm with her family. She is the eldest of three, with a brother and a sister, both of whom she loves dearly. Her family are observant Jews and she learns the traditions and the meaning behind them from both her father and her mother. She has friends and goes to school. They are not rich, but they do not want for anything. Birthdays are special and Hanna feels loved, safe and secure. Things change slowly, but they don’t fear because they have been taken over by the Russians, so now it is the Germans, it happens. They live in a remote village, so sometimes war doesn’t reach them, but of course this time it does. They don’t always hear the latest news, or realize where the trains are taking people, or what the smoke means, until they do. Food becomes scarce, they can no longer go to school, but it is not the first time their parents have had to scrimp and go hungry. Until this time it is different. Until it is too late to leave the country, until they are forced out of their homes. Hiding in the forest, it seems like things couldn’t possible get worse. Until they have to live in a cave. Of course, there is much more to the story. But it is important to hear it in Hanna’s words.The most important thing is that they did survive the unthinkable. In the face of evil, they triumphed. They eventually left their home, but they continued to live and prospered. The human spirit is truly remarkable.
Book preview
My Real Name is Hanna - Tara Lynn Masih
The Shtetele
MAY 1941—OCTOBER 1942
—COPIED BY HANNA SLIVKA FROM IN DOMREMY,
CHAPTER V
LEEBA AND I LINK arms together, clutching each other for courage as we make the long walk home from school. We are being followed.
For the third day in a row, they throw rocks at us. Zhidovki! Zhidovki! Zhidovki!
they chant over and over. We keep our heads down and try not to flinch when the sharp rocks sting our skin, and the word—that terrible word for Jews—stings our hearts. But today, as we try to get far away from the three boys, we hear other curses in Russian and Ukrainian, and look back to see our brother, Symon. He is using his sling shot to shoot them right back with their own mean weapons, hitting each of them within seconds.
They run off.
Symon tells us he was following us quietly, out of sight, after Leeba had come home crying the day before, and he had seen me blustering about the sheep pens, kicking the weathered gray wood posts and muttering about what I would like to do to the three bullies.
Symon brags a lot. He likes to put his thumbs under his suspenders and lord it about the farm. But Leeba and I don’t care. We know that under all the bragging, he has a good heart. We know he will always stand up for us.
In these early days, before the war days, life as a very young child in Kwasova is good and simple. We love the festivals that take place in our shtetele, and the daily rituals, tasks, and prayer time. It is a settled life for us all, but you can see it isn’t perfect.
What life with human beings ever is?
In Kwasova, we are part of a Jewish community in a small town made up of Galician people who were originally Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian. The name Ukraine
means borderland,
and our country’s borders keep changing. Our government keeps changing. Papa says it is because Ukraine has no natural defenses—our land is too flat.
Because of this flat land, and because we grow so much food and because rulers want our rich soil, we are at different periods in history Ukrainian citizens, then Austrian, then Polish.
We are Polish on September 1, 1939, when Hitler invades from the west, with thousands of tanks on land and planes overhead. A week after Rosh Hashanah, the Red Army marches into Kwasova from the east, singing folk songs and speaking Ukrainian, and holding off the German advance … and we are suddenly Russian Ukrainians, forced to pledge our allegiance to Comrade Josef Stalin. A new border is made down the middle of Poland.
The Russian flag, solid red with its hammer and sickle and star, now has replaced the Polish red and white one. Some storekeepers, too cheap to pay for a new flag, ripped the white bar off the top of their Polish flags and hung the bottom red bar. The flags flap around, tattered, making the shtetele look a little run down. Street signs with well-known Polish names on them are taken down.
Mama and Papa work hard to help us understand each new law, even those that try to erase our Jewish heritage. They try to keep us proud of who we are, even when we are sometimes called names.
When my parents first arrived over the border in 1927, the people of Kwasova befriended them. After all, our Ashkenazi ancestors have been on this land for almost a thousand years. And in this small, isolated valley, Jews lived side by side for hundreds of years with farmers and villagers and townspeople, even on the same street. There is no di Yidishe gas, no separate Jewish quarter, as there is in some towns. We even share the Ukrainian Community Hall for our Jewish dances and parties.
But a small group of Poles and Russians still view us as zhidy, people to be ridiculed or avoided, like the Romani gypsies who are scattered across the borderlands. And their boys taunt us. So we are wary but somewhat thankful that Comrade Stalin took over our part of the country. We hear his Red Army is holding off Adolf Hitler, Führer of Germany, from invading. And the Russians are letting us children go to school for free. Polish children, now under German rule over the new border, have to quit after the fourth year because Hitler thinks they only need to learn how to do simple sums and be dutiful. We know better.
