Prisoner B-3087

This was a very well done and intriguing “based on a true story” book about how one boy survives six years bouncing from concentration camp to concentration camp during the Holocaust. My son bought this at a book fair and then gave it to me to read because he loved it so much. While Holocaust books are never fun reads, I am still glad I read it.

This was very different from other Holocaust stories that I have read in that Yanek goes through so many different situations and camps. It's amazing that he survives everything he went through and his will to survive throughout it impressive.

This book is a great read for middle grade and older. The story really drives home the horror and terror of the Holocaust without getting into super show more gory details (the detail is there, it's just not dwelt on).

If I have one complaint about this book it's that it reads a bit dry at times, there's just not much emotion. However, this style works pretty well for this book and I think Yanek's toughness is part of the reason he survives. I also think you would get emotionally numb to horrific things after being exposed to them over and over again.

Overall this is a very well done historical fiction novel about the Holocaust. Definitely a must read especially for those who haven't read much about the Holocaust before. I found it very engaging and easy to read despite the awful things that happened to Yanek. show less

The Nazi atrocities towards anyone they believed to be their inferiors is something that students must continue to learn and study if we hope to avoid something similar in the future. Yet, it is such a tricky subject to approach when children are younger. The need to protect a child’s innocence wars with the need to inform. Often this can result in a story that only hints at what happened, forcing children to infer the truth, if possible, or leaving the tougher questions for their teachers and parents to answer. Alan Gratz’s Prisoner B-3087 is one of the few novels that fully informs but does so without scarring or scaring its young readers.

Geared towards children through grade nine, Prisoner B-3087 is written in such a way that show more readers of all ages can appreciate Yanek’s story and learn varying lessons from it. For those older readers, including adults, the full horrors of Yanek’s experiences are difficult to believe and to stomach. Yet, for younger readers, they will be able to gloss over the more morbid details and focus on Yanek’s personal narrative about keeping his sense of identity and his will to survive. Each element of his story is important and vital for starting discussions, but it allows those discussions to be age-appropriate in a way few novels about the Holocaust are.

This is not to say that Yanek’s narrative is not without its sense of the macabre. No story about the Holocaust can be without discussions of the gas chambers, the chimneys, the starvation, the cattle cars, the humiliation, and the sense of isolation that the Nazis utilized so well. Yanek witnesses and experiences things no one person should ever have to see in his or her life time, and he does not hide those experiences. Yet, as If to ease the emotional turmoil of his story, it is Yanek’s profound sense of identity and his all-encompassing drive to survive upon which a reader focuses his attention. It is this desire to live which leaves a reader filled with hope rather than despair.

One grows up learning about the atrocities of various concentration camps – Birkenau, Bergin-Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz, and too many more to name. The thought of someone surviving one of those locations is difficult to imagine, but to have survived living in ten different labor and death camps is unfathomable, which makes Yanek’s story so effective. If anyone has a complete understanding of the Nazi methodology and mindset, it would be someone who understood how to play their games and did so to survive almost unbeatable odds. Even though Mr. Gratz mentions that there is a fictional element behind his tale, Yanek’s story is still one of profound courage and strength of mind. The facts remain that Yanek Gruener survived not only the Krakow ghetto, he survived not one but two death marches, multiple journeys by overcrowded cattle car, labor camps, death camps, sadistic camp commandants, fellow prisoners, total starvation, and the mental and physical games the Nazis employed to further subjugate their prisoners. He not only survived but continues to share his story with others as a lesson in fortitude and human depravity. This is ultimately what makes Prisoner B-3087 so effective for readers of any age. show less

My son was assigned to read this toward the end of the school year when he was in 8th grade. He had spoken about it two or three times, which lead me to believe he truly did read it, rather than just skimming enough to get along in class. So I told him I'd read it when he was done. I'm a little surprised at how graphic it was, for middle-school kids to read--but at the tame time, I'm pleased that they're not being sheltered from the truth. These things truly happened, and we all have a responsibility to learn our history, so that we don't repeat it.

The story was very well-told, very well-written, and it went very quickly for me. I was finished with it in a matter of days, which (for me) is pretty fast.

The book won my state's annual show more youth literature award in 2014-15. It was well-deserved! show less

Yanek Gruener is 10 when the Nazis come to occupy his hometown of Krakow, Poland. Slowly but steadily over the next two years the Nazis strip the Jews of rights, close their shops, steal their valuables, until finally sending them off to the dreaded "relocation centers" or concentration camps. Over the next four years, Yanek is shuffled between 10 concentration camps. He is starved, beaten, separated from loved ones, and worked almost to death; but still he survives. This harrowing tale gives the readers a first hand look at horrors no person, let alone child should endure; based on the true story of Jack Gruener.

Like the previous novels, this read was absolutely heartbreaking but infused with a strength and resilience that is show more undeniable. I found another strong character in Yanek, facing not only the brutal fight to survive in what is arguably the most horrific experience in modern history, but the battles he wages with himself between keeping and loosing his own humanity in his fight to survive. Gratz's ability to depict such harsh subject matter in a way which is so layered and nuanced with other important lessons is truly remarkable, making his reads that much more powerful.

Gratz is for sure on my auto-buy list, and I HIGHLY recommend you do the same! show less

If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more. I wouldn't have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath, or going to bed at eight o'clock every night. I would have played more. Laughed more. I would have hugged my parents and told them I loved them. But I was ten years old, and I had no idea of the nightmare that was to come. None of us did.

Had a great discussion with book club students about Yanek's journey during the Holocaust. He just went from ghetto to camp to camp to death march to camp on his quest to survive the Nazis. The story is compelling and based on the story of a survivor. The journey is harrowing and Yanek at times waffles between wanting to survive and wanting it to end.
A moving story about a boy's ordeals during the Holocaust.

Yanek Gruener, Prisoner B-3087, is a fictionalized version of the true story of Jack Gruener. Yanek and his family are Jews living in Krakow, Poland, when it is invaded by the Nazi's. It follows the construction of the ghetto there, the consolidation of the Jews, and then their mass deportations to factories, work or death camps. Eventually, teenage Yanek ends up alone, with sage advice from his uncle to trust and care about no one. During the war, Yanek is transferred to ten different concentration camps, which is incredibly hard to believe because Yanek is so naive, has few survival skills, and was hardly large enough to be a worthy selection for a work crew. At the end of the day. the book felt like a survey course on concentration show more camps. 2.5 stars. show less