When the Soldiers Were Gone

A fine early reader introduction to WW2 literature. Has short chapters and is appropriate for younger elementary readers.

Summary: When Henk was younger everytime the Nazi soldiers came around he had to hide and he had no idea why it was just him who had to do this. When the war was over though he quickly found out that the family he thought he had was not his. His real parents came to pick him up and take him back to the city with them to start a new life there with them.

Evaluation/Argument: This book does a good job of providing insight into the life of Benjamin and how he felt throughout the war. He was not like the family who he was staying with, but he never knew why. This book really portrays his emotions well and and insight into his struggle. For example, the author does a great job at the beginning of the book describing the emotions that Henk show more has when his real parents come to pick him up. He has no idea who they are and why they are there, but he is adamant that they are not his parents. After the war was over Jewish people could have normal lives again, just like Benjamin was allowed.
The central message of this book is that discriminating a person based off of their religion is not right to do. Benjamin also learned that other people, besides just your family, can become family to you. The family he stayed with during the war became a family to him and he knew nothing else besides this family until the war ended. show less

History, World War II, Historical Fiction

From the back cover:

"Vera Propp has done a masterful job of reducing the terrors of the Holocaust and war to the believable scale of an eight-year-old. Anytime we bring the inhumanity of war to children through literature, there is the risk of either traumatizing the child or trivializing the event. Not so here. What is obvious in this book, besides the clarity and tenderness with which it is told, is the fact that the author truly understands children - the ones in the book and the ones who will read it."
- Jim Trelease
author of The Read-Aloud Handbook

After the German occupation of the Netherlands, Benjamin leaves the Christian family with whom he had been living and returns with his real parents who returned from hiding.

After the German occupation of the Netherlands, Benjamin leaves the Christian family with wom he had been living and is reunited with his real Jewish parents who returned from hiding and whom Benjamin doesn't remember.

During WW II, a boy lives with another family until it is time to return home.