I do start to notice that some Kwasovians have disappeared from around our valley (the Polish school headmaster, the Russian Orthodox priest, a Ukrainian farmer we trade with), but when I ask, Mama and Papa always have a good reason for their absence. They do not tell us about the enormous taxes being levied on them. Or of the consequences of practicing our religion. They just tell us we must do so more quietly.
As good as life looks now to a young child, there is still a sense of always looking over your shoulder for something to hit you.
Spring is my favorite time in the lower steppe lands. The world becomes green again. A new green, a baby green. It glows against the chernozem, the black soil that gets turned over for crops. The valley is a patchwork of furrows at different angles, all ready for the seeds to be sown—wheat, sunflowers, sugar beets, barley, oats, rye, millet, buckwheat, rice, corn, cabbage—and for the potato spuds to be planted. Breezes in Kwasova are gentle. Rivers flow high and swiftly south to meet up with the Black Sea. Farmers get ready to graze their cattle and sheep on the grasslands on the outer skirts of the fields.
Beyond the fields, where new green wheat moves like water waves in wind, patches of woodlands rise up. Beyond those—smoky blue mountains I’ll never get to. They send down hot winds in summer, and cold winds in winter.
In the spring, as Mama cleans the house and prepares the kitchen for Passover, I help deliver to Kwasovians some of the pysanky eggs my neighbor, Mrs. Petrovich, makes. They sit safely in my willow basket, cuddled by dry meadow grass and hidden under a linen. The eggs are full but fragile. Mrs. Petrovich dyes these shells, with my help, for her Christian clients, who give them to friends and family at Easter celebrations and put them in bowls on their kitchen tables to ward off evil.
On the way to drop them off, I walk by gardens blooming with lavender lilacs hanging heavy on their stems and buzzing with many gathering bees. The lilacs also grow along roadsides, on the top side of drainage ditches. I breathe in heavily the whole way. Blue barn swallows soar in the air, catching insects. They follow the ploughs churning up the soil, chasing more food. White storks, with their black bellies, build nests on cottage roofs. They gather branches and grass on top of the brick chimneys.
The fruit trees in our backyard blossom with papery-fine white petals, and baby blue and pink forget-me-nots grow wild, everywhere. Primroses and yellow kingcups and white clover pop up in the furrows of the planted fields. Red poppies wave their bright little heads amidst green grass.
Spring starts to feel different, however, in April 1940. We still wake up to the Polish Catholic church bells ringing far and wide in cool new air, the sound no longer muffled by snow and cold. But when we prepare for Passover by throwing out grains, corn, and beans (we are not allowed by custom to eat leavened bread, or chametz or kitniyot), we now have to hide what we are doing from the Russians. Even the Catholics have to hide their pysanky. Comrade Stalin does not like religion.
I take the heavy sack of grain up the back hill behind our home because its contents must be removed from the house and placed far away for seven days. I place the sack in a barrel under some bushes (we cannot afford to burn any food in these times, as we have on other Passovers). Then I stand and look over the valley and watch the smoke plumes from nearby cattle trains rise straight up into cloudless blue skies.
How would I know as a child that some of those cattle cars are filled with many Polish prisoners heading to Siberian gulags? The trains do not stop in Kwasova.
And I do not hear the bombs dropping in Paris. All I see, at this point in time, is the beauty of those puffing plumes. I watch the smoke reshape its storm cloud form, over and over, while I stand on the hill. The hill is the highest point in town.
Symon loves to follow Fedir Wolinski, the Polish lamplighter, during his nightly rounds. Our town has no wired electricity yet, just some generators in the town halls that the NKVD, or Soviet police officers, confiscated to run their communication systems and propaganda films. Full electricity is only in the larger towns, or in cities like Lwów and Kiev. That means we need a lamplighter. Fedir the Lamplighter, we call him.
The lamplighter carries a wooden ladder and pole with a wick on the end to light the kerosene lamps on their sturdy metal poles. Most of the lights are scattered closer to the shtetele center, so we wander in toward the main square when we don’t have schoolwork. We kick stones along the way, crossing over the small bridges that cover the drainage ditches that criss-cross Kwasova.
My little lamplighter,
Fedir says from atop his ladder, and climbs down. The ladder is only used when he needs to trim a wick or refill the oil. If a lamp is full, he hands Symon the long pole with the lit wick at the end for lighting. Symon, at eight, is big enough now that he no longer needs help to reach the lamp wick. With a look of pure purpose on his face, he guides the pole to the lamp till it catches, and the lamplight spills out and cuts into the dark that seeps around us. It bathes his little face. His blond hair glows.
When it gets late, the NKVD officers, smoking and laughing, start to leave the tavern. We are in danger of missing curfew, so Fedir the Lamplighter gives Symon a gentle nudge back in the direction of home.
Get you to bed now, young Symon.
We rush back, trying to stay a step ahead of punishment.
The puddles of rain and daily wash water reflect the glowing yellow glass orbs our brother lit, tiny nighttime suns in the dusty path of the road that leads home.
Spring is also the time of the annual Shepherd’s Parade. But the last one our shtetele holds is in 1941. Papa and others have to convince the Russians we can have it.
Papa is a smart man, as Mama loves to say when he does something that makes her proud of him. She tugs on his wiry black beard and calls him a yidishn kop. He makes sure he is on friendly terms with Commissar Egorov, who heads the small group of NKVD officers now stationed in the town hall. The NKVD search for rebellious partisan fighters who hide in the forests, and for Polish nationalists who give them trouble. They are trying to Sovietize
us, as our teachers say.
Papa has two jobs. He is a sheepherder. He inherited the sheep when he bought the land we live on, and he decided to keep them. Symon loves the sheep, gives them belly rubs, and loves the large shaggy sheepdog, Ovid, that herds them.
Papa’s second job is to fix things. He fixes the Russians’ old, broken-down army trucks when no one else can. Because the Russians need him, they listen to him. When the local farmers come to him, asking him to help them petition the Russians to allow them to hold their annual parade, which the Russians banned because they see it as a religious event, he joins them to convince the commissar it is a community celebration that could be held in honor of Comrade Stalin.
It works.
Papa assigns Leeba the task of sewing a long red banner from cloth that the commissar’s wife is to bring from Russia. Because we have to wait for the wife and the cloth, the parade is moved to June, rather than being held in the traditional month of May.
JUNE 22, 1941—
We are excited when parade day finally arrives. Papa leaves early to get his wagon decorated. I help Mama prepare a Sunday breakfast of plain blinis by mixing the wheat flour batter. We rarely get the sugar and potted cream anymore that she used to serve with them, before the Russians came. The Red Army, which had marched into town as ragged, hungry soldiers, smelling of alcohol and singing, ate most of our food and drank most of our liquor. They left us with little, and the shopkeepers are still having trouble replacing their wares. Food on the shelves is stale, the salt dirty, the matches cheap and hard to light.
Mama makes sure Symon always gets extra food. He is a growing boy,
she says, and my sister and I kick him under the table to tease him. Symon kicks back.
When will I be able to ride in the wagon?
he asks.
The parade is a formal march of sheep and cattle herders, and only those old enough to herd get to ride in it.
"Let me see, you are nine years old, my babka. You still have a few years left in primary school before you can go out into the grasslands alone. Don’t be in such a rush," Mama says. She waves a forkful of blini at him. School is better. Out there, nothing to stretch your mind. Just wind and grass and smelly sheep.
Papa used to sell the sheep’s wool directly to local wool mills and milliners, and sometimes lambs to the local Jewish butcher. Osip the Butcher, we call him. As I said, Papa is also the local repairman. In his barn workshop, he repairs anything that moves, or anything that has stopped and needs to move again—objects like watches, wagon wheels, churns, guns, and animal traps. We have no guns in our home—Papa is against them—but there are those who hunt, and they rely on their firearms to eat. So Papa is considered an important man in town, especially now that he can speak to the commissar. Papa owns a solid brick house on a lane that leads to the grazing meadows, with only one other thatched cottage on that lane. The cottage belongs to Mrs. Petrovich, my friend and employer across the street. She sold her land to Papa when he and Mama moved to Kwasova.
I want to be with smelly sheep,
Symon mutters.
The walk to the center of town is only a mile. The families gather in front of the public square, and someone plays a buben and a few Kwasovians dance. Today, everyone dances together, instead of in their separate community halls, celebrating life renewed. Then someone rings a church bell and the parade starts with the ringing of smaller bells on the horses’ manes and harnesses and on the wood wagons. Down the cobbled street they come, jangling and jingling and prancing, as if the horses know everyone is looking at them. The carts have some prize sheep on them for show, and the few herders who are left, who have not been sent away by the Red Army, wave and yell to those they know. The wagon wheels, cleaned of rust so they will not make noise as they turn, shine in bright sunlight.
Leeba’s banner is held at either end by two pretty girls in embroidered Russian dresses. They march at the front of the parade with serious faces, the same serious way we had seen the Russian soldiers march in their propaganda films, which glow blue on the screen on those nights we are forced to watch them in the town hall.
Mama pats Leeba’s head proudly. Her brown hair is shiny and pulled tightly into two pigtails. Her cheeks are always rosy. My hair is usually a messy blond bob. I reach up and pat it down as it blows in the wind.
Some boys in the crowd whoop and holler. They are wearing hats made of large green squash leaves, to keep the hot sun from burning their fair cheeks and noses. Some men have tucked brilliant-colored rooster feathers into their worn hats to dress them up.
Across the way, I see my friend Leon Stadnick. His face is grim. It is a face I know well. I study it closely